In advance of the board meeting next Tuesday, I've started drafting up some job descriptions on the wiki at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Job_Descriptions for the new members of staff that we are recruiting.
Please add your contributions on the main and talk page to develop this.
Many thanks,
Andrew
Gulp. If people knew WMUK's overhead to activity ratio do you think they'd still be happy to donate? Or a similar question, do you think a £1 given to WMUK does more for the interests of UK Wikimedians than £1 direct to Wikimedia? I note that the bulk of your programme expenditure is going straight to the WMF anyway, so all that's happening is that the money's being processed by WMUK's (less efficient, due to lower scale) system, then going to the WMF (with additional overheads from them). Indeed it seems that it's only going to their international projects which is arguably further from the interests of UK Wikimedians than server/code expenditure is.
I don't know the details of what you're doing at the moment so maybe I'm completely wrong. But my distinct impression at the moment is that UK donations would be much more effective if they went straight to the WMF then groups of users petitioned them for money for UK specific projects. Perhaps something like WMUK could intermediate, but it could certainly be a much lighter organisation.
Admittedly charitable status if it ever arrives will change this story, providing the gains from gift aid outweigh the relative inefficiencies of WMUK. Even this isn't totally obvious at the moment, particularly as unclear whether the things WMUK is spending money on are more useful to the average user of Wikimedia projects than what the WMF project is spending money on.
I hope to hear some serious arguments about the chapter's efficiency at the next AGM. I also hope for the chance for some significant input from the membership on expenditure priorities.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Turvey Sent: 27 February 2011 15:57 To: WMUK-L Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
In advance of the board meeting next Tuesday, I've started drafting up some job descriptions on the wiki at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Job_Descriptions for the new members of staff that we are recruiting.
Please add your contributions on the main and talk page to develop this.
Many thanks,
Andrew
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Tom, you are not comparing next years budget are you with last years activity? Staff paid for last year was one person part time I understood and income was around 500,000 pounds. That seems pretty efficient to me or am I missing something?
regards Roger
On 27 February 2011 16:53, Tom Holden tom.holden@economics.ox.ac.uk wrote:
Gulp. If people knew WMUK's overhead to activity ratio do you think they'd still be happy to donate? Or a similar question, do you think a £1 given to WMUK does more for the interests of UK Wikimedians than £1 direct to Wikimedia? I note that the bulk of your programme expenditure is going straight to the WMF anyway, so all that's happening is that the money's being processed by WMUK's (less efficient, due to lower scale) system, then going to the WMF (with additional overheads from them). Indeed it seems that it's only going to their international projects which is arguably further from the interests of UK Wikimedians than server/code expenditure is.
I don't know the details of what you're doing at the moment so maybe I'm completely wrong. But my distinct impression at the moment is that UK donations would be much more effective if they went straight to the WMF then groups of users petitioned them for money for UK specific projects. Perhaps something like WMUK could intermediate, but it could certainly be a much lighter organisation.
Admittedly charitable status if it ever arrives will change this story, providing the gains from gift aid outweigh the relative inefficiencies of WMUK. Even this isn't totally obvious at the moment, particularly as unclear whether the things WMUK is spending money on are more useful to the average user of Wikimedia projects than what the WMF project is spending money on.
I hope to hear some serious arguments about the chapter's efficiency at the next AGM. I also hope for the chance for some significant input from the membership on expenditure priorities.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Turvey Sent: 27 February 2011 15:57 To: WMUK-L Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
In advance of the board meeting next Tuesday, I've started drafting up some job descriptions on the wiki at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Job_Descriptions for the new members of staff that we are recruiting.
Please add your contributions on the main and talk page to develop this.
Many thanks,
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
I am looking at the budget. £123k on admin, £455k on programme expenditure, of which £290k is going straight to the WMF anyway. Even assuming the WMF is completely efficient, that's over 20% of expenditure going to admin.
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2011_Budget
Looking at income is irrelevant since we seem to be consistently missing our expenditure targets and thus ending the year with money left over. (If the £455k target is missed as seems likely then the admin expenditure chunk will be higher still.)
A question for the treasurer while I'm paying some attention to this stuff: what interest rate are we currently earning on our half million? If they're less than around 4% or something how do you justify this.
