Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Report Options

[WordBomb]

Because I'm a valued donor, I've received a personal email from Sue Gardner, alerting me to the existence of the 2007/2008 Annual Report!

Please have a read and let me know if there's anything interesting in there.

[Derktar]

Financial Breakdowns on Pages 6 and 7
Benefactors on Page 18:

Major benefactors - ($50,000 or more)
>> Anonymous
>> Anonymous
>> Alan Bauer
>> Vinod and Neeru Khosla
>> Open Society Institute
>> Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Patrons - ($15,000 to $49,999)
>> Answers Corp
>> John and Frances Beck Foundation
>> Craigslist Inc.
>> Phillip Greenspun
>> Richard Merit
>> RetailMeNot.com
>> Two Sigma Investments LLC
>> Wikihow Inc.

Leading donors - ($5000 to $14,999)
>> Crown Clothing Corp
>> Burt and Diana Cutler Family Foundation
>> Graphics Press LLC
>> John Little
>> Michael Minor
>> Sims / Mae’s Foundation Inc.
>> Time Warner Telecom Holdings
>> Wikia Inc.

Sustaining donors - ($1000 to $4999)
>> Rau Abhari Fund
>> Nitin Agarwal
>> Reem Alasfour
>> Anonymous
>> M. Amy Batchelor
>> Dominique Benoit
>> Biegelsen Foundation
>> Roger Brissenden
>> Brooke Burgess
>> Daniel and Margaret Carper Foundation
>> Harald and Hildegard Dahms
>> John Dash
>> Steven Dauber
>> Mark Dixon
>> Gregory D. Dyer
>> John Eckstein
>> Jill Efting
>> EIF: Entertainment Industry Foundation
>> Stanley Eisenberg
>> Ezekiel Films Pty. Ltd
>> Joel Garringer
>> Tracy Gittins
>> Joseph Goodman
>> Tsuyoshi Goto
>> David Grubb
>> Pearl M. & Julia J. Harmon Foundation
>> Urban Hafner
>> Robert D. Hall and Ana F. Barreto
>> Hamilton Foundation
>> RuthAnn Harnisch
>> Amber Haubold
>> Mel Huang
>> Hecht Family Charitable Fund
>> Clark Higgins
>> Hitz Foundation
>> Gene Hodges
>> Francis Hogle
>> Claudia A. Holz and William S. Lamb
>> Joichi Ito
>> Joby Foundation
>> Kaz Foundation for Social Advancement
>> Robert Keeley
>> Kevin Klinekole
>> Donald and Jill Knuth
>> Max Levchin
>> Lawrence Lessig
>> Bill Liao
>> Mary E. Liebman
>> Andrew MacMillan
>> Steve Madonna
>> Lauren Marino
>> Action Merchant
>> Mark Merritt
>> Jeff Moe
>> Farhad Mohit
>> Rodman W. Moorhead III Fund
>> Nora Roberts Foundation
>> Gail O’Brien
>> Robert O’Neill
>> Alex Poon
>> Max Pucher
>> Michael Putch
>> Fabio Rossello
>> Frank Rothacker
>> Christopher W. Ruddy
>> Ryan Salsbury
>> Charles R. Schwab
>> Serad Holdings Ltd.
>> Skinner Fund
>> Robert Silajev
>> Social Text Inc.
>> Gary Steinmetz
>> Tyko Strassen
>> Edward Swartz
>> Mattias Soderheilm
>> Titcomb Foundation
>> Melody Vogelmann
>> Michael Webb
>> Graham Weston
>> David Wilburn
>> Chris White
>> Wohler Technologies Inc.
>> Michael R. Zahniser

Oh and on page 14 in the Technology section they mention Flagged revisions, curious that those haven't been implemented yet.

[GlassBeadGame]

Because I'm a valued donor, I've received a personal email from Sue Gardner, alerting me to the existence of the 2007/2008 Annual Report!

Please have a read and let me know if there's anything interesting in there.

Thanks. Having you around makes giving them a single penny unnecessary.

[anthony]

Major benefactors - ($50,000 or more)
>> Anonymous
>> Anonymous
>> Alan Bauer
>> Vinod and Neeru Khosla
>> Open Society Institute
>> Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

I take it Alan, Barbara, and Elisabeth Bauer are all completely unrelated?

