FORUM WARNING [2] Division by zero (Line: 2933 of /srcsgcaop/boardclass.php) FORUM WARNING [2] Division by zero (Line: 2943 of /srcsgcaop/boardclass.php) WMF banks $11 million -
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Just in case you've lost track of how much money the Wikimedia Foundation is collecting but not spending, the most recent Foundation report indicates that there is $11 million worth of donors' contributions just sitting there in a bank account.
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They are trying to get enough in the bank so that when the downturn comes ... which it will ... the can live off the interest on the investment.
I don't think it is entirely ethical because that was not what the fundraising drive said ... and, of course, I think what use it is being put to (sustaining the Pornopedia) is pretty shitty really, and outside of normally charitable purposes.
Is sustaining a social networking and gamer website REALLY charitable activity?
Folks, give your money to a local school programme in some developing nation where it will have real impact and change people's lives rather than provide webhosting for whack off material and pornstar's biographies.
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This is a really smart strategy. If only our governments would do this. If people or organizations spend beyond there means before they know it much of their incomes goes to interest.
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QUOTE(Jmh649 @ Sun 5th September 2010, 10:51pm)
This is a really smart strategy. If only our governments would do this. If people or organizations spend beyond there means before they know it much of their incomes goes to interest.
I'm not sure it's a "really smart strategy" to keep $11 million in a checking/savings account and certificates of deposit within a banking system that did so well in 2009, and is looking to repeat in 2010.
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In their business, it would be smarter than spending it. But what would be smarter would be to have it managed and working better. Is that beyond them?
I think Jimmy and his partner's MO is all about manage "the event", and keep it running for as long as it brings the money elsewhere (... speaking fees, endorsements etc).
Then, for secondary level (the paid workers), it is about keeping being paid doing something "cool" which can be cashed in afterwards.
They appear to want to spend to promulgate "the event" ever further rather than resolve all its expensive and costly problems ... mainly because the cost of the problems are borne by the donators and contributors not themselves.
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As I said long ago, any smart nonprofit would first use a large cash surplus to buy itself a headquarters building. The fact that the WMF hasn't done that, even though the currently dead-miserable real-estate market would make it a breeze, says something about their weird "management style".
(Or are they hoarding the money for the off-chance they get sued? Or has someone already embezzled it, and that financial report is complete crap?)
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 6th September 2010, 3:13am)
I'm not sure it's a "really smart strategy" to keep $11 million in a checking/savings account and certificates of deposit within a banking system that did so well in 2009, and is looking to repeat in 2010.
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I think it's rather comical that the Wikimedia Foundation would rather bank the $11 million than spend about $200 or $300 reclaiming all of the "wikipedia<dot>country-code" domains that they've asked private lackeys to hold onto at their own expense.
Our loyal lady Japanese Wikipediot, Aphaia, commented on this:
QUOTE
Hi, I think there is no problem. Those domains has been taken in good faith, and we once asked WMF if they wanted to get them transferred. At that time, we got a informal reply like "no, thank you, we'd rather be grateful for you a trusted Wikipedian to hold them in your own expense". That is why an individual Wikipedia user holds those domains. And Was a bee pointed out, there is no Wikimedia chapter in Japan yet. If asked by WMF or a future chapter, those domains would be transferred without trouble, I believe. --[[User:Aphaia|Aphaia]] ([[User talk:Aphaia|talk]]) 10:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
If a web-based company can't even get this basic matter in order, I have to ask, what exactly are the 49 nitwits running around at 149 New Montgomery Street actually doing?
If a web-based company can't even get this basic matter in order, I have to ask, what exactly are the 49 nitwits running around at 149 New Montgomery Street actually doing?
Why is the money sitting in a bank account? If the objectives are to spend every penny that is donated, then not unreasonable. Even then, are they distributing the cash across different banks? As Greg has noted, having all your cash in one account can be dangerous. I don't know about FDIC but the UK equivalent was limited to quite a small amount of compensation. A friend of mine invested his entire life savings ($100,000) in Lehmann and lost the lot (though this was a bond, not a deposit).