And a question for whoever understands company law: would the following be possible in theory:
1) I find a group of 5 people who want to stand for the board on a platform of giving back the entire earnings of WMUK to the membership
2) We stand, we're voted in because everyone there wanted £500 (which is about our assets to members ratio at the moment).
3) We change the constitution as necessary, getting it past an EGM again because people want £500.
4) We do it.
With our current company status I'm worried this might be possible. And obviously the more money we have sitting in our bank account the more tempting this starts to look for our membership. This is yet another reason why our current level of income is a bad thing not a good one. I was sceptical about entering the first fundraiser before we were ready. Given we failed to spend that money we clearly weren't, so doing the second one really wasn't in anyone's best interest.
Tom
From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Roger Bamkin Sent: 27 February 2011 17:12 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
Tom, you are not comparing next years budget are you with last years activity? Staff paid for last year was one person part time I understood and income was around 500,000 pounds. That seems pretty efficient to me or am I missing something?
regards Roger On 27 February 2011 16:53, Tom Holden <tom.holden@economics.ox.ac.ukmailto:tom.holden@economics.ox.ac.uk> wrote: Gulp. If people knew WMUK's overhead to activity ratio do you think they'd still be happy to donate? Or a similar question, do you think a £1 given to WMUK does more for the interests of UK Wikimedians than £1 direct to Wikimedia? I note that the bulk of your programme expenditure is going straight to the WMF anyway, so all that's happening is that the money's being processed by WMUK's (less efficient, due to lower scale) system, then going to the WMF (with additional overheads from them). Indeed it seems that it's only going to their international projects which is arguably further from the interests of UK Wikimedians than server/code expenditure is.
I don't know the details of what you're doing at the moment so maybe I'm completely wrong. But my distinct impression at the moment is that UK donations would be much more effective if they went straight to the WMF then groups of users petitioned them for money for UK specific projects. Perhaps something like WMUK could intermediate, but it could certainly be a much lighter organisation.
Admittedly charitable status if it ever arrives will change this story, providing the gains from gift aid outweigh the relative inefficiencies of WMUK. Even this isn't totally obvious at the moment, particularly as unclear whether the things WMUK is spending money on are more useful to the average user of Wikimedia projects than what the WMF project is spending money on.
I hope to hear some serious arguments about the chapter's efficiency at the next AGM. I also hope for the chance for some significant input from the membership on expenditure priorities.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Turvey Sent: 27 February 2011 15:57 To: WMUK-L Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
In advance of the board meeting next Tuesday, I've started drafting up some job descriptions on the wiki at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Job_Descriptions for the new members of staff that we are recruiting.
Please add your contributions on the main and talk page to develop this.
Many thanks,
Andrew
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.orgmailto:wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.orghttp://uk.wikimedia.org/
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.orgmailto:wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.orghttp://uk.wikimedia.org/
-- Roger Bamkin (aka Victuallers)
Looking at the "admin ratio" for a charity is rarely very enlightening, and 20% is not a terribly high figure in any case. There are plenty of things that need to be considered about our relationship with our donors, but I wouldn't say the admin ratio figure is a particularly important one. The most important thing is that WMUK finds a way of spending its existing income on useful things that meet our objectives. The bulk of the "administrative expenditure" comes from the new Chapter Manager and Comms Staff roles. If the Chapter didn't hire those people then the budgeted "admin expenditure" ratio would fall to about 10%: since those posts will probably have quite a significant impact on WMUK's ability to actually implement the planned project expenditure, I doubt that would be a wise move. Regards, Chris
From: tom.holden@economics.ox.ac.uk To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 17:28:30 +0000 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
