[Wikipedia-l] Donation History

[Ray Saintonge]

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>But that leaves the issue of
>different currencies which makes graphing grand totals
>a bit more complicated... Argh! :) 
>
In the report you could show three columns for each currency: 1) total 
in that currency, 2) current exchange rate, and 3) US$ equivalent

>>I was also wondering if Wikimedia's accounting 
>>ledegers are open to the public.  
>>
>Not really right now. We still have to figure out what
>is legal to show given our set-up. But account totals
>should be fine (charities very often publicize totals
>during donation drives). And of course any
>expenditures need to be logged and deducted from the
>totals (as well as transfers - I plan to track all of
>that and make it public on the foundation's website).
>All that requires time to set-up though. Hopefully
>I'll have something substantial to show in late
>January. 
>
This should be easy. :-)   Set up a table with a column for "Date", 
"Description" and each account.

On that you could show:
    1) Daily total donations with relevant amounts in the appropriate 
columns in that currency,
    2) Expenditures as negative amounts from the account used for 
payment, and
    3) Transfers as negatives in the source account, and currency 
equivalent positives in the target account.

Column totals can be done after each entry, or (to look less cluttered) 
periodically as required.  This will give a quickly set up overview that 
can be easily understood by readers.  Other accounting features can be 
developed later to cope with reporting and other legal demands.

>I plan to start figuring out the dos and
>don't of grant writing later in January. This may be
>an area where it would make sense to hire a
>professional grant writer but I still want to do some
>research on the subject anyway. At the very least it
>will inform us better about what we should tell the
>grant writer. 
>
I think that it is much too early to think of a professional grant 
writer, or even if we will take that route at all.  If it gets to the 
point where seeking grants is the way to go we should begin by looking 
to see if we already have those skills available.  We should also 
examine possible grant application forms to see if they are so 
complicated that we can't do them ourselves, and if making such 
applications will need any kind of structural madifications to the 
orgsanization.  Financial statements are often required, but we should 
be developing those anyway.  

Ec