If the objectives are to hold assets for long-term objectives, then these should not be invested in cash deposit, which pay very low rates of interest. I don't know the situation in the US but here you can get a 1-year bond with various mutuals ('building societies') for 2.5-3%. I recently invested some money with our National Savings which pays inflation + 2% which with hindsight was a great deal. I also got 8% last year with a mutual that was looking to raise cash. There is also the stock market although there is a degree of risk attached.
Wales apparently has some investment experience, perhaps they should put him in charge of the assets? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)
Because they didn't think the kids in their mom's basement would care to know. They certainly don't want guys like you or me to know, either!
How could "some other vehicle" be described as a "Checking/Savings"?
I'm not an expert on accounting terminology (I was just wondering where you were, Anthony). Also 'checking' is US terminology. It just says 'checking/savings', and I assumed this means 'checking or savings', that 'checking' means 'bank deposit' and that 'savings' means some other non-deposit form of investment.
Perhaps you can help, you are in the accounting business.
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I looked up the distinction. A 'checking account' is what we call an 'instant access account'. A 'savings account' is not instant access, and thus commands a higher rate of interest proportionate to the time the money is locked away. Is that correct? So it is possible that the money was not in cash, but in some interest-earning account.
But I am now puzzled how the investment income could have been negative, if the money was in checking or savings.
QUOTE(Emperor @ Sat 18th September 2010, 2:14pm)
The funny thing about all these nonprofits banking huge piles of money is that eventually, someone finds a way to steal it.
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QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Sat 18th September 2010, 1:56pm)
I looked up the distinction. A 'checking account' is what we call an 'instant access account'. A 'savings account' is not instant access, and thus commands a higher rate of interest proportionate to the time the money is locked away. Is that correct? So it is possible that the money was not in cash, but in some interest-earning account.
I am not sure if an instant access account can be used for checks or debit cards, but a checking account can. A savings account, on the other hand, cannot be used for either. It generally earns a set interest rate, sometimes dependent on how much money is placed in the savings account but not based on the length of time it is left in the account. Free withdrawals or transfers from a savings account are often limited to a certain number per billing cycle. What I believe you are thinking of is a certificate of deposit, which locks your money away for a certain amount of time. The interest rate you earn is dependent on the amount of money you lock away and on the length of time you lock it away for.
A CD is generally considered a deposit account, so it is possible that the WMF placed money in it. Interest rates these days are pretty terrible, though marginally better than standard savings accounts, so while it is possible, I would think it to be unlikely.
QUOTE
But I am now puzzled how the investment income could have been negative, if the money was in checking or savings.
I haven't read the report, but could some money have been invested in the stock market?
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Sun 5th September 2010, 8:13pm)
QUOTE(Jmh649 @ Sun 5th September 2010, 10:51pm)
This is a really smart strategy. If only our governments would do this. If people or organizations spend beyond there means before they know it much of their incomes goes to interest.
I'm not sure it's a "really smart strategy" to keep $11 million in a checking/savings account and certificates of deposit within a banking system that did so well in 2009, and is looking to repeat in 2010.
Well, naturally it should be split up into separate accounts, all of which are below the FDIC limit (now $250,000 per depositor per insured bank, as of last July). That's a little hard for a business which counts as a single depositor, but a corporation can in theory put $11 million in 44 different banks and now it's all entirely as safe as the credit of the United States.
Of course, nobody does this. If you have $11 mill and you want the Feds to insure it, you put it treasury bonds, which have maturity dates as small as 4-weeks, and in any case are sold on a very liquid market and are essentially as liquid as a large amount of cash in an interest bearing account.
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Sat 18th September 2010, 4:01pm)
Well, naturally it should be split up into separate accounts, all of which are below the FDIC limit.
In the very first audit of the WMF, the auditor mentioned in the report that they had more than the FDIC limit in a single bank account. I would think they've learned since then.
When I read checking/savings, I assume what is meant is a "demand deposit" (see Regulation D for definition, basically a "checking account"), a "savings deposit" (see Regulation D for definition, basically a "savings account"), or, possibly, but probably not appropriately, a "time deposit" (same place for definition, basically a "CD") with a maturity less than 1 year (over a year would not be considered "current assets" and it would be materially incorrect to list them there in the balance sheet).