I am looking at the budget. £123k on admin, £455k on programme expenditure, of which £290k is going straight to the WMF anyway. Even assuming the WMF is completely efficient, that’s over 20% of expenditure going to admin. http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2011_Budget Looking at income is irrelevant since we seem to be consistently missing our expenditure targets and thus ending the year with money left over. (If the £455k target is missed as seems likely then the admin expenditure chunk will be higher still.) A question for the treasurer while I’m paying some attention to this stuff: what interest rate are we currently earning on our half million? If they’re less than around 4% or something how do you justify this. And a question for whoever understands company law: would the following be possible in theory:1) I find a group of 5 people who want to stand for the board on a platform of giving back the entire earnings of WMUK to the membership2) We stand, we’re voted in because everyone there wanted £500 (which is about our assets to members ratio at the moment).3) We change the constitution as necessary, getting it past an EGM again because people want £500.4) We do it. With our current company status I’m worried this might be possible. And obviously the more money we have sitting in our bank account the more tempting this starts to look for our membership. This is yet another reason why our current level of income is a bad thing not a good one. I was sceptical about entering the first fundraiser before we were ready. Given we failed to spend that money we clearly weren’t, so doing the second one really wasn’t in anyone’s best interest. Tom From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Roger Bamkin Sent: 27 February 2011 17:12 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions Tom, you are not comparing next years budget are you with last years activity? Staff paid for last year was one person part time I understood and income was around 500,000 pounds. That seems pretty efficient to me or am I missing something? regardsRogerOn 27 February 2011 16:53, Tom Holden tom.holden@economics.ox.ac.uk wrote:Gulp. If people knew WMUK's overhead to activity ratio do you think they'd still be happy to donate? Or a similar question, do you think a £1 given to WMUK does more for the interests of UK Wikimedians than £1 direct to Wikimedia? I note that the bulk of your programme expenditure is going straight to the WMF anyway, so all that's happening is that the money's being processed by WMUK's (less efficient, due to lower scale) system, then going to the WMF (with additional overheads from them). Indeed it seems that it's only going to their international projects which is arguably further from the interests of UK Wikimedians than server/code expenditure is.
I don't know the details of what you're doing at the moment so maybe I'm completely wrong. But my distinct impression at the moment is that UK donations would be much more effective if they went straight to the WMF then groups of users petitioned them for money for UK specific projects. Perhaps something like WMUK could intermediate, but it could certainly be a much lighter organisation.
Admittedly charitable status if it ever arrives will change this story, providing the gains from gift aid outweigh the relative inefficiencies of WMUK. Even this isn't totally obvious at the moment, particularly as unclear whether the things WMUK is spending money on are more useful to the average user of Wikimedia projects than what the WMF project is spending money on.
I hope to hear some serious arguments about the chapter's efficiency at the next AGM. I also hope for the chance for some significant input from the membership on expenditure priorities.
Tom -----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Turvey Sent: 27 February 2011 15:57 To: WMUK-L Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
In advance of the board meeting next Tuesday, I've started drafting up some job descriptions on the wiki at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Job_Descriptions for the new members of staff that we are recruiting.
Please add your contributions on the main and talk page to develop this.
Many thanks,
Andrew
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
-- Roger Bamkin(aka Victuallers) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Thanks for your input, Tom - you raise some important points.
And a question for whoever understands company law: would the following be possible in theory:
I find a group of 5 people who want to stand for the board on aplatform of giving back the entire earnings of WMUK to the membership...
I would personally very much welcome your experience and approach back on the board! However, I'm afraid, no, the plan wouldn't work. Wiki UK is founded as a company limited by guarantee which means its funds can only be used to finance its mission. Unlike companies limited by shares, the company is not able to pay dividends to members or benefits to board members. You could, for instance, stand on a platform of donating the entire funds to the Foundation, if you wanted, and abandoning the plan to professionalise the chapter and employ staff.
A question for the treasurer while I’m paying some attention to this stuff: what interest rate are we currently earning on our half million? If they’re less than around 4% or something how do you justify this.
We are currently earning only 0.20% on cash held in our current account and no interest on cash while it is in PayPal. Most of the money is only intended to be there for a short time, but we are looking into investing the balance that will be held on reserve. Having said that, 4% is a very generous rate at the moment, even for half a million.
This is yet another reason why our current level of income is a bad thing not a good one. I was sceptical about entering the first fundraiser before we were ready. Given we failed to spend that money we clearly weren’t, so doing the second one really wasn’t in anyone’s best interest.
I'm inclined to agree - which is why I want to give any surplus funds we dont manage to use effectively to the Foundation. It's interesting that the history of WMDE is quite similar to ours in that they also underestimated their income and significantly underspent in the first few years.
