Talk:Wikimedia budget

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2012-13

Tilman writes:

The Wikimedia Foundation's 2012-13 Annual Plan has just been published, accompanied by a Q&A (2012-2013 Annual Plan Questions and Answers)

Comments and suggestions are welcome; some were begun in a wikimedia-l mailing list thread this week. –SJ talk  06:13, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Issues raised on Wikimedia-L mailing list:

• Total budget of $42.1 million US or (depending on page reviewed) $46 million US, seems high (Users Geni and Beria Lima)
• When adding together total income from previous year ($39.2 million), this is about an 18.2% increase in budget, small in comparison with previous years (User Tango/Tom Dalton)
• Increased budget tracks closely with strategic plan (User Philippe WMF)
• Where will the 9.9 million in revenue come from in Q4? (User Risker) [See #April-June 2013 revenue]
• Wikimania travel is $255,000 for board, staff, volunteers; previous year (2011-12) was $96,000. Interested in further breakdown, including scholarships. (User Aude)
• Engineering core positions appear to include those positions supporting non-core activity. (User Risker)
• Many elements of strategic plan are non-core, puts the strategic plan at risk. (User Risker)
• Concerns that no community discussion page had been set up in conjunction with the announcement. (Multiple users)

Cannot update data

• It should be noted that, until this section was added within the last 12 hours, neither this talk page nor the main page had been edited since 2009. There are no updates to any financial activities in the interim, and the main page is protected so that no updated information can be added by anyone other than a Meta administrator. I still believe that a separate page would have been more appropriate to discuss this year's annual plan. Risker (talk) 09:48, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • It appears the protection was added quite a while ago, before page protections were logged. Nemo removed the protection earlier this morning, so all feel free to be bold and update the page. The Helpful One 15:53, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Typos and misc

• Note (g) at p. 59 is actually (f), see p. 60.
• At p. 41, for pt.wiki, "hosted" means "visited" and "Portuguese Wikipedia’s top contributors" means "Brazilian contributors who attended the meetups".[1]
• ...
• ...

April-June 2013 revenue

I see a surprising 9,9 M$ cash revenues in the plan for April-June 2013, p. 65 [2]: is this the so called spring fundraising? Does this mean that it becomes a regular thing to add up to the winter fundraising? --Nemo 05:55, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Nemo: This is when the Wikimedia Foundation expects to receive funding from the payment processing chapters for money collected during the annual fundraiser per the fundraising agreements and the FDC process.--Gbyrd (talk) 20:59, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, this explains it. --Nemo 20:05, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Shop

311 k$ planned for the "merchandise" section, of which 197 are expenses to buy the materials I suppose, given that we have no more fees and they're not wages etc. (p. 69). There's no corresponding revenues entry, so I don't understand: is this at a loss? --Nemo 06:02, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Hey Nemo, I'll get you a guaranteed answer about the break down (which is not very clear in the presentation) tomorrow (Thursday) I'm just verifying my numbers with Tony and Garfield. I do no however know that our net revenue is included in the revenue numbers. Our revenue and costs of goods sold ends up not being fully shown in the report it looks like (other then in the meta revenue number) but I'll break it down for you tomorrow. Jalexander (talk) 08:11, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Hey Nemo, Sorry for the enormous delay on this but I'll try to break it down and am happy to answer more questions etc. (I promise faster this time ;) ).

• Net revenue after Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) of $195k is included in the overall revenue (it's just not separated out).
  • This number is the difference between our budged revenue of $540k and the budgeted cost of sold merchandise of around $345k.
  • The COGS is calculated using our current average cost of about 64%. This is obviously an estimate/average (the bags on sale right now are actually sold at cost) but I actually expect this is likely to decrease if we continue growing as hoped because of a relatively large economy of scale for most of our products and obviously the cost of goods goes up and down based on actual revenue as well.
• We are running a bit at a loss overall when all is said and done.
  • The $311k is actually the whole cost of operations (except for COGS which is just accounted for above in the net revenue) and includes my salary/cost, bank fees, design help, giveaways etc.
  • After accounting for the $195 revenue the shop currently is budgeted to 'cost' $116k. Much of this is $75k in community giveaways/merch grants that are covered for in the budget (which is a fair bit more then I originally expected because I thought most of it would be in the grants budget) as well as some other additions like our current shipping subsidy (20k budgeted).

