Talk:Movement roles/Accountability standards

"Organizations should hold a referendum bi-annually with the Wikimedia community in their jurisdiction."

I'm a bit confused on this point. On what topic should the referenda be held? sebmol ^? 07:59, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

It would be good for organizations to assess the degree of support for their direction within their communities. This could be done as a non-binding referendum on the annual plan. The underlying question is: "how do we ensure that organizations in the movement are seen as representative of the Wikimedia communities in their neighborhood?" Might be multiple ways to get there, but a poll of a broader constituency than would happen in board of trustees elections would be an interesting option. --Bnewstead 08:37, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok. Maybe adding "on the planned activities or the annual report, respectively," would help better understand that point. sebmol ^? 08:43, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Committee accountability

Should get a nod here as well. # of meetings, membership openness and annual standards.

Are there other standards?

• Is there a standard for being accountable to / aligned with strategic priorities? movement vision and mission? Or is that handled somewhere else? –SJ talk | translate   17:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Auditing

In the text it says:

Audit: For all organizations with revenue greater than $100,000 complete an external audit of financial statements and publish the results of the audit publicly within one year of the close of the fiscal year.

I'm a bit worried by this. Depending on the country, getting a complete external audit may require a significant investment in terms of time, money and other resources. If I remember correctly, our current accountant (who composes the financial statement but does not do a real audit) basically told us that in the Netherlands it's virtually impossible to get the books approved by an accountant unless a professional (who is not the treasurer) does the administration. Now, one can hire an external office for that, it's not necessary to hire one's own bookkeeper, but I would not in the least be surprised if everything that's required for getting, in the end, an external audit and a statement on that by an external public accountant, would easily add up to USD 10,000 a year or more. For chapters that spend around USD 100,000 one can wonder if that is the most effective and efficient use of funds. Most association-type chapters actually have an 'internal audit' by a committee that's appointed by the general meeting. Sure, that does not give the same certainty as an external audit, if only because this internal auditing committee does not have to have any formal background in accounting, but I doubt that many associations that spend slightly over USD 100,000 would set up everything to have a full-blown external audit. That being said, it is true that also the leading Dutch certification entity for charities requires an external audit when total income exceeds EUR 150,000, so I'm not saying it's entirely unreasonable. I just want us to realize what's being asked of smaller organizations with this requirement. I know I'm overly late with this comment, but I'm a bit worried that the impact of this requirement on smaller chapters is underestimated. Paul B 19:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC) (WMNL)

Sure - though I'd highlight that the legal standards are the minimum level we should reach, and frankly in most cases we should be more open, transparent and audited than the local law requires - we have a duty to our donors, our readers, and the rest of the movement to not just be "whiter-than-white", but to be seen to be so.

James F. (talk) 22:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Paul - a fair point. We should get broad feedback on a reasonable way to phrase that, and rely on existing third-party standards. At some level it differs by country; in Mongolia a $100,000 budget is a bigger deal than it is in England. –SJ talk | translate   15:53, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Good governance: Membership

The Good governance section states: Membership: Keep an open list of members. No person shall be arbitrarily denied membership, suspended or expelled without reason being given. I completely agree with the latter requirement, and I have trouble fully understanding the former. Does "Keep an open list of members" mean that at any and all times, anyone should have access to a list of all members of a recognised organisation within the Wikimedia movement, or does it mean something else? In case my assumption is correct, which data about the members should be published to fulfil this requirement? Are for example aliases (wiki names instead of real names allowed), should country/place of residence be mentioned, or date of membership start, etc? More thoughts in case my assumption would be correct: Is publishing a list of members in line with how other membership based organisations work? What about the identity of large donors -- the WMF page shows some 254 donors that remain anonymous -- (and where does a large donation start; should it depend on total budget)? --Siebrand 20:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Siebrand, the current discussion about accountability standards takes place at Talk:Audit_committee/Draft_Accountability_standards and I would like to point you there. Having similar discussions on several paged probably is not helpful and maybe important input gets overlooked. I try to make this clearer on this page tomorrow. --lyzzy 22:01, 13 February 2012 (UTC)