Even assuming the WMF is completely efficient, that’s over 20% of expenditure going to admin.
The admin to project expenses ratio, whilst crude, is one that a lot of people look at, particularly the Charity Commission. Personally, I'm not sure the chapter manager, if he focusses on the things I've started to list, should be counted as "admin". On that basis, we could end up with quite a healthy ratio - which reflects the fact that nearly everything is and will still be done by volunteers. Something like the GLAM-WIKI or British Library events had very little overhead expense.
On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 5:28 PM, Tom Holden tom.holden@economics.ox.ac.uk wrote:
I am looking at the budget. £123k on admin, £455k on programme expenditure, of which £290k is going straight to the WMF anyway. Even assuming the WMF is completely efficient, that’s over 20% of expenditure going to admin.
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2011_Budget
Looking at income is irrelevant since we seem to be consistently missing our expenditure targets and thus ending the year with money left over. (If the £455k target is missed as seems likely then the admin expenditure chunk will be higher still.)
A question for the treasurer while I’m paying some attention to this stuff: what interest rate are we currently earning on our half million? If they’re less than around 4% or something how do you justify this.
And a question for whoever understands company law: would the following be possible in theory:
1) I find a group of 5 people who want to stand for the board on a platform of giving back the entire earnings of WMUK to the membership
2) We stand, we’re voted in because everyone there wanted £500 (which is about our assets to members ratio at the moment).
3) We change the constitution as necessary, getting it past an EGM again because people want £500.
4) We do it.
With our current company status I’m worried this might be possible. And obviously the more money we have sitting in our bank account the more tempting this starts to look for our membership. This is yet another reason why our current level of income is a bad thing not a good one. I was sceptical about entering the first fundraiser before we were ready. Given we failed to spend that money we clearly weren’t, so doing the second one really wasn’t in anyone’s best interest.
Tom
From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Roger Bamkin Sent: 27 February 2011 17:12 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
Tom, you are not comparing next years budget are you with last years activity? Staff paid for last year was one person part time I understood and income was around 500,000 pounds. That seems pretty efficient to me or am I missing something?
regards
Roger
On 27 February 2011 16:53, Tom Holden tom.holden@economics.ox.ac.uk wrote:
Gulp. If people knew WMUK's overhead to activity ratio do you think they'd still be happy to donate? Or a similar question, do you think a £1 given to WMUK does more for the interests of UK Wikimedians than £1 direct to Wikimedia? I note that the bulk of your programme expenditure is going straight to the WMF anyway, so all that's happening is that the money's being processed by WMUK's (less efficient, due to lower scale) system, then going to the WMF (with additional overheads from them). Indeed it seems that it's only going to their international projects which is arguably further from the interests of UK Wikimedians than server/code expenditure is.
I don't know the details of what you're doing at the moment so maybe I'm completely wrong. But my distinct impression at the moment is that UK donations would be much more effective if they went straight to the WMF then groups of users petitioned them for money for UK specific projects. Perhaps something like WMUK could intermediate, but it could certainly be a much lighter organisation.
Admittedly charitable status if it ever arrives will change this story, providing the gains from gift aid outweigh the relative inefficiencies of WMUK. Even this isn't totally obvious at the moment, particularly as unclear whether the things WMUK is spending money on are more useful to the average user of Wikimedia projects than what the WMF project is spending money on.
I hope to hear some serious arguments about the chapter's efficiency at the next AGM. I also hope for the chance for some significant input from the membership on expenditure priorities.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Turvey Sent: 27 February 2011 15:57 To: WMUK-L Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
In advance of the board meeting next Tuesday, I've started drafting up some job descriptions on the wiki at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Job_Descriptions for the new members of staff that we are recruiting.
Please add your contributions on the main and talk page to develop this.
Many thanks,
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
--
Roger Bamkin
(aka Victuallers)
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On the first thing. Couldn't a new board change the mission in theory, via an EGM or some such? Define the people it's trying to help as its membership... It wasn't a serious offer to stand. I was just pointing out the risks of having large balances.