I'm not sure exactly what GAAP requires though, as the accounting I do is generally on a tax basis, and not a GAAP basis.
Banks are banned by law from paying interest on checking accounts, though there are ways around that (and, actually, I'm not 100% sure if the regulation is still in effect).
I don't see where WMF lists "investments" as negative. The YOY $ change is negative, but not the balance.
QUOTE
If you have $11 mill and you want the Feds to insure it, you put it treasury bonds, which have maturity dates as small as 4-weeks, and in any case are sold on a very liquid market and are essentially as liquid as a large amount of cash in an interest bearing account.
I never thought about that. So the safest (interest bearing) way to save large bundles of cash (assuming the system itself isn't going to collapse, and assuming you don't care about protecting against inflation) is to buy treasury bills rather than putting the money into a savings account. I guess that helps explain how T-bill interest rates can be so low (even lower than savings account rates). (And if you think about the alternatives to T-bills for hoarding lots of wealth I guess it also helps explain the increasing price of gold.)
Of course, if you can get 0.75% higher interest in an average savings account compared to even the 1-year treasuries, that makes it worth $82,500/year to invest that $11 million in savings accounts, enough to hire someone whose only job is to find and maintain the 44 different savings accounts.
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QUOTE(NuclearWarfare @ Sat 18th September 2010, 4:25pm)
QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Sat 18th September 2010, 1:56pm)
I looked up the distinction. A 'checking account' is what we call an 'instant access account'. A 'savings account' is not instant access, and thus commands a higher rate of interest proportionate to the time the money is locked away. Is that correct? So it is possible that the money was not in cash, but in some interest-earning account.
I am not sure if an instant access account can be used for checks or debit cards, but a checking account can. A savings account, on the other hand, cannot be used for either. It generally earns a set interest rate, sometimes dependent on how much money is placed in the savings account but not based on the length of time it is left in the account. Free withdrawals or transfers from a savings account are often limited to a certain number per billing cycle. What I believe you are thinking of is a certificate of deposit, which locks your money away for a certain amount of time. The interest rate you earn is dependent on the amount of money you lock away and on the length of time you lock it away for.
A CD is generally considered a deposit account, so it is possible that the WMF placed money in it. Interest rates these days are pretty terrible, though marginally better than standard savings accounts, so while it is possible, I would think it to be unlikely.
QUOTE
But I am now puzzled how the investment income could have been negative, if the money was in checking or savings.
I haven't read the report, but could some money have been invested in the stock market?
Thank you for the explanation. I don't claim to any competence on this subject. My wife handles the investments.
The 2009 report is here. On p. 2 there is the reference to the negative income.
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For less than $11m you can buy a bank. It is a wonder they don't lend the name to credit cards, financial services etc before the reputation is completely valueless. Work those reserves a little.
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QUOTE(Cock-up-over-conspiracy @ Sat 18th September 2010, 5:31pm)
For less than $11m you can buy a bank.
I wonder how much it would cost to store 220 million nickels.
Edit: that'd take up about the cubic footage of my house...oh well, guess it'd be too expensive to hoard nickels with the money (thus protecting against both inflation and deflation).
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QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Mon 6th September 2010, 1:04am)
As I said long ago, any smart nonprofit would first use a large cash surplus to buy itself a headquarters building. The fact that the WMF hasn't done that, even though the currently dead-miserable real-estate market would make it a breeze, says something about their weird "management style".
I just wanted to bump this up and say I agree totally with this - if they have even a quarter of that amount sitting around, they should buy themselves a building. The only cogent explanation for their not doing so is that they don't think they're going to be around much longer, or maybe they don't think they're going to be in San Francisco much longer. But even then, they could sell the building and get at least some of their money back - it's true that the real estate market in general is shite at the moment, but we know the amounts they're spending on rent there are exhorbitant. Unless they're planning on leaving in the next few weeks, there's simply no justification for that if they have that much money.
Maybe they're afraid the Big Earthquake is gonna hit soon, and they don't want to be stuck with a pile of smouldering rubble?
