[treasurers] Welcome, and introductions

[James Hare]

Greetings!

I am James Hare, Treasurer of Wikimedia District of Columbia, which
represents Washington, DC and four other U.S. states. As treasurer it
is my job to keep the books, prepare the budget, answer to our
unfortunately undersized Audit Committee, and serve as the ex-officio
chairman of the Fundraising Committee. Regrettably, the number of
finance-types in our organization is really small. In fact, I'm not
even an accountant by trade, nor am I (at this time) studying to
become one. But given that I'm responsible for keeping track of mostly
cash transactions and not the balance sheet of Goldman Sachs, it
hasn't been an excessive burden. Matt Bisanz, who has formal training
in accounting, serve as our Audit Committee chair (and its only
member).

Our current challenge is fundraising, as we are a brand new chapter
that needs to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars for Wikimania
2012. Last night I finished our fundraising plan for this fiscal year,
which focuses largely on the ancillary marketing and networking
strategies Wikimedia DC will need to adopt. My ambition going forward
is to set up a number of relationships with local organizations so
that we can rely less and less on the Wikimedia Foundation for our
funding. Our need is particularly pressing since we cannot rely on the
website fundraiser for our revenue.

On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Stuart West <stu at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Now that we've had some time for people to sign up for the list (28 so far),
> let's kick things off.  I'd like to start with something that's worked well
> on both the gendergap and developing countries lists:  quick personal
> introductions and then description of why we're interested in this topic and
> what we hope to get out of the list.
>
> I'll go first.
>
> My name is Stu West and I'm a volunteer on the Wikimedia Foundation's board
> of trustees.  I am the Board's Treasurer and chair of its Audit Committee.
>  I've been involved with Wikipedia for about 5-6 years, and on the Board
> since early 2008.  My day job is in Silicon Valley, where I've worked for
> private and publicly-traded technology companies in roles including CFO.
>
> I'm really interested in governance/transparency/accountability issues for a
> few reasons.  In my role as WMF Treasurer, it's my responsibility to focus
> on these.  More broadly though, my personal point of view on Wikimedia is
> very long term.  I'm really amazed at what our community has accomplished,
> and want to ensure we continue to have a huge and growing impact for the
> next 100 years.  To do that, I think we'll need to give our community
> the best possible organizational/legal/governance support.
>
> As for this list, I'd like it to be a place for high-quality sharing of
> ideas and best practices around governance/transparency in our movement.  I
> hope we can attract a significant portion of the treasurers, finance staff,
> and even Audit Committee members.  I hope it can be a great way for all of
> us to learn from each other and hope we can have lots of emails asking for
> advice/support/ideas from one another.  Finally and most importantly, I hope
> we can use this list to plan Wikimania beers and other in person
> get-togethers.
>
> Who's next?
>
> -s
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Stuart West <stu at wikimedia.org>
> Subject: New "treasurers" mailing list
> Date: November 10, 2011 12:15:12 PM PST
> To: "internal-l" <internal-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>
> I set up a new public mailing list called treasurers at lists.wikimedia.org for
> discussing and sharing best practices in financial reporting and financial
> transparency across the Wikimedia movement. The primary intended membership
> is treasurers, audit committees, and finance staff of movement
> organizations, but the list is public and anyone interested in financial
> reporting and transparency is welcome. This list is archived publicly.
>
> You can subscribe here:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/treasurers
>
> Please take a moment to forward this on to your favorite Treasurer or
> finance staffer.  Thanks.
>
> (I thought about just using internal but decided against because a) there's
> lots of traffic on it already and b) i'm not sure all our various treasurers
> both subscribe to and read internal regularly.)
>
> -s
>
> ===============
> Stuart West
> Board Treasurer
> Wikimedia Foundation
> stu at wikimedia.org
>
>
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>



-- 
James Hare