On the 20% thing, I accept that some of the stuff the staff do will be non-admin. But you still have to think about our relative efficiency compared to the WMF. Suppose for the simplicity that we were giving all our money to the WMF. Then clearly spending 20% on staff wouldn't be acceptable as the WMF could run their fundraiser themselves for almost zero marginal cost (they're already doing it) and get the same income. Once you take out the chunk we're giving to the WMF the ratio isn't very good even if the chapter manager is entirely non administrative.
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Turvey Sent: 27 February 2011 18:58 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
Thanks for your input, Tom - you raise some important points.
And a question for whoever understands company law: would the following be possible in theory:
I find a group of 5 people who want to stand for the board on aplatform of giving back the entire earnings of WMUK to the membership...
I would personally very much welcome your experience and approach back on the board! However, I'm afraid, no, the plan wouldn't work. Wiki UK is founded as a company limited by guarantee which means its funds can only be used to finance its mission. Unlike companies limited by shares, the company is not able to pay dividends to members or benefits to board members. You could, for instance, stand on a platform of donating the entire funds to the Foundation, if you wanted, and abandoning the plan to professionalise the chapter and employ staff.
A question for the treasurer while I'm paying some attention to this stuff: what interest rate are we currently earning on our half million? If they're less than around 4% or something how do you justify this.
We are currently earning only 0.20% on cash held in our current account and no interest on cash while it is in PayPal. Most of the money is only intended to be there for a short time, but we are looking into investing the balance that will be held on reserve. Having said that, 4% is a very generous rate at the moment, even for half a million.
This is yet another reason why our current level of income is a bad thing not a good one. I was sceptical about entering the first fundraiser before we were ready. Given we failed to spend that money we clearly weren't, so doing the second one really wasn't in anyone's best interest.
I'm inclined to agree - which is why I want to give any surplus funds we dont manage to use effectively to the Foundation. It's interesting that the history of WMDE is quite similar to ours in that they also underestimated their income and significantly underspent in the first few years.
Even assuming the WMF is completely efficient, that's over 20% of expenditure going to admin.
The admin to project expenses ratio, whilst crude, is one that a lot of people look at, particularly the Charity Commission. Personally, I'm not sure the chapter manager, if he focusses on the things I've started to list, should be counted as "admin". On that basis, we could end up with quite a healthy ratio - which reflects the fact that nearly everything is and will still be done by volunteers. Something like the GLAM-WIKI or British Library events had very little overhead expense.
On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 5:28 PM, Tom Holden tom.holden@economics.ox.ac.uk wrote:
I am looking at the budget. £123k on admin, £455k on programme expenditure, of which £290k is going straight to the WMF anyway. Even assuming the WMF is completely efficient, that's over 20% of expenditure going to admin.
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2011_Budget
Looking at income is irrelevant since we seem to be consistently missing our expenditure targets and thus ending the year with money left over. (If the £455k target is missed as seems likely then the admin expenditure chunk will be higher still.)
A question for the treasurer while I'm paying some attention to this stuff: what interest rate are we currently earning on our half million? If they're less than around 4% or something how do you justify this.
And a question for whoever understands company law: would the following be possible in theory:
1) I find a group of 5 people who want to stand for the board on a platform of giving back the entire earnings of WMUK to the membership
2) We stand, we're voted in because everyone there wanted £500 (which is about our assets to members ratio at the moment).
3) We change the constitution as necessary, getting it past an EGM again because people want £500.
4) We do it.
With our current company status I'm worried this might be possible. And obviously the more money we have sitting in our bank account the more tempting this starts to look for our membership. This is yet another reason why our current level of income is a bad thing not a good one. I was sceptical about entering the first fundraiser before we were ready. Given we failed to spend that money we clearly weren't, so doing the second one really wasn't in anyone's best interest.
Tom
From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Roger Bamkin Sent: 27 February 2011 17:12 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
Tom, you are not comparing next years budget are you with last years activity? Staff paid for last year was one person part time I understood and income was around 500,000 pounds. That seems pretty efficient to me or am I missing something?
regards
Roger
On 27 February 2011 16:53, Tom Holden tom.holden@economics.ox.ac.uk wrote:
Gulp. If people knew WMUK's overhead to activity ratio do you think they'd still be happy to donate? Or a similar question, do you think a £1 given to WMUK does more for the interests of UK Wikimedians than £1 direct to Wikimedia? I note that the bulk of your programme expenditure is going straight to the WMF anyway, so all that's happening is that the money's being processed by WMUK's (less efficient, due to lower scale) system, then going to the WMF (with additional overheads from them). Indeed it seems that it's only going to their international projects which is arguably further from the interests of UK Wikimedians than server/code expenditure is.