QUOTE
(Or are they hoarding the money for the off-chance they get sued? Or has someone already embezzled it, and that financial report is complete crap?)
Both of those are legitimate explanations, but knowing what we know about the WMF, it's far more likely that they just don't have any competence in running a non-profit whatsoever, at least financially. (They seem to be getting better at self-promotion and media-distraction though, I'll give them that.)
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QUOTE(anthony @ Sat 18th September 2010, 11:26am)
Banks are banned by law from paying interest on checking accounts, though there are ways around that (and, actually, I'm not 100% sure if the regulation is still in effect).
Pretty sure it isn't, as my checking account has been earning interest (albeit at a rather paltry rate) for at least the past two or three years.
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QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Sat 18th September 2010, 1:34pm)
Pretty sure it isn't, as my checking account has been earning interest (albeit at a rather paltry rate) for at least the past two or three years.
I think he means business checking accounts, in which case I believe he's correct. Personal checking accounts are a different ballgame - I recently asked my so-called "personal banker" about this, when she essentially insisted that I set up a business savings account in order to avoid a $5/month service charge on my business checking account. The interest rate on the former is negligible, but there's apparently some reason why banks want business owners to set up these accounts... and if past experience is any guide, it probably has something to do with bringing about the ultimate ruination of the economy in an even more ruthlessly efficient way than was once considered possible.
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QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 18th September 2010, 6:41pm)
QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Sat 18th September 2010, 1:34pm)
Pretty sure it isn't, as my checking account has been earning interest (albeit at a rather paltry rate) for at least the past two or three years.
I think he means business checking accounts, in which case I believe he's correct. Personal checking accounts are a different ballgame - I recently asked my so-called "personal banker" about this, when she essentially insisted that I set up a business savings account in order to avoid a $5/month service charge on my business checking account. The interest rate on the former is negligible, but there's apparently some reason why banks want business owners to set up these accounts... and if past experience is any guide, it probably has something to do with bringing about the ultimate ruination of the economy in an even more ruthlessly efficient way than was once considered possible.
Sort of. It looks like "checking accounts" are barred from paying interest, but "NOW accounts" are not, and "NOW accounts" are basically checking accounts for individuals. I believe non-profit organizations are also allowed to get NOW accounts.
But I'm still not sure how up-to-date this is. In particular, I'm not sure if it was affected by Gramm–Leach–Bliley in 1999.
By the way, one possible reason your bank wants you to have a savings account rather than a checking account is because they have no reserve requirements with savings accounts (they probably want to increase their leverage to the hilt, thus "bringing about the ultimate ruination of the economy in an even more ruthlessly efficient way than was once considered possible" (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)).
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QUOTE(anthony @ Sat 18th September 2010, 11:53am)
QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 18th September 2010, 6:41pm)
QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Sat 18th September 2010, 1:34pm)
Pretty sure it isn't, as my checking account has been earning interest (albeit at a rather paltry rate) for at least the past two or three years.
I think he means business checking accounts, in which case I believe he's correct. Personal checking accounts are a different ballgame - I recently asked my so-called "personal banker" about this, when she essentially insisted that I set up a business savings account in order to avoid a $5/month service charge on my business checking account. The interest rate on the former is negligible, but there's apparently some reason why banks want business owners to set up these accounts... and if past experience is any guide, it probably has something to do with bringing about the ultimate ruination of the economy in an even more ruthlessly efficient way than was once considered possible.
Sort of. It looks like "checking accounts" are barred from paying interest, but "NOW accounts" are not, and "NOW accounts" are basically checking accounts for individuals. I believe non-profit organizations are also allowed to get NOW accounts.
But I'm still not sure how up-to-date this is. In particular, I'm not sure if it was affected by Gramm–Leach–Bliley in 1999.
By the way, one possible reason your bank wants you to have a savings account rather than a checking account is because they have no reserve requirements with savings accounts (they probably want to increase their leverage to the hilt, thus "bringing about the ultimate ruination of the economy in an even more ruthlessly efficient way than was once considered possible" (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)).
Forget Gramm–Leach–Bliley. Commercial banks could loan to small businesses and act as their banks under the old rules. They just couldn't do it for brokerages, or act as cash sources for big mergers and stock buyouts (basically, they couldn't touch equities).