This post has been edited by anthony: Fri 31st October 2008, 1:26am

[dogbiscuit]

Well, the whole of WMF will be banned for outing LiquidGhoul and the Israeli Chapter need to learn quickly about the dangers of unattended baggage.

Aside from that, their budget relies on ever larger donations from benefactors, so keep up the good work and they go down the pan.

[EricBarbour]

>> Donald and Jill Knuth
>> Lawrence Lessig
>> Joichi Ito
>> Charles R. Schwab

Seriously, I would have expected these people to know better than to keep making contributions to the WMF. Perhaps they're still blinded by the magical Jimbo Reality Distortion Field.

[cyofee]

Sue Gardner earned $309K, and Mike Godwin got up to $341K this year. The "office" of the executive director is to get $472K next year, and their celebrity legal counsel will only get $357K.

Nice to see that the WMF is as frugal as it should be and that it's spending the donation money well.

It took more than 30.000 donations of $10 to pay for Sue Gardner this year. Remember that when they ask for your "help".

This post has been edited by cyofee: Fri 31st October 2008, 8:55am

[Neil]

That $309k for "office of the executive director" covers both the Executive Director (Gardner) and Deputy Director's (Erik Moller) salaries, fundraising and travel expenses, and consultancy and contracting costs. It's not just "Sue Gardner's salary".

And the $341k for Legal includes Mike Godwin's salary, yes, but also "external counsel and consultant fees, filing fees, etc."

Still seems like a lot, though. And most annual reports for charities I've read break those kind of things down, rather than lump them together in chunks.

This post has been edited by Neil: Fri 31st October 2008, 9:39am

[cyofee]

That $309k for "office of the executive director" covers both the Executive Director (Gardner) and Deputy Director's (Erik Moller) salaries, fundraising and travel expenses, and consultancy and contracting costs. It's not just "Sue Gardner's salary".

And the $341 for Legal includes Mike Godwin's salary, yes, but also "external counsel and consultant fees, filing fees, etc."

Still seems like a lot, though. And most annual reports for charities I've read break those kind of things down, rather than lump them together in chunks.

The last sentence is precisely my point. If other salaries, traveling expenses, consultant fees and everything else was a meaningful amount, they would certainly split it to avoid the possible misunderstanding that Sue takes all $309K for herself.

Since they didn't split it up, we're left to conclude that provoding a more detailed expenses summary would make them (or just her?) look bad.

It's always possible that whoever made the reports wasn't very competent, which wouldn't be unusual for the WMF.

[Neil]

That $309k for "office of the executive director" covers both the Executive Director (Gardner) and Deputy Director's (Erik Moller) salaries, fundraising and travel expenses, and consultancy and contracting costs. It's not just "Sue Gardner's salary".

And the $341 for Legal includes Mike Godwin's salary, yes, but also "external counsel and consultant fees, filing fees, etc."

Still seems like a lot, though. And most annual reports for charities I've read break those kind of things down, rather than lump them together in chunks.

The last sentence is precisely my point. If other salaries, traveling expenses, consultant fees and everything else was a meaningful amount, they would certainly split it to avoid the possible misunderstanding that Sue takes all $309K for herself.

Since they didn't split it up, we're left to conclude that provoding a more detailed expenses summary would make them (or just her?) look bad.

It's always possible that whoever made the reports wasn't very competent, which wouldn't be unusual for the WMF.

It's certainly possible, although I'm more inclined to believe a passive lack of competence (or caring) rather than active nefariousness. Could be a fault of the report compiler, or of the financial person who submitted the figures to the compiler. That being said, they were probably including what they were told to include, to the level of detail to which they were told. So it may be on the part of whoever that would have been. I don't know.

[KStreetSlave]

It's not really that much. For instance associates at the firm I worked at last year started at around $160,000/yr before bonus. Fresh out of law school. An attorney with Mike's history would likely be making significantly more in salary than his entire department has budgeting. Consider, that Mike surely doesn't do all the legal work himself and probably deals with external counsel (especially since the report mentions that, though it could be referring to the external counsel from before Mike was hired). A firm charging $500/hr for 25 hours of litigation work over the life of a single case just made $12,500 from the foundation. Start stacking up several cases a year, and the legal costs definitely add up.