I'm hopeful that this will end up being lower for many reasons. We budged almost 20k for some some tax services that, more recently, we decided we could do better in house and so won't be spending most of that. I'm also hopeful that as we expand we will be able to find opportunities to reduce costs as we learn more and expand. We're thinking of looking at international fulfillment and production spots for example that could greatly help reduce not only customer cost (especially with unexpected customs fees) but our shipping subsidy etc . Jalexander (talk) 01:56, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

"the WMF annual plan covers the entire movement"

From wmf:2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers#How_is_this_plan_different_from_previous_year.E2.80.99s_plans.3F. This is a contradiction in terms, see Wikimedia movement, and very offensive. Please understand that the Wikimedia movement is made by the many people (first of all projects' contributors) with their individual efforts, not all labeled and categorized by the WMF or Wikimedia in general, and by several organizations. They are not covered at all by the WMF's budget, nor by the WMF's plans. --Nemo 20:04, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

so that next year, WMF will be able to claim that they "made" WLM... Anthere (talk)

Hello, I agree with the above (as do many people who contributed to the report). You don't need to convince the choir - just suggest better answers, or update the language so it is accurate :-) The annual plan, now that it includes grant and FDC funding, includes funding for the entire movement; roughly 1/3 of what is budgeted in the plan will go to non-WMF projects. That's what is intended.

And of course you are right that most of the work that really moves us forward -- makes us a movement, say -- is done without budget, without central infrastructure of any kind, other than a few shared platforms. It would be great to start describing and including this in our annual summaries of what the Projects are doing. *Some* annual overview needs to include highly important projects like WLM. My view is, the best solution would be a community-produced annual report. I'd like to hear better options. In the absence of anything like this, we are left with those linked from reports... of which the WMF report is becoming more global. –SJ talk  00:27, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Anthere: thanks for the constructive feedback :( SJ: sounds like an interesting proposition, how to find the right balance is going to be a challenge, but it will be interesting to see how we can make that happen...Jan-Bart (talk) 09:18, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

It seems very simple to me, you only have to replace that sentence with "covers all the income from the WMF sites fundraising and related expenditure", or something like that. It would make immediately clear that you're only talking about money and that even speaking of money, organized activities and budget of the Wikimedia movement much is left out. Thanks, Nemo 20:04, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

That's good: precise and informative. –SJ talk  19:34, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I made the change -- Nemo, if it doesn't resolve the issue, just say so :-) Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 19:20, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Sj and Sue. --Nemo 17:38, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

FDC costs

Which budget does the FDC's costs come out of? There will be staff, travel and accommodation at face-to-face meetings, training and maybe a few other items. --Tango (talk) 15:18, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Tango: On page 59 of the Annual Plan document it list $11,476,000 in funding for the FDC. This budget is what is designated to cover FDC operating expenses and annual plan funding.--Gbyrd (talk) 17:37, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. It says elsewhere that the money the FDC will be allocating is $11.2m, so the expected cost is $276k? Is there a breakdown of that? I was able to come up with some plausible guesses that came to that number with a roughly 50/50 split between staff and travel/accommodation (with other costs being minimal). Is that about right? --Tango (talk) 20:44, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Going from memory, yes, Tango, your breakdown is roughly correct. It's staff+travel: there are no other significant FDC costs. Sue Gardner (talk) 19:22, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

COI with GAC budget

I see the GAC budget is going to be part of the WMF's FDC application. However, the GAC is managed by Anasuya, who is part of the FDC staff. Isn't that a massive conflict of interest? How can Anasuya impartially support the FDC in making decisions about whether people that report to her should get funding or not? --Tango (talk) 15:21, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The Grant Advisory Committee (GAC) is not managed by Anasuya; it is a group of volunteers regularly asked to review proposals submitted to the Wikimedia Grants program. They don't report to anyone at all.

There is indeed an obvious COI in having FDC staff be employed by and working at the Foundation. This has been discussed extensively during the drafting of the FDC proposal on-wiki, as well as in the advisory group. As far as I can tell, the conclusion was that the benefits outweigh the risk posed by COI, and some countermeasures were adopted, and the Board has sanctioned this arrangement. One of those countermeasures is already evident, in that the FDC eligibility criteria are all fact-based and do not rely on FDC staff's subjective judgment. Once again: the COI exists, but everyone is to do their best to mitigate the risk it poses. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 20:28, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Apologies, I should have said "Wikimedia Grants Programme" (it's become common to refer to it as the GAC, even thought the GAC is just part of it). Specifically, she manages you. I agree that the general COI of having the FDC staff employed by the WMF is manageable and worth it, but the specific COI of having part of the WMF's application fund a programme managed by a member of the FDC staff is another matter entirely. I don't think that COI can be managed. --Tango (talk) 22:22, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Can you offer a specific scenario that demonstrates how this particular COI plays out? I mean, like other programs in the WMF's non-core budget, the Grants program is being included in the WMF's FDC proposal, and the WMF will need to convince the FDC members (not FDC staff) that its spending on it is justified and high-impact, as part of its general argumentation and support of its larger FDC proposal. How do you envision the fact Anasuya manages me affecting the FDC's decision? Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 22:46, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Anasuya has a very clear interest in you getting your funding, since you are part of her team. The FDC staff have significant influence on the FDC, since they give advice. That advice may be based on pre-determined criteria, but there is plenty of room for interpretation in assessing those criteria. --Tango (talk) 22:58, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the interest is obvious. We can all be assumed to have an "inertia" interest, i.e. to be interested in keeping on doing what we do, on the assumption that we generally consider what we're doing effective. The FDC's role is to assess and balance competing proposals, and I very much doubt there is much the FDC staff can say to actually bias the FDC's perception of the Grants program (which is exceptionally open to outside observation and assessment), so again, while I acknowledge the COI, I'm not sure how much of a threat it is that the FDC staff would subvert the FDC members' perceptions and judgments in its assessments of the proposals.

