Talk:Wikimedia budget

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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) Reply

Issues raised on Wikimedia-L mailing list:

• Total budget of 42ドル.1 million US or (depending on page reviewed) 46ドル million US, seems high (Users Geni and Beria Lima)
• When adding together total income from previous year (39ドル.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)
• Wikimania travel is 255,000ドル for board, staff, volunteers; previous year (2011-12) was 96,000ドル. 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)

• 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) Reply
  • 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) Reply

• 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]
• ...
• ...

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

Many Wikimedia institutions are becoming grant-makers; that's part of our future. We need to start 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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

Q: From [3] -- "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ドル. 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ドル are reserved solely for distribution as Wikimedia Grants. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:48, 2 August 2012 (UTC) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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) Reply

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 -- 400ドルK -- the figure on page 55 includes Participation Support and Wikimania Scholarships. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 01:45, 2 August 2012 (UTC) Reply