[Foundation-l] Board letter about fundraising and chapters

[phoebe ayers]

On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 6:42 AM, Michael Snow <wikipedia at frontier.com> wrote:

> On 8/5/2011 7:17 PM, Nathan wrote:
> > John's e-mail reads like a suggestion that the Foundation negotiated
> > in bad faith. I hope this isn't the case, although the references made
> > to consulting with outside auditors and meetings of the Audit
> > Committee suggest this decision may have been conceived prior to the
> > Fundraising Summit.
> The audit committee met and discussed this in July, so after the
> fundraising summit. I don't know the exact timeline of everything that
> went into this, but at that point it was my sense that it was only just
> coming together as an actual decision, if you will. That's not to say
> that chapter accountability and reporting, particularly around finances,
> has never come up as a concern before.
>

Yes.

I am going to send this note to both f-l and internal-l; forgive me,
everyone who gets duplications. As to the question of "why internal" --
internal-l has a policy that at least a couple representatives from each and
every chapter are added to it automatically, along with all wmf staff and
board members, so it is the appropriate venue to make an announcement
regarding chapters. The discussions there are not so much confidential
(though they could be, as it's a closed list) as of focused to chapters (but
perhaps not to others).  It is of course also appropriate to discuss in
public, which is why I posted the letter to meta and f-l.

All that said, a note on timing -- yes, this came together quite recently,
and was spurred by a report from our audit committee. The board treasurer
Stu West, who chairs that committee, then brought the issue to the whole
board at our most recent in-person meeting -- three days ago here in Haifa.
We had input and reports from Barry and Moushira about funds raised to date,
current accounts, and reporting practices of the chapters, as well as the
state of the current fundraising agreements; we are of course aware that
people are thinking about the fundraiser now (as is the wmf, of course!)

Our issue in timing our discussion and decision was to find a balance
between appropriate notification and negotiation time with all of the
chapters, and meeting as soon as possible what the Board of Trustees sees as
its legal and financial obligations to safeguard money that comes in through
WMF-trademarked websites. That is the crux of the matter for us -- not to
comment on chapter effectiveness or governance or how great everyone's work
on the fundraiser is (which goes well beyond processing money for both the
WMF and the chapters).

Following the board discussion at the meeting, we drafted the letter you
have read, in a lengthy and often difficult process -- all of the issues
that have been raised here were thought about, and more. At that point we
had a choice. Wait, talk to the chapters, and get even closer to the
fundraiser before sending it out? Or send it out now while we are at
Wikimania and at least have a chance to talk to some chapters in person? We
chose the latter, and I am glad about that, because we are indeed short on
time.

That's what happened. As to the implications, I would encourage all of the
fundraising chapters to read this part:
"In particular, we expect all parties to live up to current fundraising
agreements including full compliance with all reporting deadlines."

We are quite concerned that some chapters who have signed fundraising
agreements (now and in the past) have actually been unable to live up their
requirements of reporting on time and meeting other needs; however, we
expect all parties -- the WMF and the chapters -- to follow the agreements
that have been signed. (If parts of the agreement are not followed on either
side, we also expect that the agreement will be invalidated).  We also
expect all parties to take into account the principles we lay out here, the
very most important one of which is:  "The Foundation can confidently assure
donors to the chapter that their donations will be safeguarded, that our
movement's transparency principles will be met, and that spending will be in
line with our mission and with the messages used to attract donors."

And we appreciate that many chapters (the majority of which don't fundraise
at all, in fact) either cannot or are unable to meet various parts of these
principles or the current agreement. We don't want to leave anyone stranded;
to that end, we are committed to increasing and expanding grants for chapter
operations.

-- phoebe