If there's nothing more specific you have in mind, perhaps we can leave it at that and see if there are other points of view on this. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:25, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you are seriously underestimating the role of the FDC staff. If it were as you describe, why was someone with Anasuya's extensive experience hired? How would that experience be of any value if she had no influence? If all that was required was basic administration, they would have just hired someone straight out of high school. I have asked Stu to comment here, in his capacity as Chair of the WMF Audit Committee. --Tango (talk) 00:24, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

So lets look at the alternatives. There are two options. First: The WGP (RIP GAC) gets its funding outside of the FDC process = no COI. Second: The GAC gets its financing through the FDC, potential for a COI. But if we assume that this was the choice that was to be made, isn't a good sign that the foundation wanted to move the GAC budget through the FDC, to ensure that this is also something that is looked at critically by the FDC? I was a big supporter of having the WGP (and other (micro)grants programs) apply to the FDC.... And what application to the FDC is going to be looked at most closely by EVERYONE? Yes the one that the Foundation makes... I think that the transparancy that is applied throughout the process alongside an extensive evaluation is enough of a safeguard and I think that the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages... Jan-Bart (talk) 09:07, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

You are missing an option: have the FDC staff be as independant of the rest of the WMF as possible, which was what we discussed (there was talk of having them completely external, but it was decided they should be part of the WMF to keep things simple and so they would have a better understanding of the movement, they weren't supposed to be part of the WMF so that they could also do other WMF work). My problem isn't with the WGP being funded via the FDC. My problem is with Anasuya being involved in both. If you are on the FDC staff then that should be all you do. That's what I understood to be the proposal when it was discussed and it was on that understanding that I supported having the FDC staff employed by the WMF. There is a COI inherent in working in the same office and people you are involved in funding decisions for, but it is a small and manageable one. There is a much bigger COI inherent with being involved with funding decisions for people you actually work closely with and that report to you. I don't think that COI is manageable. --Tango (talk) 11:32, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

This is where we simply disagree. I don't think you can ever separate the FDC staff support from the rest of the foundation. Not only does it give you a superficial solution to the COI (these people are still colleagues who still share the same employer?) but it also misses out from the benefits that this kind of cooperation could have. The expertise needed in one area (and lessons learned) are very useful in the other... That aside from the fact that a separate office (with support etc) is simply a lot of overhead. And again: its a transparent proces, everyone, including you, will be watching... how about seeing where this goes, what incredible risk are we running for this specific case?Jan-Bart (talk) 11:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Come on, Jan-Bart... you're making a habit of this. Please read what I write more carefully before you respond. I very clearly said that I support having the FDC staff work out of the WMF office and that I think the COI inherent in that is small and manageable. What I have a problem with is the FDC staff working very closely with (in this case, managing) specific WMF staff whose work is funded by the FDC. That is entirely avoidable. The WGP can still benefit from Anasuya's experience (I hope the FDC staff will provide advice and guidance to all FDC applicants on how to improve their programmes), but it doesn't need to be managed by her. --Tango (talk) 12:04, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

No I was making the general statement with regards to a stict or a loose seperation. Both the strict version and the loose one are just superficial solutions to the COI problem (again: they are colleagues and they work together) . Having the same manager has many advantages and giving them a different manager and resulting inefficiency in overhead and communications is a cost which I think is not worth it. And for the third time: what are you afraid of? It will be a public process and everyone will be able to watch this, and the WGP will undoubtedly be a very public process (it has been so far, with public presentations showing the failures/successes etc. Do you think the budget will suddenly double and no one will be the wiser? The foundation has much to lose if we were to manipulate the system, and if we wanted to do that we wouldn't have changed the system...Jan-Bart (talk) 12:21, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I completely disagree. COIs are always matters of degree. It is rarely possible to eliminate them entirely, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try and minimise them. The interest someone has in a person they manage is obviously far greater than the interest they have in some random person employed by the same organisation and working in the same office. The FDC cannot work efficiently if it has to be constantly second guessing the advice it recieves from its support staff because they are so heavily conflicted. --Tango (talk) 14:41, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Then we agree to disagree. I think it is worthwhile to minimize any COI, but one has to look at the costs, benefits and risks of every measure. In this case I think that the benefits of the situation outweigh the disadvantages (risks). One of the reasons is that this is a one time decision (before we evaluate it again next year I assume that there will be just one grant request) in a transparent process which results in another process (the grant making itself) which is also a completely transparent process. And after having having talked to Anasuya I am have no fears that this will be done in the most transparent weight. But then again: thats just my opinion :) Jan-Bart (talk) 15:44, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Many Wikimedia bodies (the WMF, chapters) are becoming grant-makers. We should be developing experience and expertise in making grants of varying sizes. So regardless of what happens with the FDC and GAC this coming year, the Foundation needs someone like Anasuya, and the movement needs participation from more people with similar backgrounds. Making grants to others is one of the significant ways we can support projects; I would say that the WMF has traditionally erred on the side of 'hiring contractors' rather than 'making grants' out of a lack of familiarity with all of the ways grants can be a helpful channel. I am glad that this is changing. –SJ talk  00:37, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Of course the simple solution to avoiding COI is not have WMF apply for money which it raised in the first place from one of its own committee. That has seem convoluted and crazy to me from the start. KTC (talk) 09:02, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

