2009/3/22 Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com:
Why is registered charity status predicated on a successful Wikimania bid?
It's not, but getting it soon is. You need an annual income of over £5000 to register, we're not likely to get that kind of money (or pledges for it) for several months at least without including Wikimania sponsorship.
regarding Registered Charity Status
2009/3/22 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com
It's not, but getting it soon is. You need an annual income of over £5000 to register, we're not likely to get that kind of money (or pledges for it) for several months at least without including Wikimania sponsorship.
Exactly how strict are the Charities Commission criteria's on this, Do they actually need to see evidence of cash in the bank? Are pledges to that value enough? What about evidence to support a reasonable expectation of achieving greater than that amount? I am wondering if the foundation was to write a letter stating that: A) the WMF received donations totalling over £50,000 in sterling last year [1] and B) in future UK residents and taxpayers will be given the option to donate to WMUK (they may even be able to give an idea of what sort of percentage have done this when other chapters have gone live) and therefore C) WMUK can expect approximately £X (where X is greater than 5000) due to WMF fund-raising then might this be enough for them?
Unrelated to this, I assume that if I donate now and make a declaration that I am a UK Taxpayer, that declaration can be held on to and then the tax can be claimed back once WMUK is registered. Am I right?
[1] Source: Delphine at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediauk-l/2008-August/002049.htmlwh... charity status was discussed last year. I am aware that the sterling zone is not exactly the same as the population of UK taxpayers, but I suspect that the colonies and crown dependencies that use Sterling are not a huge factor, neither would foreign taxpayers with sterling accounts/uk taxpayers with non-sterling accounts, so I think this works as a rough approximation.
James Hardy
2009/3/23 James Hardy wikimediauk@weeb.biz:
regarding Registered Charity Status
2009/3/22 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com
It's not, but getting it soon is. You need an annual income of over £5000 to register, we're not likely to get that kind of money (or pledges for it) for several months at least without including Wikimania sponsorship.
Exactly how strict are the Charities Commission criteria's on this, Do they actually need to see evidence of cash in the bank? Are pledges to that value enough? What about evidence to support a reasonable expectation of achieving greater than that amount?
I think they want firm pledges, but they don't need to see the actual cash in the bank.
I am wondering if the foundation was to write a letter stating that: A) the WMF received donations totalling over £50,000 in sterling last year [1] and B) in future UK residents and taxpayers will be given the option to donate to WMUK (they may even be able to give an idea of what sort of percentage have done this when other chapters have gone live) and therefore C) WMUK can expect approximately £X (where X is greater than 5000) due to WMF fund-raising then might this be enough for them?
That might not be, but WMF could pledge to top up whatever we make during the fund-raiser to guarantee that it is more than £5000 (there would be negligible risk to the foundation in doing this, we all know the fund-raiser will make more than £5000). That would probably be enough to satisfy the CC.
Unrelated to this, I assume that if I donate now and make a declaration that I am a UK Taxpayer, that declaration can be held on to and then the tax can be claimed back once WMUK is registered. Am I right?
You are correct. (I think we can claim anything from 2 or 3 years before getting registered, so hopefully there won't be a problem there!)
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org