[Foundation-l] Audited financial statements released!

[Dedalus]

Brad:

You wrote:

I want to specially thank the members of the audit team, Michael Davis
and Danny Wool,

Congrats first for having audited financial statements. That is great.
Another great thing is that you published the Management Letter - which is
rather uncommon to do.
The auditors recommend the creation of an audit committee, on page 11. The
audit team Michael Davis and Danny Wool what was their role and capacity?
Did they serve as a de facto audit committee? If looking for new members,
I've a degree in economics/business administration and am a Certified
Internal Auditor and member of the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA,
Inc.).

Having published the Management Letter, I would like to call attention of
members of the community, espescially staff and committee members to another
recommendations on page 11 of the Management Letter "Like many small
non-profit organizations, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., functions with a small
staff and requires the board involvement in various management functions to
provide needed oversight and independent review. As the organization grows
and resources become available, we recommend systems be developed to reduce
the need for board involvement in certain of these duties and allow the
board to focus on overall governing, setting strategy and policy objectives,
approving staff and committees, plans to achieve objectives and monitoring
progress toward meeting the objectives. Also, we recommend actively seeking
additional independent board membership."

The first might involve assigning real responsibilities and authority to
some committee - committees that already have been esthablished.
The second point about "independent board membership" might need some
clarification. In auditor-speak independent is someone without an executive
positive, or a non-executive. Indepedent board members only "provide needed
oversight and independent review", they are not directly involved in day to
day operations or executive decision making.

Lastly I wish Brad a lot of succes in establishing a manual of policies and
procedures, as required by the external auditors including all the specific
policies and procedures as mentioned by the auditors.

Good luck for all,

Dedalus