I don't know the details of what you're doing at the moment so maybe I'm completely wrong. But my distinct impression at the moment is that UK donations would be much more effective if they went straight to the WMF then groups of users petitioned them for money for UK specific projects. Perhaps something like WMUK could intermediate, but it could certainly be a much lighter organisation.
Admittedly charitable status if it ever arrives will change this story, providing the gains from gift aid outweigh the relative inefficiencies of WMUK. Even this isn't totally obvious at the moment, particularly as unclear whether the things WMUK is spending money on are more useful to the average user of Wikimedia projects than what the WMF project is spending money on.
I hope to hear some serious arguments about the chapter's efficiency at the next AGM. I also hope for the chance for some significant input from the membership on expenditure priorities.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Turvey Sent: 27 February 2011 15:57 To: WMUK-L Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
In advance of the board meeting next Tuesday, I've started drafting up some job descriptions on the wiki at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Job_Descriptions for the new members of staff that we are recruiting.
Please add your contributions on the main and talk page to develop this.
Many thanks,
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
--
Roger Bamkin
(aka Victuallers)
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Quite agree about the risks of large balances; hence we need a plan to increase expenditure, which is what we have got.
On the 20% thing, I accept that some of the stuff the staff do will be non-admin. But you still have to think about our relative efficiency compared to the WMF. Suppose for the simplicity that we were giving all our money to the WMF. Then clearly spending 20% on staff wouldn't be acceptable as the WMF could run their fundraiser themselves for almost zero marginal cost (they're already doing it) and get the same income. Once you take out the chunk we're giving to the WMF the ratio isn't very good even if the chapter manager is entirely non administrative.
Well, indeed - yet more reasons why the ratio isn't a particularly good figure :-) Fundamentally, people give money to our fundraisers because they want to keep Wikipedia free to use and free from adverts. The cost of doing so, even if you include development work and the support of all the other less-well-known projects, is about $10M. The Foundation's total income is $20M. Giving them more money direct does not increase the core project costs which people give money to support. Both the Foundation and Wikimedia UK are in the position of needing to find medium-to-long term projects which will achieve worthwhile things while spending the large amount of donations they receive. That entails setting up an infrastructure, recruiting staff and looking for opportunities, all of which incur costs but will only yield long-term benefits. If you're looking at WMUK's efficiency, do bear in mind its fundraising costs. These amounted to £20k out of nearly £600k raised. This is 3% absolutely remarkable for a charity which is entirely dependent on small individual donations. The RNLI, for instance, spent £23M to generate £52M of income in the year to end 2009....
On fundraising costs I don't think you can make that comparison in good faith. We were not charged for placing a very prominent an advert on one of the top 5 websites in the world. Using the apparent expenditure here is totally inappropriate. The market value of the (advertising) gift we received from Wikimedia is the amount they could have generated from the same advertising area. Effectively they gave us that much money, then we bought the advertising space off them. So our fundraising costs to revenue ratio is likely to be very close to 100%. Indeed it may be higher than 100% if people were discouraged from giving to us because our donation site was less professional than Wikimedia's, or because we're a less well known brand. (It seems quite plausible to me that these effects outweigh the "trusting a local organisation" effect.)
All I'm trying to encourage the board to do is to seriously consider how they can best add value to what the foundation is already doing. A large bulky organisation duplicating many of the foundation's functions may not be the answer.
From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Chris Keating Sent: 27 February 2011 19:43 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
Quite agree about the risks of large balances; hence we need a plan to increase expenditure, which is what we have got.
On the 20% thing, I accept that some of the stuff the staff do will be non-admin. But you still have to think about our relative efficiency compared to the WMF. Suppose for the simplicity that we were giving all our money to the WMF. Then clearly spending 20% on staff wouldn't be acceptable as the WMF could run their fundraiser themselves for almost zero marginal cost (they're already doing it) and get the same income. Once you take out the chunk we're giving to the WMF the ratio isn't very good even if the chapter manager is entirely non administrative.