The argument is that there activities that the Foundation performs which are "non-core". These activities should be weighed against other activities performed by other movement parties. EG: Why would de UK Grants program have to apply through the FDC (as part of the chapter budget) and the Foundation wouldn't? Arguably they do the same thing and I can imagine that each program has its own (geographic or otherwise) advantages or disadvantages.Jan-Bart (talk) 09:12, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

NB: the FDC is a community committee, not a Board committee: it is chaired by a community member and composed of community members. It is supported by the WMF just as the movement as a whole is. –SJ talk  04:16, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Financial risks - one off donations

For a charitable movement Wikimedia is heavily dependent on one off donations, but that doesn't seem to be acknowledged as a risk, nor do I see a plan to reduce that. I realise that it takes time to build up more predictable longterm revenue streams, but I would suggest that the Foundation acknowledge this as a risk and set some targets for reducing that risk by raising enough by other means to fund the core services for the foreseeable future. WereSpielChequers (talk) 16:21, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. This was an intentional focus for a few years, but now it would make sense to diversify again. Encouraging recurring donations, or to a notion of recurring non-voting membership in the movement, are both options to consider. And we seem to be doing increasingly well at finding a variety of foundations to support our work, something I would like to see accelerate. –SJ talk  00:31, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Introduction of a recurring donations system has been considered one of the major successes of last fundraising by some WMF staff, but incongrously the monthly revenue graph seems not to expect any revenue from it. It would be interesting to see if the bigger focus on this by WMUK has paid off. --Nemo 19:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

It is difficult to know how to judge the success of WMUK's effort with recurring donations, but the monthly reports here include a fundraising section that specifies how much was raised each month. For example, the June report says "there were 6,328 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £26,061.87" (direct debits are the way WMUK does its recurring donations - it's the standard method charities use in the UK). There is certainly a steady stream of money coming in from them. --Tango (talk) 20:51, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

WereSpielChequers: I would appreciate seeing your source data for your comments that the current revenue plan consisting of the Wikimedia Foundation portion of the annual fundraiser, the payment processing chapters portion of the annual fundraiser and Wikimedia Foundation grants and gifts creates a higher than normal risk profile for a not for profit organization. There is some discussion in the the charitable press [3] in the United States that greater diversification may not lead to greater financial stability.--Gbyrd (talk) 18:25, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think WSC was proposing diversification, particularly. If you emphasise recurring donations, it will generally be the same people making them as were making the one-off donations, they just make them more reliably. --Tango (talk) 20:41, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

@Gbyrd, There is a risk of a medium sized charity spreading its fundraising too thin and not getting economies of scale. I've had some dealings with a smaller charity than the WMF which was raising money through a mix of merchandising, legacies, charity shops, one off small donations, recurring small donations (including payroll giving), charity fun runs, large donations and corporate sponsorship. I'm not going to name them partly because I suspect they'd be miffed if I pointed out that they'd spread themselves too thin to be efficient, and at the end of that they were extremely diverse in fundraising methods but necessarily focussed on a catchment area less in population than the average US state - and inextricably bound to that area's economy. Considering our total size, the WMF and its chapters are, as I understand it, unusually diverse in the geography from which we receive donations. But we are heavily dependent on one off small donations, and have very little revenue from longterm commitments such as Payroll giving and direct debit. We may have some medium term commitments from large grant giving bodies, and I'd hope we have a donors list which we've started to Email an appeal to each year. I'm pretty sure that merchandising is still more a reward to volunteers than a useful fundraising stream, and even with the greying of the pedia and the average Wikipedian ageing by more than a year per year I doubt that legacies will be more than a few percent of our funds for the next decade or so. So my understanding is that the WMF and its chapters have a high diversity of geography, and of donors, but a low diversity of fundraising methods. The only real weak point that I see is that it is overly focussed on short term one off donations. Aside from these being usually less cost effective than building up a longterm relationship with a donor, this leaves us very vulnerable to fashion and the fickleness of public opinion. A scandal sufficient to dissuade many new donors from giving us money would be likely to have far less effect on direct debit income. There are charities that I've supported for more than twenty years by direct debit, but there've certainly been years I'd have skipped if instead I had to remember to release a payment to them each year. I'd also make the point that your fundraising needs to be attuned to your support base, and the profile of your fundraising needs to be synchronised with your spending needs. If we were a disaster relief charity focussed on one particular natural disaster then there would be little point developing longterm revenue streams such as direct debits or legacies, better to focus on asking people to give money today. But as a charity writing encyclopaedias, dictionaries and so forth that we hope to make permanently available it would be better if we had predictable revenue for decades to come. Once we have some confidence in future revenues we can make commitments to our GLAM partners that digital media released to us will be around for the longterm. And of course our supporters skew towards childlessness means that in the longterm we should be developing a legacy team in our fundraising department.