The larger banks like Bank of America (may they burn in Hell) make most of their money from people paying exhorbitant interest rates on carried-over credit card balances (often jacked up unmercilessly after a late payment that the bank worked very hard to present to you at the last second).
But second only to that as bank revenue source is the ding they nail customers with, when they "overdraw" their checking account and need a transfer from savings. The bank (until very recently) automatically linked the two (you couldn't UNLINK them, in fact), and gave you "overdraft protection." So you were saved the horrid embarrassment of writing a bad check by mistake, a mistake you could never live down. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ohmy.gif)
Instead, you bank would save up your debits, take care of the large ones first (even out of order), and then charge you the overdraft fee on all the small checks or debits, on each one. So instead of one overdraft fee charge on the big check for the mortgage, they got to charge you 10 separate overdraft fees on the next ten small checks and check card transactions that are now in the hold due to it. The fees alone could add up to big money if you didn't have what you thought you had in your account (some check YOU deposited didn't clear, or somebody who paid you electronically was late). Wow, if you count the overdraft fee, each of those Starbuck's coffees actually cost $35. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)
All that is what pays for your "free checking and savings". And why they go bananas if you don't WANT a savings account. In fact, unless you're depositing regularly into your savings account, many banks will charge you. They want that account there and they want it active. They don't give a damn how much is in it-- it's a myth that they make major money loaning out your $100 balance. Where they clean up is when that balance gets tapped on overdraft, and they charge the fee.
So banks worked VERY hard to get people to keep minimum amounts on the checking side, so the above unhappy overdraft would have more chance of happening. It's much like the "rewards" for using your credit card-- all that is to sucker you eventually into carrying a forward balance come month, and hopefully then make a late payment and then end up paying 28% interest on what you have left. It's all smooth and easy and pretty soon you're underwater.
Some of this has gone away with the new laws, which allow customers to turn overdraft off, and require customers to actually request banks to give them overdraft protection (if you don't have it, your debit card merely ceases to work when the account runs dry, much as happens when you reach your credit card limit-- boo hoo). The banks were outraged by this, not only because of the money they would now lose on overdraft fees, but because now they had a lot of paperwork to go through again. There was great wailing, weeping, and nashing of teeth, so I heard from many sources.
Some of the same thing has happened to way banks can jack interest on credit cards also (thanks, Democrats, and screw you, Republicans). But they don't apply to business credit card accounts, so look out. (Naturally, Democrats don't give a fig about small businesses being loan-sharked; that's not their constituents).
===============
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QUOTE(NuclearWarfare @ Sat 18th September 2010, 3:25pm)
QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Sat 18th September 2010, 1:56pm)
QUOTE
But I am now puzzled how the investment income could have been negative, if the money was in checking or savings.
I haven't read the report, but could some money have been invested in the stock market?
One would think that a tax deductible charity would be forbidden to play with donor money on the stock market, but who knows, maybe officers of the corporation can take the tax-free money and churn it a few times through some casinos in Las Vegas for the poor people in Africa. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)
The 2010/2011 financial plan shows not only an ambition to up income and expenditure to $20.m per year bu the grow the cash reserve from $9.1m September 2010 to $13m by June 2011. If the WMF really does achieve spending of $20.4m per annum, then $13m would only represent 64% of annual costs, about 6 months running costs plus contract settlement fees in the case of the operation closing down - probably not an unreasonable reserve holding. And with interest rates so low, there may be little advantage to incurring costs of moving money around beyond transfers between checking and savings account.
Of course $34m dollars could be put to much better use, but I'm not sure the WMF can be faulted on its financial management principles.