Well, indeed - yet more reasons why the ratio isn't a particularly good figure :-)
Fundamentally, people give money to our fundraisers because they want to keep Wikipedia free to use and free from adverts. The cost of doing so, even if you include development work and the support of all the other less-well-known projects, is about $10M. The Foundation's total income is $20M. Giving them more money direct does not increase the core project costs which people give money to support.
Both the Foundation and Wikimedia UK are in the position of needing to find medium-to-long term projects which will achieve worthwhile things while spending the large amount of donations they receive. That entails setting up an infrastructure, recruiting staff and looking for opportunities, all of which incur costs but will only yield long-term benefits.
If you're looking at WMUK's efficiency, do bear in mind its fundraising costs. These amounted to £20k out of nearly £600k raised. This is 3% absolutely remarkable for a charity which is entirely dependent on small individual donations. The RNLI, for instance, spent £23M to generate £52M of income in the year to end 2009....
First of all, I'd like to say how thrilled I am to see this discussion happening. A lack of interest in the running of the chapter from members has been one of my biggest concerns, so it is great to see members discussing how the chapter is doing and holding the board the account.
That, in fact, is our greatest defence against people taking over the chapter and taking all the money. I'd have to look a few things up to be sure, but what Tom describes could be possible. It certainly won't be once we are a registered charity, since the necessary constitutional change would require Charity Commission approval, which they would never give. Until then, it might be possible to amend the constitution like that. It would require 67% support, though, which I think is unlikely to happen. Our contractual obligations to the WMF provide some protection too. They oblige us to keep to the Wikimedia mission, so we would need to revoke them before we could distributed money to members.
Regarding the proportion of our expenditure that goes on admin, I think the current layout of the budget is a little misleading. The Office Manager will probably do quite a lot of programmes work, at least for the first year or so while there aren't many other staff members. The Chapter Manager will also do a lot of programmes work and the Comms person is probably entirely programmes, really.
We indend to monitor how much time staff spend on different things. Our report at the end of the year will divide their salaries, etc., between the different things that they worked on, so we'll have an accurate ratio of admin to programmes.
As for investing our reserves, we are investigating it. I think certificates of deposit are probably the way to go. In the current market, you won't get anywhere near 4% unless you are willing to lock up the money for several years. For the 6 month to 1 year bonds that we would be interested in, the rates are about 1-2%. See here for some examples:
http://www.lloydstsb.com/rates_and_charges/savings/term_deposits.asp
Dear all,
I'm not sure who gets this e-mail but I'd just like to say a few things to as many Wikipedians as possible.
Imperial College Union has approved Wikipedians at Imperial College to be the first official student UK Wikipedia society. http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedians_at_Imperial_College
What we need now is help, which we have already had but need more. We are holding an event next week on St. Patrick's day Thursday 17th March but have not received an answer to our microgrant application http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Microgrants/Applications; the funding is needed for posters and for prizes on our Trivia Night. We would also like to have a budget so that we can plan our activities and events longer term. As we do not charge a membership fee we receive no funding from Imperial College Union.
We would also love your help and attendance at our London Wikipedia Academy http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/London_Wikipedia_Academy. Please feel free to post on the discussion page.
We want to run Campus Ambassador and GLAM ambassador programs too; I look forward to discussing this and much more with others this Sunday at the London Meetup http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/London/43.
Thanks for all the help we have gotten so far, and I hope we can get much more!
Kind Regards,
Vinesh Patel President, Wikipedians at Imperial College
________________________________________ From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dalton [thomas.dalton@gmail.com] Sent: 27 February 2011 21:42 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
First of all, I'd like to say how thrilled I am to see this discussion happening. A lack of interest in the running of the chapter from members has been one of my biggest concerns, so it is great to see members discussing how the chapter is doing and holding the board the account.
