[Foundation-l] Chapters and replacing the Audit committee

[WereSpielChequers]

To answer Michael Snow's concerns. Yes there is an efficiency problem
if you have a global audit committee covering organisations in
multiple legal jurisdictions. But that problem is the same whether you
have the existing WMF committee covering the chapters or you replace
that US-centric committee with a more globalised one.

>As for the monitoring of risks for the movement as a whole, a globalised
committee that was not dominated by any one country would be in a much
stronger position to do this.because of the need to comply with requirements
that vary in detail from one jurisdiction to the next. If you're talking
about an audit committee to monitor risk factors more generally, then the
existing audit committee already takes it as being part of its mandate to
study risks for the movement as a whole. For example, see

>If you're talking about overseeing a financial audit process, I >doubt that a group audit committee would be at all efficient,

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Top_risks_2009

>As to the idea of decentralization, I'm having trouble seeing whythis suggestion would be the place to start. I don't know if it's a meaningful difference in function, so I'm skeptical as to what the proposal would accomplish.

>--Michael Snow


To answer Nathan's concern, a Group Audit committee need not be set up
as an outside entity. That might mean that the WMF had to endorse
candidates nominated by the rest of the movement, or it might even
require that enough non-WMF board members on the Group Audit committee
had to be observers that the WMF had a formal majority of voting
members of the committee. I'd be interested in seeing a legal opinion
on this, but I'd be surprised if we couldn't get a long way away from
the current model to a more "Global" one if we decided that was what
we wanted to do.

And I think the potential gains in getting a more globally representative
group of people supervising the chapters and pondering global risks would
justify such a change


WSC


>I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think the WMF has much of a choice about having an Audit Committee of the board, nor would they be able to cede authority for such a function to an outside entity. This means that the board has to retain effective oversight over the operations and spending of the WMF, including the fundraiser, the channeling of funds to chapters, and the affiliates themselves.

Nathan