Simultaneously within the ED's office budget, you're splitting it between two salaries, travel costs (which we know are frequent within the foundation), and various other consulting expenses. Even at a reasonable $125,000 each for Sue and Erik, that's not leaving very much money left over for the consultants and for travel.

So no, I don't think it's excessive. No offense Cyofee, but do your research before nerdraging.

[One]

It's not really that much. For instance associates at the firm I worked at last year started at around $160,000/yr before bonus. Fresh out of law school. An attorney with Mike's history would likely be making significantly more in salary than his entire department has budgeting. Consider, that Mike surely doesn't do all the legal work himself and probably deals with external counsel (especially since the report mentions that, though it could be referring to the external counsel from before Mike was hired). A firm charging $500/hr for 25 hours of litigation work over the life of a single case just made $12,500 from the foundation. Start stacking up several cases a year, and the legal costs definitely add up.

Yeah. Law firm salaries are just absurd that way, but being council for a non-profit is not going to earn as much as a big law firm. Similarly, academics, judges typically make less than they could make at a law firm, but the work is thought to be much better.

At any rate, you're right that his salary is not obviously excessive.

[GlassBeadGame]

It's not really that much. For instance associates at the firm I worked at last year started at around $160,000/yr before bonus. Fresh out of law school. An attorney with Mike's history would likely be making significantly more in salary than his entire department has budgeting. Consider, that Mike surely doesn't do all the legal work himself and probably deals with external counsel (especially since the report mentions that, though it could be referring to the external counsel from before Mike was hired). A firm charging $500/hr for 25 hours of litigation work over the life of a single case just made $12,500 from the foundation. Start stacking up several cases a year, and the legal costs definitely add up.

Yeah. Law firm salaries are just absurd that way, but being council for a non-profit is not going to earn as much as a big law firm. Similarly, academics, judges typically make less than they could make at a law firm, but the work is thought to be much better.

At any rate, you're right that his salary is not obviously excessive.

Errors are likely in both direction. The hourly rate of an attorney representing a non-profit is grossly over-estimated at $500. The number of hours involved in litigation is seriously underestimated at 25. Also it is likely that EFF would take on some of the load. EFF and WMF at least frequently appear together in puffed-up press releases.

[KStreetSlave]

It's not really that much. For instance associates at the firm I worked at last year started at around $160,000/yr before bonus. Fresh out of law school. An attorney with Mike's history would likely be making significantly more in salary than his entire department has budgeting. Consider, that Mike surely doesn't do all the legal work himself and probably deals with external counsel (especially since the report mentions that, though it could be referring to the external counsel from before Mike was hired). A firm charging $500/hr for 25 hours of litigation work over the life of a single case just made $12,500 from the foundation. Start stacking up several cases a year, and the legal costs definitely add up.

Yeah. Law firm salaries are just absurd that way, but being council for a non-profit is not going to earn as much as a big law firm. Similarly, academics, judges typically make less than they could make at a law firm, but the work is thought to be much better.

At any rate, you're right that his salary is not obviously excessive.

Errors are likely in both direction. The hourly rate of an attorney representing a non-profit is grossly over-estimated at $500. The number of hours involved in litigation is seriously underestimated at 25. Also it is likely that EFF would take on some of the load. EFF and WMF at least frequently appear together in puffed-up press releases.

Over-estimated? Possibly. A large NY or LA general practice firm may well charge $300/hr for junior associates doing research for litigation, but less for document review or due diligence work. Depending on the matter, the WMF might request a partner who is going to bill more. With regard to litigation, it's possible that the time load is not that great, since I'd venture to guess that most cases involving the WMF have a very good chance of being dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, something that takes less research time than developing a merits argument.

Anyway, my point wasn't to play realistic numbers necessarily but to highlight that the budget for legal and the ED department weren't seriously unreasonable.

[EricBarbour]

Someone posted the link to the annual report on Reddit.

So I posted a link to Wikipedia Review.
And of course, people started voting it down.