Sorry that was so long. The shorter version is don't be too hung up about diversity of how we raise funds, we easily mitigate that by the incredible and improving diversity of where in the world we collect those funds from. But do be concerned that we are using short term fundraising programs whilst our needs are longterm. I'd suggest a strategy for the rest of this decade of shifting from one off donations to direct debit or at least repeat donors, and for the longer term look to legacies to build an endowment fund. Philanthropy.com is right to caution organisations of our size from spreading themselves too thin by going for too diverse a fundraising mix, but even they'd concede that two channels are better than one, and I don't know the time-scale they used to conclude that two were better than three. WereSpielChequers (talk) 19:45, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Financial risks of globalisation

The plan seems to assume that much of the financial risk is with the four remaining payment processing chapters. But globalisation itself incurs risks, including that in some countries it isn't a local registered charity that is collecting the money. WereSpielChequers (talk) 16:21, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Exchange rates

Wikimedia moves quite a bit of money between different exchange rates, but I don't see exchange rate fluctuation on the risk list. there are ways to mitigate this, most obviously by keeping some donations in the donor country currency. But it should be acknowledged as a risk. I gather that some of the risk has been offloaded to chapters and other grant recipients outside the US. But a strategy of evaluating and paying all such grants in dollars has two downsides, if the dollar is strong the recipient gets more money than they actually asked for, if the dollar is weak then they get less money than was intended or may be necessary. Financially it makes the accountancy easier if everything is measured in dollars, but when currencies fluctuate it is a wasteful strategy. WereSpielChequers (talk) 16:21, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be spelt out in the FDC framework, but I think the conclusion from the discussions about currencies was that applicants should apply in their local currency and the WMF would take on the currency risk (since it is exposed to a large number of foreign currencies, there is some diversification of that risk - if a chapter takes on the risk, it has no diversification at all). The application form asks for the amount in both USD and local currency. --Tango (talk) 16:34, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Well if so I'm glad we got that concession, when I gave up on the FDC stuff things weren't looking very hopeful. But it does expose the WMF to exchange rate risks and it would be sensible to recognise this and make allowances for it in the plan. WereSpielChequers (talk) 17:04, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The currency risk only exists for the short time between the FDC making its recommendations and the grants getting paid (about 2 months). There is a risk, but it isn't particularly large. There will be money held in GBP, EUR and CHF by the fundraising chapters, which will hedge the risk quite a bit. It is certainly a risk that needs to be monitored, but I'm not sure it's one of the top risks the WMF is facing (there are a lot more risks that you could ever include in a summary plan like this one). --Tango (talk) 17:27, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

If they've moved from paying grants in dollars to paying them in the local currency then yes I suppose it is no longer one of the biggest risks. In absolute terms a currency fluctuation could cost quite a bit, but unlike say a fraud it has less reputational effect per dollar lost. WereSpielChequers (talk) 10:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

If grants are all denominated in dollars (it doesn't matter what they are actually paid in, that's just a technicality) then there is no risk to the WMF. The risk to the WMF only exists if they are denominating grants in local currency. --Tango (talk) 11:35, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The risk of not following the budget would be minimised if the grants were all denominated in dollars. But in exchange you'd be risking having some programs underfunded due to exchange rate fluctuations and others funded more generously than you'd intended. Neither being a good situation for a charity. I'm happy that the overall risk to the WMF is lower if they pay in local currencies, and the WMF has sufficient reserves it can take the risk, though presumably if there was a really bad run on the dollar they'd have to respond. WereSpielChequers (talk) 15:50, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Grants budget

Q: From [4] -- "how much money the WMF plans on distributing through the GAC, whether it is significantly different than last year"

A: The Wikimedia Grants program budget for this fiscal year (2012-13) is $400,000. This does not include the the Participation Support, Wikimania scholarships (please help fix them!), and the very large contribution toward Wikimania's costs we make each year, which are all budgeted for separately. That is, up to $400,000 are reserved solely for distribution as Wikimedia Grants. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:48, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

So is the Wikimania stuff included in the "Funding through GAC" on page 55, because that is a different number than above. If there is some obvious math that I am missing to account for this, please correct me! I have a real problem with keeping numbers straight, especially when switching between different presentation formats. If there is something math related that seems too obvious to be pointed out, it probably isn't in my case. But as far as I can tell slide 55 must have be a different accounting than the Wikimedia grants program budget.--BirgitteSB (talk) 01:57, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

The above question was clarified In the subsection below. The figures on the slide were not just chapter grants as I was assuming, but all grants and Wikimania scholarships, etc.