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QUOTE(taiwopanfob @ Sat 18th September 2010, 11:09pm)
One would think that a tax deductible charity would be forbidden to play with donor money on the stock market, but who knows, maybe officers of the corporation can take the tax-free money and churn it a few times through some casinos in Las Vegas for the poor people in Africa. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)
All large non profit orgs have to consider how to protect their finances and maximise the returns available to them. Of course these are difficult areas and non profits have led the way in ethical investment practice. There's a good guide here: http://www.commonfund.org/InvestorResource...0Management.pdf
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QUOTE(Avirosa @ Sat 18th September 2010, 3:41pm)
QUOTE(taiwopanfob @ Sat 18th September 2010, 11:09pm)
One would think that a tax deductible charity would be forbidden to play with donor money on the stock market, but who knows, maybe officers of the corporation can take the tax-free money and churn it a few times through some casinos in Las Vegas for the poor people in Africa. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unsure.gif)
All large non profit orgs have to consider how to protect their finances and maximise the returns available to them. Of course these are difficult areas and non profits have led the way in ethical investment practice. There's a good guide here: http://www.commonfund.org/InvestorResource...0Management.pdf
A.virosa
I seem to remember that at the end, a fair number of nonprofits got nailed by Bernard Madoff, who was ostensibly running a managed fund that bought and sold equities. Madoff simply said he had a system for picking which equities to buy and when to sell. He sent his investors lists of stocks he'd bought and sold for them, all (of course) picked in retrospect. Not even any derivatives or shorts, so it wasn't even claimed to be a hedge fund.
Anyway, it's perfectly legal for nonprofits to do this. Any nonprofit with an endowment fund has to pay somebody to manage it, and that's always done by investing it somehow. Of course, in today's economy that has screwed even the honest money managers. Places like Harvard with large funds wish, just like the rest of us wished, that they'd kept it all in gold. I didn't. They didn't.
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QUOTE(anthony @ Sat 18th September 2010, 12:26pm)
Of course, if you can get 0.75% higher interest in an average savings account compared to even the 1-year treasuries, that makes it worth $82,500/year to invest that $11 million in savings accounts, enough to hire someone whose only job is to find and maintain the 44 different savings accounts.
Certainly, you could even incentivize that employee by letting him or her keep all of the complimentary toasters and iPod Nanos that those banks would surely give away to new savings account subscribers.
(They could even convert those toasters to cash with friend-of-WMF Craig Newmark's Craigslist.org.)
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QUOTE(Avirosa @ Sat 18th September 2010, 6:11pm)
Of course $34m dollars could be put to much better use, but I'm not sure the WMF can be faulted on its financial management principles.
A.virosa
Hey, Virus, could you let us know, in a nutshell, what are the 50 or so WMF staff members actually doing functionally that wasn't being done, say, three years ago when the organization seemed to function with about 12 employees?
QUOTE(thekohser @ Sat 18th September 2010, 9:54pm)
QUOTE(Avirosa @ Sat 18th September 2010, 6:11pm)
Of course $34m dollars could be put to much better use, but I'm not sure the WMF can be faulted on its financial management principles.
A.virosa
Hey, Virus, could you let us know, in a nutshell, what are the 50 or so WMF staff members actually doing functionally that wasn't being done, say, three years ago when the organization seemed to function with about 12 employees?
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Sun 19th September 2010, 1:54am)
Hey, Virus, could you let us know, in a nutshell, what are the 50 or so WMF staff members actually doing functionally that wasn't being done ... with about 12 employees?
Nothing.
QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 18th September 2010, 6:25pm)
I just wanted to bump this up and say I agree totally with this - if they have even a quarter of that amount sitting around, they should buy themselves a building. The only cogent explanation for their not doing so is that they don't think they're going to be around much longer ...
Or perhaps that are just so much in a frenzy with current events, responding to stimuli, that they have no long term foresight plan?
As with real life, the big bullshit aspect to any so called democratic society, is that is members really aren't involved or have any say in the truly important decisions such as those around the finances. The idea of 'democracy' or 'freedom' is a wonderful stimulus to get the honey bees working for nothing and giving away their rights, and then the seriously serious decisions are removed from them.
Forget buying a building, they could be building Wiki-ville in Bangalore (or joining in expanding Auroville for that matter, if they wanted to visionary).
If we are looking at best value and greatest effect, I see no reason why they should not cut off all the American flab and move the whole operation to India. There are more English speakers in India, there are more middle class in India, there are as many technically proficient individuals as one might need, and there are far more socially efficient individuals.
