[treasurers] WMIL governance/accountability/transparency

[Theo10011]

Hey Tomer

I am wondering about something. A lot of countries have this regulation
aside from the tax agency requirement, you mentioned it as NGO "proper
process certification". I recall Theirry from WMFR and a couple of other
european chapters also mentioning something like this last year.

I also know, several countries mostly in the global south, that do not have
this requirement aside from the legal tax agency record publishing one.

I am trying to gauge if this makes a chapter more accountable? is the
process more comprehensive and analytical than just record publishing? I
wonder if this changes the view on accountability for certain chapters
depending on the legislation of the country.

Regards
Theo



On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 8:34 AM, Tomer Ashur <tomerashur at gmail.com> wrote:

> Okay... I'm willing to go second. I thank Stu for starting this topic.
>
> I'll try to write this from my mind stream. I'm writing this both as WMIL
> chairman and as its treasurer. Some of the things I'll write are my
> personal views (some are reflected as board resolutions and some aren't).
> I'll try to use italic font whenever I'm expressing an opinion rather than
> actual facts.
>
> *Overview*
> Wikimedia Israel is an Israeli charitable non-government organisation. It
> was established and registered on 2007. Our primary governing document are
> the bylaws <http://www.wikimedia.org.il/Bylaws>.
>
> *Governance*
> The bylaws gives us a general framework for our activities. The actual
> decision making is done in the board. The board is a group of 5 people
> elect by the general assembly. We used to have board meetings every month
> but lately due to some personality changes we shifted the center of
> decision making to emails and chats via gmail chat.
>
> The audit committee is a two members committee responsible for checking
> that the chapter's expenditures is done according to its objectives (as
> defined by the bylaws) and that the decision was made using a proper
> decision making process. The audit committee is part of the board's mailing
> list and is invited (and usually come) to the board meetings.
>
> The general assembly is the group of all chapter members. The bylaws
> states that the general assembly should meet once a year to approve all
> financial reports.
>
> There are several ways to be part of the chapter. A member must be a
> person above 18, with previous history of contribution to free content
> projects. Until lately, being a member was subject to an annual fee. We've
> tried several fares until recently we've decided that the whole annual
> membership fee is more of a hassle than a joy and decided to replace them
> with entrance fee (or, in legal terms: membership fee for 99 years). A
> person which is not above 18 or has no previous history contributions to
> free content can join the chapter as a fellow. Someone who wished to
> contribute the chapter without paying the membership fee is an activist (or
> a contributor). Both fellows and activists enjoy the same rights as members
> apart from the right to vote in general assemblies or offer themselves for
> official roles. Whenever someone wants to join the chapter we express that
> we prefer activists over members and that there's no need to pay in order
> to be part of the good stuff we do.
>
> *Opinions and Future Plans about Governance*
> *Since its founding it felt like the chapter belongs to its board. We're
> now at the process of changing that. Instead of holding the assemblies at
> someone's house we're renting a meeting space per hour. We urge the members
> to participate the assembly and ask them to give a brief overview of
> projects they're running.
> **
> The bylaws does not define a specific time period for which the board is
> elected. This had led previous members of the board to the belief that they
> were appointed (much like the Pope or the Queen of England) for life. We're
> now looking for the proper way to change the bylaws so that the board will
> be elected for a period of one year and the general assembly will have to
> re-elect every member after this period (I'd also like to set a maximum
> term period but this doesn't seem to be in consensus). In any case, the
> board have been completely replaced during the last two years. This seemed
> to bring new blood to the chapter (However, I'm biased on this: I'm one of
> those who were elected instead of the "old board" members). *
>
> *Finance\Legal:*
> Our main finance method was the annual fundraising. We are trying (and
> usually succeed) running a low budget-high impact projects. Whenever we do
> need a budget, we either find a sponsor (like we did with Wikimania or our
> Africa project) or we ask for a grant from the foundation (like we did with
> the 10th anniversary event). We have some reserve money and we have good
> ties with other organisations with more money.
>
> We usually don't have legal problems. When someone bugs us with a cease
> and desist letter we send him to pursue the WMF. That usually does the
> work.
>
> Our most valuable asset is our relationship with the community. This
> allows us to initiate projects with other organisations. Since we cannot
> bring money to these collaborations we bring our collective wisdom and
> workforce. We have good reputation and other organisations see the added
> value we can bring to projects. We also have an excellent spokesman which
> can create PR interest in the projects
>
> We do not employ. We sometimes (*and I wish we would do that more*) hire
> a contractor for a specific task.
>
> *Transperancy *
> We publish all board and GA minutes in our website. Despite the fact that
> the law oblige us only toward the GA we see the entire Hebrew Wikipedia
> community as stackholders. We invite them through the village pump to
> meetings and ask for their input about the minutes we publish.
>
> *Government regulation*
> The chapter is subject to two regulators. Our financial and annual reports
> are subject to auditing from the IRS. We submit those reports annually like
> any other legal entity in Israel (let that be a charitable-NGO, company or
> a self-employed). In addition to the IRS we're subject to the
> "NGO-registrar" (*this seems like a good translation*) which checks our
> activities to verify and gives "proper process certification" (Another
> inaccurate but sufficient translation).
>
> Both the IRS and the registrar does not waste much time about NGO's in our
> scale. They usually automatically approve our reports and issue whatever we
> need.
>
> *Planning
> *To date, we didn't excel in planning. 2012 was the first year in which
> we were able to come up with a work plan on Decmeber (we also approved
> retroactively the work plan for 2011 on that date :) ). Israel has a long
> improvising tradition. So the work plan is somewhat subject to changes
> during the year.
>
> At the general assembly the board display the work plan. If during the
> assembly there are objections to the plan we put it to vote. Otherwise, it
> is automatically approved.
>
> That's about it. I'm available to any question.
>
> Tomer Ashur
> Chairman & Treasurer
> Wikimedia Israel
>
>
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