One more question, what is the apples to apples number for last fiscal year that correlates with the $400,000 budget for 2012-13?--BirgitteSB (talk) 18:40, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there is one. A lot of the grants the GAC paid out last year will be done by the FDC this year, but the FDC will also pay out other grants (eg. to the WMF and fundraising chapters). Since we don't know what the FDC will pay out to who, it is difficult to compare. I guess you can assume the FDC gives the WMF its requested amount, and then compare last year's GAC budget plus the funds retained by fundraising chapters to this year's GAC budget, plus the FDC budget, minus the WMF request. That gives you the total amount from the fundraiser not being spent directly by the WMF for each year. Neither of those numbers is the $400k, though. --Tango (talk) 18:52, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Note on "grants"

Confusingly, the word grants is used in at least two senses and at least three contexts in the annual plan document. Here's my unauthorized stab at disambiguating it:

• grants on page 45 and page 49 means the Wikimedia Grants program (as well as the Participation Support program WMF co-funds with Wikimedia Deutschland)
• Grants on page 55, super confusingly under "Spending", refers to WMF's spending of a grant it received from the Stanton Foundation, i.e. has nothing to do with WMF's own grant-making.
• Grants and Fellowships" on page 59 are bundled together (maybe to fit on the slide? I really don't know.). For the Grants program budget itself, see the previous section.
• "Awards and grants" in page 69 is a category used by our finance dept., and I think it would be best if Garfield can speak to it, but it clearly includes much more than the Grants program. Let's wait for further clarification on that.

I hope this disperses at least some of the fog. :) Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:48, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

How about the top of page 55. "Funding through GAC"? Is that the full accounting of what GAC did/will fund or are there funds from GAC that are not tied to chapters?--BirgitteSB (talk) 01:38, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Good catch! That, of course, should read "Wikimedia Grants program". None of the Wikimedia Grants budget is "tied to chapters". It's all available for absolutely any individual, group, or organization that cares to submit a proposal. While the majority of recipients have historically been chapters, we have already supported a number of individuals, unincorporated groups, and non-movement organizations through the Grants program in the past year.

That is the full accounting, though the more precise figure is the one I gave above -- $400K -- the figure on page 55 includes Participation Support and Wikimania Scholarships. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 01:45, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I just asked that above as you answered! I had skimmed the heading labeled "Chapters and others" as "Chapters . . .", so I was thinking everything in the grey box was just about chapters. Which accounts for a good deal of my confusion on this line. Thanks for clearing this up.--BirgitteSB (talk) 02:02, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

"Award and Grants" is the funding designated for the FDC. The Wikimedia Foundation, as part of it's funding request to the FDC, will be requesting funding for the Wikimedia Grants Program, Wikimania support, Wikimania scholarships and Fellowships.--Gbyrd (talk) 18:38, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania travel question

So, I got some answers about Wikimania travel from Tony in WMF's finance department. The comparisons I got from him:

	Haifa (2011)	D.C. (2012)	Notes
Total costs	$103K	$225K budgeted
Attendees	~50	108	(staff, contractors, board, advisory board)
Hotel costs	~$135/night	~$215/night

He also mentioned that on average, the duration of stay for DC was longer as other events were tagged on to Wikimania (e.g., AdaCamp, Education Program). Hope that helps! Jwild (talk) 19:37, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• Jeepers, where were the staff staying for that amount of money per night?! WMUK staff and trustees were staying in a hotel that cost $149/night, and I thought that was expensive! Mike Peel (talk) 04:43, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

  $149/night plus tax. You're forgetting the ridiculous US custom of quoting pre-tax prices. There were some WMF staff in the same hotel as the WMUK staff and trustees. There was another hotel that was a bit more expensive (and further from the venue and, apparently, not as nice...) that some other WMF staff and, I think, the WMF board stayed in. The high price of the hotels was a concern raised well before the conference, but apparently there was nothing to be done about it. I'm sure future juries will pay more attention to hotel prices when assessing bids, having learned from this year (it was probably the biggest problem with the whole conference, with the possible exception of late invite letters to visa applicants). --Tango (talk) 11:16, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

  Actually, I was making the assumption that the $215 was the pre-tax price ... I think I've been in the US for too long now! ;-) But given what you say, perhaps it did include tax, or else the other hotel must have been a fair bit more expensive... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 14:55, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

