[Foundation-l] What are the assets of the Foundation, anyway?

[Florence Devouard]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> On 4/19/07, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
>> The problem is that this is not a new issue. It has been around for a  while,
>> and this just puts it back on the backburner. I can only wonder, why has
>> nothing been done until now? Why has it not been investigated  yet?
> 
> As you know, Legal Counsel and Interim ED were one and the same person
> from June 2006 - January 2007. Before then, the WMF did not employ a
> Legal Counsel _or_ an Executive Director. A lot of work _did_ get done
> in this time period, including but not limited to:
> - Bylaws reform and Board expansion
> - Mission & Vision statement of WMF developed
> - Largest fundraiser of WMF to date
> - Audited financial statements released
> - Hardware purchases and renegotiated contracts
> - Identifying a Search Committee to work with on the ED Search
> - Hiring several new key staff members
> - Progress on international chapter setup and trademark agreements
> 
> Then there was the media crisis of the day, legal threats, conflicts
> between staff members, the usual stuff -- but it culminated in your
> and Brad's resignation for different reasons. I agree that
> investigating and implementing a risk management strategy is a very
> high priority. It is not necessarily the highest, and in my opinion
> will be the result of a process over several months that should
> involve chapter representatives and some of the best cyberlaw experts
> we can find.

Agreed with everything said.
I might add a couple more important works done
- set up of the advisory board (which will participate to a board 
retreat just before Wikimania)
- access to non public data policy (JUST approved) and licensing policy
- hiring an ED-search company (with which Jan-Bart and/or I are in 
sub-daily contact)

I note as well that a year ago, the WMF was hardly able to keep with the 
traffic growth from a technical point of view. Now, we cope well.

Investigation of the trust is important. But that is certainly not what 
is on the backburner.

Current backburner (next 3 months or so)
- hiring several key staff members (in particular ED and legal counsel, 
but possibly as well CTO or tech leader)
- changing governance model and setting up a clean situation for board 
and ED relationships
- planification of the next fundraiser
- Wikimania
- switching accounting to analytical accounting
- board skills and elections
- setting up back up procedures in the office
- etc...

We can not do it all. We have to set a pace and accept that some things, 
however important they seem to be, have to wait till other things, more 
critical, are fixed. Going into Trust set up, without having a CEO and a 
legal counsel, just is not logical.

Ant