hm, wouldn't that be more a question that would suit more the board? It seems a rather strategic one.
Lodewijk 2010/3/4 Geoffrey Plourde <[email protected]> > Veronique, what would be the maximum we'd want to go with a reserve fund. I > know that with Army Emergency Relief for example, they get dinged by Charity > Navigator for having massive reserves of money. What do you think the > maximum would be for Wikimedia? > > > > > ________________________________ > From: Veronique Kessler <[email protected]> > To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <[email protected]> > Cc: [email protected] > Sent: Wed, March 3, 2010 6:41:36 PM > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Building up the reserves > > Hi, > > The question of what is the right reserve amount is a common one. I've > hear of ranges from 0 to 3 months to 3 years. I agree that one year is > a good measure and that could be increased or decreased depending on a > variety of circumstances both internal and external. Many non-profits > may have a smaller than optimal reserve because they simply don't have > more funds to keep in a reserve. We are quite fortunate to have the > amount of reserves that we do. As we have operated over the last few > years with a single main fundraiser, our revenue tends to peak over a 4 > month period while we have expenses all year. Right after a fundraiser, > we have more reserves than we do right before the fundraiser begins > because we have months of the year where there is little revenue but > expenses are about the same. > > Veronique > > > > Andrew Gray wrote: > > On 3 March 2010 13:35, effe iets anders <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> I assume you do realize that this 12.5M is /after/ the fundraiser, hence > >> including the huge amount of donations that has been raised? > >> > > > > ...as, indeed, was last December's glut. > > > > Looking at both mid-year and end-year reports, the cashflow status > > becomes clearer: > > > > Assets (cash) versus monthly running costs (estimated) > > > > mid-2007 - - - - - $1m > > end-2007 - - - - - $2.3m - - - - - $0.21m - - - - - 11 mos. > > mid-2008 - - - - - $3m - - - - - ($0.32m) - - - - - 9 mos. > > end-2008 - - - - - $6.7m - - - - - $0.43m - - - - - 15 mos. > > mid-2009 - - - - - $6.2m - - - - - ($0.54m) - - - - - 11 mos. > > end-2009 - - - - - $12.5m - - - - - $0.65m - - - - - 19 mos. > > > > Reserves jump dramatically each year-end report, but then idle until > > the next fundraiser - as running costs increase roughly linearly, > > though, the average number of months funding in reserve seesaws. > > > > I don't know what's considered a normal margin to have - I'd presume > > around a year or so is considered quite good - but hopefully someone > > more au fait with standard practice in the field could enlighten us. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