  The other hotel was $216.41/night with tax [5]. So actually, I expect the WMF's average costs were a little lower than $215, since they weren't all in the most expensive hotel. -Tango (talk) 17:20, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

  I'm afraid that I'm really struggling to get my head around this. We're talking nearly a quarter of a million dollars here - and there seems to be no public report regarding how this money was effectively spent to further Wikimedia's global mission. What charitable activities did this money end up funding, and where is the report on that expenditure? Mike Peel (talk) 21:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

  We never get proper reports on Wikimanias - it is a big problem. I understand that the local team is always exhausted afterwards, but it still needs to be done. It makes it impossible to hold people to account and it also makes it very difficult for subsequent Wikimania organisers to plan. --Tango (talk) 21:54, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

  In this case, I'm more interested in the WMF providing such a report, rather than the Wikimania local team... Mike Peel (talk) 21:58, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

  Indeed, it's very weird that the WMF never provides any report about Wikimania spending. In the past, I had to dig financial reports and forms 990 and I got very little even from them (not even number, let alone justifications). --Nemo 22:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• Outdenting. Why is it strange that the WMF doesn't report in detail on Wikimania? I don't think it's strange. $225K is not a large amount of money in a budget of 29MM, and I think it would be odd for the Wikimedia Foundation to report in an extremely high level of detail for that 225K relative to other similar-sized expenditures. I do think that the local teams should report on Wikimania, and their report would and should account for the amount of funding that came from the WMF. Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 00:18, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

  Perhaps the WMF should be giving more detailed reports on other similar sized spending as well - the reports we get from the WMF aren't really in enough detail for volunteers and donors to hold it to account (they are a similar level of detail as other charities give, but we generally hold ourselves to high standards of transparency than other charities). That said, I think the level of detail above is sufficient for that particular line item (although that was only supplied because someone asked) - for travel and accommodation, the number of people and the total spend is enough, we don't need to be able to micromanage the WMF's individual choices of who to send and what hotel to put them in. The WMF's total spend on Wikimania is substantially larger than $225k, and a full report on that would be appreciated. I don't see any need for separate WMF and local team reports, but the reports probably need to be jointly written in order to be sufficiently complete. --Tango (talk) 11:24, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

  I didn't ask details, we don't even know the totals. Here we do, but only for a subset of the expense. And yes, of course I'd like to see more breakdowns of expenditure also for other kinds of activities (i.e. the total for each program, rather than super-generic headlines like "technology" etc.), but Wikimania is the most obscure, also because it has a mixed source of income (WMF, organizers, attendees, sponsors) and for instance we have no idea of what's the share. --Nemo 12:39, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• • Hi Sue, Just for the sake of comparison, I'd like you to consider the past budgets for Wikimania, and how much was spent on the scholarship grants for wikimedians? It wouldn't surprise me if either or both of those were less than just the travel budget to cover travel expense for staff members across the same country this year. The entire conference might and have been funded in the past for less than that amount. Just because the budget keeps rising at a high rate does not justify these expenses being sidelined. More donor funds should mean, more responsibility and transparency, not less. More responsibility to manage those funds well, at quarter of a million dollars to fund travel and 3 day stay @ $215/night for staff doesn't seem very efficient. Anyway, my concern is this could have been managed much better, you may recall the alternative hotel recommendations, or the ideas I suggested a couple of months ago for bulk-bookings. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 04:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
    • I wouldn't say that it was a matter of "better" or "more efficient" simply very different. I see at least five different groups of Wikimania attendees. Staff, subsidised Wikimedians, subsidised non or potential Wikimedians, unsubsidised Wikimedians and unsubsidised others. For the staff this is an important event, and an important opportunity to interact with each other and the rest of the community. But it is a very expensive way to enable staff to socialise with each other. It is also an extremely inefficient way to recruit new Wikimedians, except possibly those who were in town anyway. So my preference would be for an event that aimed to maximise the number of active Wikimedians who attended, and only brought in staff where there was a strong reason. In some cases it may even be appropriate for staff who need to participate in one session to do so by video. However it is important when handling costs to get the right budget headings. If our fundraising team continues to use Wikimania to recruit the Wikimedians who they use in fundraising appeals then their attendance is welcome, but should be considered a fundraising cost, not a Wikimania cost. WereSpielChequers (talk) 15:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Coming to Wikimania and explaining what it is they are doing is a key part of making the staff accountable to the community. Having more staff coming to Wikimania goes some way towards opening up the black box that the WMF can sometimes be. You could do that by video link, I suppose, but it isn't the same. You can't catch someone in the corridor after their talk to ask them about it if they gave their talk from SF. --Tango (talk) 21:50, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't dispute that we need quite a few staff to attend. But beyond a certain point it makes them less accountable as the staff become a clique within Wikimania who mix less than if there were fewer of them there. It is also expensive to send staff, hence my suggestion that the WMF send fewer of them. WereSpielChequers (talk) 21:28, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Now that the WMF is narrowing its focus, I hope to see us start spending significantly less on Wikimania - both in staff overhead to help with planning (something I have never been a fan of, since the time I was a 'mania organizer myself) and in funds spent on flights and hotels. I think we can do a better job of combining our hotel choices with those of other attendees, and we should definitely be investing in good solutions for global videoconferencing. (That's both good for the budget and good for limiting our carbon footprint - both for large meetings such as Wikimania and for small 8-person gatherings.) –SJ talk  04:20, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Reserves

In 2011-12, the reserve was projected to stay above 5.2 months of expenses.