That, in fact, is our greatest defence against people taking over the chapter and taking all the money. I'd have to look a few things up to be sure, but what Tom describes could be possible. It certainly won't be once we are a registered charity, since the necessary constitutional change would require Charity Commission approval, which they would never give. Until then, it might be possible to amend the constitution like that. It would require 67% support, though, which I think is unlikely to happen. Our contractual obligations to the WMF provide some protection too. They oblige us to keep to the Wikimedia mission, so we would need to revoke them before we could distributed money to members.
Regarding the proportion of our expenditure that goes on admin, I think the current layout of the budget is a little misleading. The Office Manager will probably do quite a lot of programmes work, at least for the first year or so while there aren't many other staff members. The Chapter Manager will also do a lot of programmes work and the Comms person is probably entirely programmes, really.
We indend to monitor how much time staff spend on different things. Our report at the end of the year will divide their salaries, etc., between the different things that they worked on, so we'll have an accurate ratio of admin to programmes.
As for investing our reserves, we are investigating it. I think certificates of deposit are probably the way to go. In the current market, you won't get anywhere near 4% unless you are willing to lock up the money for several years. For the 6 month to 1 year bonds that we would be interested in, the rates are about 1-2%. See here for some examples:
http://www.lloydstsb.com/rates_and_charges/savings/term_deposits.asp
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Vinesh
What marvellous news.
Steve
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Patel, Vinesh Sent: 09 March 2011 14:16 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org; michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
Dear all,
I'm not sure who gets this e-mail but I'd just like to say a few things to as many Wikipedians as possible.
Imperial College Union has approved Wikipedians at Imperial College to be the first official student UK Wikipedia society. http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedians_at_Imperial_College
What we need now is help, which we have already had but need more. We are holding an event next week on St. Patrick's day Thursday 17th March but have not received an answer to our microgrant application http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Microgrants/Applications; the funding is needed for posters and for prizes on our Trivia Night. We would also like to have a budget so that we can plan our activities and events longer term. As we do not charge a membership fee we receive no funding from Imperial College Union.
We would also love your help and attendance at our London Wikipedia Academy http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/London_Wikipedia_Academy. Please feel free to post on the discussion page.
We want to run Campus Ambassador and GLAM ambassador programs too; I look forward to discussing this and much more with others this Sunday at the London Meetup http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/London/43.
Thanks for all the help we have gotten so far, and I hope we can get much more!
Kind Regards,
Vinesh Patel President, Wikipedians at Imperial College
________________________________________ From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dalton [thomas.dalton@gmail.com] Sent: 27 February 2011 21:42 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] job descriptions
First of all, I'd like to say how thrilled I am to see this discussion happening. A lack of interest in the running of the chapter from members has been one of my biggest concerns, so it is great to see members discussing how the chapter is doing and holding the board the account.
That, in fact, is our greatest defence against people taking over the chapter and taking all the money. I'd have to look a few things up to be sure, but what Tom describes could be possible. It certainly won't be once we are a registered charity, since the necessary constitutional change would require Charity Commission approval, which they would never give. Until then, it might be possible to amend the constitution like that. It would require 67% support, though, which I think is unlikely to happen. Our contractual obligations to the WMF provide some protection too. They oblige us to keep to the Wikimedia mission, so we would need to revoke them before we could distributed money to members.
Regarding the proportion of our expenditure that goes on admin, I think the current layout of the budget is a little misleading. The Office Manager will probably do quite a lot of programmes work, at least for the first year or so while there aren't many other staff members. The Chapter Manager will also do a lot of programmes work and the Comms person is probably entirely programmes, really.
We indend to monitor how much time staff spend on different things. Our report at the end of the year will divide their salaries, etc., between the different things that they worked on, so we'll have an accurate ratio of admin to programmes.
As for investing our reserves, we are investigating it. I think certificates of deposit are probably the way to go. In the current market, you won't get anywhere near 4% unless you are willing to lock up the money for several years. For the 6 month to 1 year bonds that we would be interested in, the rates are about 1-2%. See here for some examples:
http://www.lloydstsb.com/rates_and_charges/savings/term_deposits.asp
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 09/03/2011 14:16, Patel, Vinesh wrote:
We would also love your help and attendance at our London Wikipedia Academy http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/London_Wikipedia_Academy. Please feel free to post on the discussion page.
Vinesh, you should link that page from http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Events .
Charles
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org