Hiya Stu
One of my proposal/suggestions from several months ago when we were having
a discussion about chapter fundraising on Internal, was a "Movement
Auditor" who would work in conjunction with the wider community. I had
specific ideas about how this could work and how to avoid the "volunteer
fatigue" most other committees suffer from. It was actually one of 6 ideas
I had at the time to come up with a structural solution for accountability
for the entire movement. WMF and all chapters receiving donor money would
be subject to one audit per year, with all records kept publicly.
I actually went further, and came up with a draft and a model for how this
would work. As I said, this was one of 6 proposals that I never got a
chance to discuss or even propose at the time. :(
Anyway, I'd love to know what others think.
Regards
Theo
On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 6:17 AM, Stuart West <stu(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
That's a great question, Theo.
I have a broader one for the whole list. Do you think any outsider (e.g.
an independent auditor, or government agency) could effectively do a
"mission" audit? So could a government agent, or the public auditor
(Commissaire
aux comptes) that Thierry described a few months ago, actually be an
effective judge of whether an organizations activities/spending are both
consistent with the Wikimedia global vision and reasonably effective in
pursuing it?
My instinct is that given the complexity of our movement's goals and
structure that just couldn't work. Instead, i suspect we'll need to find a
solution where people inside our community do accountability reviews around
the global mission. I don't know who that would be -- a peer review
committee of other movement entities? a special review committee like the
GAC? the WMF? -- but it feels to me like it couldn't be say KPMG or the
IRS.
-s
WMF
On Jan 4, 2012, at 3:39 PM, Theo10011 wrote:
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(a)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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