On 12/11/11 12:22 AM, Thierry Coudray wrote:
I would feel more comfortable with this very specific
list, if all those
who have signed up, give their real name and more informations on their
background ...
My real name is Jimmy Wales. :) I'm the founder of the Wikimedia
Foundation, and an honorary member of at least some chapters.
I have a strong background in finance, though not so much in
accounting/auditing, having completed a master's degree in Finance at
the University of Alabama in 1989 and done all the course work (but not
the dissertation) for a PhD in Finance from Indiana University. As a
part of all that, of course I studied accounting extensively and spent a
lot of time looking at balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow
statements.
I'm on this list primarily because I think it is IMPORTANT. We can look
at the importance in two ways - the positive and the negative. Just to
get it out of the way, I will take the negative first.
The single biggest risk that I see to the financial sustainability of
our movement as a whole is our highly distributed structure of chapters,
and in particular the very high risk of a possible financial scandal at
one of the chapters bringing global headlines and causing people to fear
giving money to any of us.
We are on a track such that we will have over 100 chapters at some
point, some small, some large. Some will be in jurisdictions with strong
traditions of accounting and accountability, and some will be in more
loose jurisdictions. Some will have a lot of money, some will only have
a little money.
The treasurers of the chapters therefore have a grave responsibility to
protect the movement by implementing the best possible controls and
practices as quickly as possible and at all times.
On the positive side, avoidance of scandal is not the only thing this is
about, of course! Good financial management will ensure that money is
well-spent, that when volunteers need funding for something, the
chapters will have the money and be there to supply it. Good financial
management will give the transparency to allow the chapters to have the
trust of their local editing community, rather than being viewed with
suspicion as a bunch of people just trying to make money off of
Wikipedia or whatever.
On this list I will mostly be here to cheer you on, and to learn about
the status of things in your chapters. In the past there has been
tension between the Foundation and the Chapters relating to money
issues, and that's obviously going to happen more in the future. I hope
that by being here I can help to keep those tensions to a minimum.
--Jimbo