In 2012-13, it is projected to stay above 6 months of expenses (actually: 6.3 months at the low point). This is measured in terms of cash budget [tracking the cash that passes through the WMF's hands]. For the first time in 2012, this cash budget is different from the non-cash budget. The $2.65M of funds allocated by the FDC to payment-processing chapters dont pass through the WMF, but stay with the chapter. So the non-cash budget is $42.1M, but the cash budget is $39.4M.

For example: the $19.7M projected reserve for October 2012 was set to be exactly 6 months of the year's cash budget. The actual cash reserve ended up being $20.8M. This was noted in a monthly report as "5.92 months of [non-cash] expenses", but it is 6.32 months of cash expenses, the measure used for the reserve.

This difference is confusing; we should switch to tracking everything in terms of a single measure next year.

The projected reserve is the minimum reserve through the year: in practice this is reached in the month before the fundraiser begins. In future years fundraising will be more spread out over the entire year and we may see much smaller fluctuations.)

Endowment

An endowment for technical hosting/bandwidth support has been discussed for some years. It was agreed that this should be messaged specifically, and perhaps separately from the rest of the annual fundraiser. This has been on the back burner over the past year, but is ripe for development. –SJ talk 

2012-13 Fundraising targets

The 2012-13 annual plan fundraising goal was set at $46.1 million, in line with the five-year plan and projected expenses; as well as a slight increase in the reserve.

The fundraiser this year is split into two parts: one in November-December in some countries (with a target of $25M), and one in March-April in the rest of the world. The majority of funds is expected to be raised in the first part of the fundraiser.

Remove nonessential functions

Remove nonessential functions

I request that

• Wikimedia Foundation only pay for server administration and coding and therefore remove the functions [Community Advocacy, Communications, Fellowships, Mobile partnerships, Learning and Grantmaking, Global Education, Internationalization, Research and Development](http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors?showall=1)
• I'm given the option to disable fundraising messages on Wikimedia Foundation sites until this request is granted

  posted without signing

You may find wmf:Vote:Narrowing Focus interesting. It doesn't go as far as you ask, but it's a step in that direction. --Tango (talk) 20:35, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: Sharing future forecasts and annual plans

Currently, the WMF publishes internally a midyear "lookahead" projection about the next annual plan, each January.

This is not made public until the minutes of the Q3 board meeting come out -- usually along with the midyear financial report. For the past two years, this has been in early March, ~6 weeks after the initial projection is shared internally. The current lookahead includes targets for the budget and staff growth, but no further financials.

Starting in the next fiscal year, I propose that we:

1. Publish the lookahead (or a summary of it; whatever is convenient, no need to be 100 slides long) to the community soon after it is shared internally - before the first Board meeting of the year.
   • This allows other community planners to benefit from the forecast
   • Any discussion around it does not need to involve staff; this publication can be for information porpoises only.
2. Publish the final draft of the plan when it is submitted to the Board for approval, rather than after the fiscal year starts.
   • This is not for feedback; simply for transparency. At this point the plan is fixed.

Related ideas

• Include a brief second year's forecast in the annual plan (just as we included a 5-year forecast in the 5-year strategic plan, each annual plan can include an equally brief forecast of the next year. So far we have matched very closely to the initial forecasts in the 5-year plan, but in general that may change.)
  • Include a mid-year update to this in the lookahead, in the same format. This largely exists already, though it might be a bit more nuanced/distilled. (For instance, in the past we have discussed such things as the projected evolution of the % of the budget given to overhead or reserves).

• Ask for FDC feedback on the full WMF annual plan.
  • This should not require a special format - the format we normally use for our plans should be fine. It seems this past year there was a lot of overhead involved in carving out the part of our plan that was for FDC review; then making our existing plan align with the FDC system. Since we designed both systems, we could instead make the FDC process flexible enough to support what we already do.
  • We should change our shared expectation of that review: the FDC is not directly determining the WMF budget (at least not the core elements), but their input will be welcome and respected in the process.
  • If the timing doesn't work out, this could be later than the current FDC deadline; but ideally we would time our planning to match that of other entities.
  • This sort of feedback could serve as a more direct model for chapters and other movement entities. And it would simplify the work of both the staff (who only need to produce one plan) and the FDC (who no longer need two different criteria for evaluating the WMF plan and chapter plans).

–SJ talk  20:12, 23 April 2013 (UTC)