Go on Wiki-wankers, be truly revolutionary. Throw off the yoke of WASP supremacism and its inherent additional costs and expenses. Become the 'world' encyclopedia you promised us. No compromise.
Of course, it will never happen because it is all really about Jimmy getting his knob pulled, Sue getting waxed, Mike Godwin flaunting around San Francisco cappuccino bars etc. It is the toughest problem any NPO has to face, how to manage the self interests of the staff and trustees' ego versus the interests of the beneficiaries the NPO was actually set up for.
You could even afford to employ some decent academic fact checkers and copy editors if you did.
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Sun 19th September 2010, 2:54am)
QUOTE(Avirosa @ Sat 18th September 2010, 6:11pm)
Of course $34m dollars could be put to much better use, but I'm not sure the WMF can be faulted on its financial management principles.
A.virosa
Hey, Virus, could you let us know, in a nutshell, what are the 50 or so WMF staff members actually doing functionally that wasn't being done, say, three years ago when the organization seemed to function with about 12 employees?
Well I'm deeply offended - virosa means 'venomous', with 'poisonous sap' or 'of evil odour' and has nothing at all to do with viruses (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/yecch.gif)
There are two separate issues, there's the question about what wider value WMF is, and there's the question about how its managed - and in the specific case - WMF's financial management. I don't see any need for WMF to exist at all, but then I don't see any need for Wikipedia or any of its foul offspring, so from my perspective $11m in the reserves is just a portion of grotesque waste of resources that might otherwise potentially further real human endevour - as I wrote above: $34m could be put to better use. But once you have the legal entity of WMF, and once it has supporters and once those supporters plough money into the organisation, then the question of good financial management arises. If the supporters are content with the Director's use of the funds, then the Directors have a duty to institute apropriate financial management practices and $13m reserves on a $20m annual exenditure isn't unreasonable.
However - the $20m is an ambition which is based on the success of the upcoming fundraising round. This is a an opportunity for anyone who wants to campaign against the absurd waste of money that is WMF, to encourage a 'donation strike'. As Wikipedia plainly doesn't need more than about a $1million a year to keep ticking over and with $8 million projected to be in the bank prior to the 2010 fundraising round , even ardent WPers could see the merits of not feeding the bloated beauracracy for at least a couple of years. Perhaps WR should have a 'Boycott' page with the WMF finance basics set out in simple terms and a list of 'demands' for how WMF should be run. - "No more money till there's reform". ?
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QUOTE(Avirosa @ Sun 19th September 2010, 1:21am)
However - the $20m is an ambition which is based on the success of the upcoming fundraising round. This is a an opportunity for anyone who wants to campaign against the absurd waste of money that is WMF, to encourage a 'donation strike'. As Wikipedia plainly doesn't need more than about a $1million a year to keep ticking over and with $8 million projected to be in the bank prior to the 2010 fundraising round , even ardent WPers could see the merits of not feeding the bloated beauracracy for at least a couple of years. Perhaps WR should have a 'Boycott' page with the WMF finance basics set out in simple terms and a list of 'demands' for how WMF should be run. - "No more money till there's reform". ?
That would be fine, if there was a large number of users who cared about "reform". I don't see that. The admins and the AN/I gamers and even the Grawps seem to like the "encyclopedia" just as it is--and unchanging. So long as they can run the mess in a way that appears "civil" and "responsible", but is actually run like a mafia (off the books), they will continue to celebrate their mess. "Everything's great!"
What the WMF needs is a disaster. A real one. I don't mean an SF earthquake--the servers aren't there. The peninsula could slide into the deep blue ocean, and Wikipedia would stay up and running. A real disaster would be something like a serious IRS audit. Or an FBI investigation. Or perhaps best of all, to see the venture capitalists and "digerati" suddenly go "golly, Jimbo, we don't like you anymore, so get lost!" The personal gifts to the WMF coffers are heavily stimulated by major institutional gifts, and by the regular appearances of Sweet Boy Jimbo in just the right places. If those two items stopped, Sue and Mike's Idiot Show would have a genuine crisis on its hands. One that, given the way they've run the place to date, they might likely not recover from.
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WMF banks $11 million
