[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Report, September 2012

[Tony Le]

Hi Pine,

Please see below for answers to your questions that Tilman did not cover.

Tony Le
Controller

On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 2:17 AM, Tilman Bayer <tbayer at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hi Pine,
>
> although these questions fall outside my area of expertise, I can
> provide some quick partial replies.
>
> On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 1:46 AM, ENWP Pine <deyntestiss at hotmail.com> wrote:
> > I appreciate the comprehensiveness of this report.
> >
> > I have a few questions about the finance section. Some are more basic
> than
> > others.
> >
> > Does WMF use the calendar year for its fiscal year?
> No, the Foundation's fiscal year runs from July to June.
> >
> > Is the financial plan for WMF to run a YTD deficit until the annual
> > fundraiser?
> As I understand it, yes. It seems a very obvious decision to me. This
> is no reason for concern, cf.
>
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers
> : "The Board of Trustees has established a rule of thumb that it would
> like the WMF reserve to never drop below six months of total spending.
> The 2012-13 plan therefore calls for the reserve to stay at a minimum
> of six months of total spending at the low point of the year."
> >
> > Why were recruiting expenses higher for the July-August timeframe? I
> thought
> > that WMF eliminated a recruiting contractor recently, so I would have
> > expected recruiting expenses to be lower rather than higher.
>
It is simply because of the timing of expenditures incurred via other staff
recruiting methods (e.g. job posting websites, occasional utilization of
job placement firms, etc.).  Through September 2012, we are actually
slightly underspent in this expense category as compared to the Plan  .

> >
> > Was August an unusually expensive month? If the total YTD expenses were
> > $5.2MM and August alone cost $2.6MM, I would be interested in knowing why
> > August was such an expensive month.
> YTD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year-to-date ) here means the
> timespan from July to August, see also the introductory remark "All
> financial information presented is for the period July 1, 2012 -
> August 31, 2012."
>
> So the answer would appear to be "no". As the report says, the
> expenses for August were actually slightly (3%) under plan.
>
> >
> > If in the July-August time period WMF "Completed our report to the
> Stanton
> > Foundation and received our second grant installment of $1.8 million",
> why
> > is there only $1.75 million of revenue shown in the table which includes
> > $1.0MM from the Sloan Foundation? These numbers don't seem to add up
> > correctly. I would have expected the revenue total to be at least $2.8MM
> > when including both of the grants.
>
The financial data is through August while other metrics and activities are
represented through September.  The $1.8M from Stanton was received as
planned in September and will be reflected in our financial data through
Sept.

> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Your finance and metrics enthusiast,
> >
> > Pine
> >
> Don't forget that today you will have the opportunity to watch our
> Garfield, our Chief Financial Officer, explain the new (September)
> numbers live in the Foundation's monthly metrics and activities
> meeting.
>
> --
> Tilman Bayer
> Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
> Wikimedia Foundation
> IRC (Freenode): HaeB
>
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>



-- 
Tony Le
Controller
Wikimedia Foundation
Ph: 415-839-6885 ext 6749
Fax:  415-882-0495
tle at wikimedia.org

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