Thanks for the reply, Erik. To clarify my figures, I included Wikimania travel in the travel number, and staff development in the staffing costs. In any case, my argument wasn't that Wikimedia was misspending its funds. I don't think that's true. I'm sure there are perfectly reasonable explanations for $120k in staff expenditures per employee, and over $15k in travel costs per employee. The amounts merely demonstrate that the WMF isn't, and doesn't need to be, a paragon of frugality.
Somewhat OT, yes, but -- the point was simply that the WMF is at a stage of organizational development where short-staffing and poverty are no longer its defining elements, and can no longer be the core of a fundraising appeal. To me that means the conversion rate of readers to donors, and the gender parity in donors, are of less than pressing concern (as suggested by emirjp's e-mail and rupert's reply). Nathan On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 1:03 AM, Erik Moeller <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:42 PM, Nathan <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey Nathan, > > a bit OT from the thread title, but just clarifying a couple of points: > >> * The WMF spends over $2 million on fundraising alone > > In FY 2010-11, WMF raised $23M in contributions, not counting $ > restricted to future time periods. In the same time period, $2.142M > expenses were allocated to fundraising, including $556K in credit card > processing fees. [1][2] That's altogether less than 10 cents on the > dollar, which by the standards of charity watchdog organizations, is > qualified as an excellent fundraising efficiency (cf. [3][4]). This > includes very different types of fundraising activity (grant-writing > and grant management, donor cultivation, usability testing of credit > card forms, etc.). > >> * The travel budget is nearly $2m (that's right, two million dollars >> in travel costs) > > The 2011-12 travel budget is $1.742M [5]. A little bit of detail as to > how this breaks out is included in the Audited Financials FAQ [1], but > in a nutshell: > > * WMF is a global organization and is doing work on the ground in many > corners of the world, in partnership with chapters where they exist, > and WMF staff routinely have to travel internationally as a normal > part of their day-to-day work; > * WMF sponsors volunteer travel extensively, for Wikimania, for > hackathons, for WMF site visits and meetings, and for many other > purposes; > * Many contractors work for WMF from all over the world, and it's part > of the cost of doing business in this way that you bring people > together for face-to-face meetings on a regular basis. > > Travel is regulated by the WMF travel policy which ensures that > individual travel expenses are not excessive or profligate. [6] > >> * The budget includes a whopping $14 million on staffing costs (at the >> planned 117 number of staff, that is nearly $120k per staff member) > > The 2010-11 staffing budget is $13.3M. [5] Staffing costs include > payroll taxes, recruiting costs, and benefits, and of course pay bands > for different roles vary significantly, but are consistent with > similar non-profit organizations, i.e. below the market rate paid at > for-profit companies. > > More background about the guiding principles of Wikimedia's > compensation practices can be found in [7]. > >> * The last fundraiser sent over $6 million to chapters, with little >> insight or transparency into how that money is spent > > Chapters processing donations in the 2010 fundraiser were required, as > part of their participation, to commit to various obligations. See [8] > for the Wikimedia UK agreement as an example. Specifically with regard > to transparency, WMF, community, and chapters have worked together to > ensure that key information about chapter activities and financial > information can be easily found. [9] > > At its July 2011 Board meeting, the WMF Board of Trustees agreed to a > letter regarding fundraising accountability [10] which further > emphasized principles of accountability, transparency, and fairness, > and led to shifting chapters increasingly towards applying for grants > to fund program work. Program plans both for chapters receiving grants > and processing payments through the fundraiser are shared and reviewed > publicly. [11] > >> * The number of staff is planned to more than double between 2009-10 >> and 2011-12, with almost 70% of that increase attributed to non-tech >> staff > > The planned staffing increase from FY 2009 to FY 2012 is from 50 to > 117 (+67). [12] In the same time period, tech staffing specifically is > projected to grow from 22 to 50 (+28). That's 41.8% of the increase, > not 30%. The tech share is higher in the current fiscal year, where it > accounts for 56% of the planned staffing growth. > > Simply put, the Global Development and Community Department did not > exist and were newly created; WMF has decided to tackle new areas of > work that never happened before, as exemplified e.g. by the Summer of > Research, the Global Education Program, etc. > >> And, let's be honest - aside from the $3m or so spent on hosting, > > The costs that you find labeled "Internet hosting" in the Annual Plan > should never be confused with the cost of hosting Wikipedia. Those are > two very different numbers (and we should make this clearer in the > next plan). The "hosting cost" only covers bandwidth and operating > expenses for running our sever farms. > > There's a separate cost center called "capital expenditures" which > covers actual hardware purchases ($2.6M budgeted in 2011-12). To > arrive at a meaningful "cost of hosting Wikipedia" (without any > software improvements) one would have to back out of that experimental > projects like Wikimedia Labs, but further add essential engineering > staffing and contractors. > >> But the 11-12 plan called for the Visual Editor and >> Wikimedia Labs to go into initial production mode in December 2011 - >> which is in two days, without any recent announcements or updates >> about either improvement. (Labs closed beta has 13 users in its active >> list, defined as more than 1 edit in the last 30 days. Only 2 have >> more than 10 edits in that period.). > > Updates can always be found in Wikimedia's monthly engineering report. > The October report is here: > http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/11/03/wikimedia-engineering-october-2011-report/ > > As noted there, labs has been launched for first project-level access. > Projects are listed here: > https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Ask/-5B-5BResource-20Type::project-5D-5D/-3FMember > > The goal, as stated in the annual plan, was to "develop [a] sandbox > for research, prototyping, and tools development, with initial > hardware build-out and first project access by December 2011." This > goal has been exceeded thanks to good progress at the NOLA hackathon > which enabled us to give first individuals (including non-WMF > staffers) access to labs instances before then. (Edit counts on the > labsconsole wiki aren't a useful measure of activity as this is about > providing virtualized hardware to volunteers, while the console merely > serves as an administrative front-end.) > > We're now focusing on solidifying the architecture and infrastructure, > adding toolserver-like DB replication capabilities, etc. > > As for the Visual Editor, we're still aiming to deploy a first > user-facing prototype in December. As you can see by following the > recent commits [13], the current codebase is now being merged into a > MediaWiki extension which makes it possible to invoke the editor > (initially only in a sandboxed mode). > > On the topic of diversity, I do think as Wikimedia engages in more and > more specific ways to advance its mission (e.g. all the work with > cultural institutions), we're creating new avenues for asking for > support and receiving it. WMF is simply focusing its efforts on the > one avenue which has always yielded the highest return: asking our > users for support. As long as record numbers answer that call every > year, it's legitimately the highest priority to focus on improving it > further. > > All best, > Erik > > [1] > http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/7/72/Audit_FAQ_2011_Final.pdf > [2] > http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/ac/FINAL_10_11From_KPMG.pdf > [3] > http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=glossary.word&word=Fundraising%20Efficiency&mid=1&cid=19&print=1 > [4] http://supportingadvancement.com/faq/cost_per_dollar_raised.htm > [5] > http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/3/37/2011-12_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE_.pdf > (p.53) > [6] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Travel_Policy > [7] > http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/2/2a/Wikimedia_Foundation_Compensation_Practices.pdf > [8] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Fundraiser/Agreement > [9] For example, via http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports > [10] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2011-08-03#Appended: > [11] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Plans_2011-2012 > [12] > http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/3/37/2011-12_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE_.pdf > (p. 36) > [13] > http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?path=%2Ftrunk%2Fextensions%2FVisualEditor&title=Special%3ACode%2FMediaWiki > -- > Erik Möller > VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation > > Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate > > _______________________________________________ > 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
