[Foundation-l] Wikimedia finances and the economy

[Thomas Dalton]

2008/10/11 Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org>:
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 9:54 AM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> There has been a lot of chatter lately in the news about the potential
>> impact on charitable giving of the current economic crisis. I notice that
>> the 08/09 budget calls for Q2 revenues of $3.5M., a total annual donation
>> revenue of $6M and an annual revenue of $7.3M.
>>
>
> The budget is fudged to make it look like the Foundation is going to spend
> more than it actually is going to spend.  Sue has even admitted this, though
> she used some euphamism like "conservative" instead of "fudged".
>
>
>> Since the bulk of the annual revenue is to be acquired in this quarter, and
>> the world is currently engaged in a serious financial crisis, what
>> adjustments or contingencies has the Foundation planned to mitigate a
>> downturn in gift revenue? The actual spending budget has a built in cushion
>> of $1.3M, but the budget indicates that the cash reserve as of the end of
>> September was anticipated to be in the hole $752. With a negative reserve,
>> a
>> threat to revenue and a very poor borrowing environment are the finances of
>> the organization still secure?
>>
>
> Every year someone comes up with this "sky is falling" analysis, and every
> year the Foundation comes out with a bigger surplus.  See
> http://blog.p2pedia.org/2008/06/foundation-who-cried-wolf.html

Yes, every year the foundation plans their spending so that they can
survive even if things go horribly wrong and then, when things don't
go horribly wrong, they end up with a large surplus. It's called good
business sense.