[Foundation-l] Statement to the Associated Press

[Andrew Whitworth]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 3:24 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>  It's rarely that simple. We are often dealing with issues of privacy.
>  If Jimbo shows up at Wikimania with a bimbo on each arm ... It's
>  not up to me, when I get home, to write about the incident so that
>  everybody knows about it.

This isn't exactly the issue, if Jimmy or anybody else brings a
mistress to Wikimania, I think they shouldn't have an expectation of
privacy about that. I'll chalk this one up to being a bad example.

>  While there, when a large group goes out to a
>  night spot it's not up to me, when somebody decides to pick up the tab
>  to ask whether that person is or is not making a business expense
>  claim.

It's not up to you, but when the receipt comes in to the treasurer (or
whoever the receipt goes to), that kind of thing should be made
public. I personally would be fundamentally upset to learn that my
donation money, and the money from other donors, was being spent on
random dinners out. I'm certain that most other donors would be
similarly upset.

>  We don't publicize the salaries of the staff.

True, but in the audit we get a total for how much money is being
spent on salaries. It's probably not too hard to make educated guesses
about who gets paid what.

>  Wading through old records doesn't always help, even if they are all
>  available.

Wading through old records never helps, if the records are
unavailable. Saying that finding answers could be difficult is a far
cry from saying that everything should be a permanent secret, and that
the foundation should operate itself like the CIA.

>  Old claims are often murky and coloured with certain points
>  of view that are more implicit than explicit.  The proof may indeed be
>  there, but the parties involved will interpret it quite differently.

Facts do not lie. We cannot account for people's interpretations of
events, but if we have the facts laid out for all to see, we won't
need to rely on Jimmy's interpretation versus Mr. Merkey's
interpretation. We instead could all look at the information and make
up our minds for ourselves. People lie when it is in their best
interests to do so, so we need to take the people out of the loop and
provide the information to the people directly.

>  When someone comes to me with a stck of restaurant receipts claiming
>  that he was entertaining clients, and now wants to claim them for tax
>  deductions I am don't want to spend a lot of time going through them
>  one-by-one to verify the validity of the claims.

Ignoring the fact that people really shouldn't be eating out too much
(ideally, not ever) on our donation money, this is still off the
point. If you don't want to go through all the receipts, put them
online so that other people can see them. If the amount of money you
are wasting on food is too embarrassing to post openly, then you are
doing something wrong and need to stop doing it.

The most important issue is, do you really believe that the board of
this non-profit organization shouldn't be held accountable for their
actions or their expenditures? Is it so hard to ask that people
practice some of the transparency that everybody seems to be
preaching?

--Andrew Whitworth