Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 12:18 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:12 AM, Zack Exley zex...@wikimedia.org wrote: Maximizing for us means raising our budget with as little negative impact on the projects as possible Where do you find that meaning or any suggestion of it in the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010? https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_principles That is in fact what was meant (evident on the discussion page on Meta): the foundation should aim to maximize fundraising efficiency; or support raised per unit of fundraising activity. Maximizing the activity itself - fundraising 24/7/365.2524 - would reduce the usefulness of the projects. SJ [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Draft_Guiding_principles_with_regards_to_fundraising ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On 25 December 2012 14:00, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: For those outside of the U.S., http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wikimedia-Foundation-Reviews-E38331.htm (2.8, 55%) should resolve correctly. Because Glassdoor is susceptible to sour grapes, it is probably best read in comparison to similar nearby companies. For example: (...) I hope the Board and leadership find some way to exceed the employee satisfaction scores of at least one of those nine others in the coming year. Of the other nine companies, seven have a fairly clear bell curve distribution of rankings (peaking around 3-4) and several hundred comments; the two exceptions are Wikia (four comments) and Twitter (19). In the case of WMF, as well as having a low number of respondents (currently 13, it's had another since your first email), the distribution looks very different - it's skewed to the extremes and has no neutral rankings at all. My gut feeling would be that this is a sign not to place too much weight on it; it's a very small sample, not helped by it being a small organisation, and the data doesn't really look like the theoretically similar companies. The comments are interesting, but any interpretation of the numbers should probably be treated very cautiously. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On Thu Dec 27, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Samuel Klein meta.sj at gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 12:18 PM, James Salsman jsalsman at gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:12 AM, Zack Exley zexley at wikimedia.org wrote: Maximizing for us means raising our budget with as little negative impact on the projects as possible Where do you find that meaning or any suggestion of it in the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010? https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_principles That is in fact what was meant (evident on the discussion page on Meta): the foundation should aim to maximize fundraising efficiency; or support raised per unit of fundraising activity. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Draft_Guiding_principles_with_regards_to_fundraising That appears to be a draft which was never deliberated by or approved by the Board of Trustees. Is there any reason it should take precedence over the Board's unanimous resolution to achieve the highest possible overall financial support for the Wikimedia movement, in terms of both financial totals and the number of individuals making contributions? Maximizing the activity itself - fundraising 24/7/365.2524 - would reduce the usefulness of the projects. I am certainly not suggesting that fundraising occur 24/7, but only that it follow our established traditional patterns in a manner which allows us to pay salaries competitive with similar labor performed in the same area. It is quite clear that relying on the mission in lieu of competitive pay for junior employees does not support the kind of employee retention and satisfaction which the Foundation has enjoyed in the past. On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Matthew Roth mroth at wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:18 AM, James Salsman jsalsman at gmail.com wrote: During the past year has the ratio of the Foundation's top executive pay to the pay of junior staff and contractors increased by more than 50%? James, I'm not going to get too far into the other specifics of this really (for me) perplexing and troubling thread, but I personally wish this piece of your litany would stop Matt, the rest of your message had absolutely nothing about the Foundation's salary ratios in it, but I can understand why it might be the most troubling for you because of the problems that income inequality is causing in society in general. There are three times as many homeless children today as in 1983, a new record high this year: http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/pages/state-of-the-homeless-2012 But how often do we hear about that on the news? salaries have been pegged to be somewhere between similar non-profits and similar tech companies, understanding that our sweet spot is both as a tech company and also as a mission-driven change-the-world type of place. Is this a data-derived conclusion, or was this sweet spot which has resulted in record employee turnover derived without measurement? Can you find any San Francisco nonprofits with worse employee satisfaction scores on Glassdoor.com than the Foundation's? I haven't been able to. We also have excellent benefits. I was recently married and my wife will be joining my health insurance on January 1 because it is more generous than hers (she works at an emergency room in the premier hospital in the area). As someone who believes that Canadian style single payer health care is the only reasonable option for the U.S. at this point, I wonder how much this desensitizes you and your colleagues. Please see http://lanekenworthy.net/2011/07/10/americas-inefficient-health-care-system-another-look this is the most current iteration of a type of thread that I find contributes a great deal of stress to my work here. There are a number of assumptions that strike me as bad faith and many of them are targeted at people I work with (some of them I consider friends), so it is very difficult for me to read this I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone could think my proposal that the salaries of Foundation employees be increased so that none of them are less than 50% of the top executive salary is made in bad faith or targeted towards anyone. Sincerely, James Salsman ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On Dec 27, 2012 10:50 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: this is the most current iteration of a type of thread that I find contributes a great deal of stress to my work here. There are a number of assumptions that strike me as bad faith and many of them are targeted at people I work with (some of them I consider friends), so it is very difficult for me to read this I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone could think my proposal that the salaries of Foundation employees be increased so that none of them are less than 50% of the top executive salary is made in bad faith or targeted towards anyone. I suspect the assumption of bad faith is because he doesn't believe anyone could genuinely propose such a ridiculously bad idea. When limits on such ratios are discussed the usual figure I hear is a limit of 10%. 50% is completely unrealistic. Either you would have to massively overpay your junior staff (wasting donor's money) or you wouldn't be any to attract any experienced senior staff. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: I suspect the assumption of bad faith is because he doesn't believe anyone could genuinely propose such a ridiculously bad idea. When limits on such ratios are discussed the usual figure I hear is a limit of 10%. 50% is completely unrealistic. Either you would have to massively overpay your junior staff (wasting donor's money) or you wouldn't be any to attract any experienced senior staff. As a comparison, Doctors Without Borders/MSF USA had a policy of paying the E.D. no more than 3 times the rate of the entry level positions. When I left at the end of 2004, the entry level salary was $35,000 and the E.D. was $105,000. Not sure what it is now. -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On Dec 28, 2012 12:52 AM, Matthew Roth mr...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I suspect the assumption of bad faith is because he doesn't believe anyone could genuinely propose such a ridiculously bad idea. When limits on such ratios are discussed the usual figure I hear is a limit of 10%. 50% is completely unrealistic. Either you would have to massively overpay your junior staff (wasting donor's money) or you wouldn't be any to attract any experienced senior staff. As a comparison, Doctors Without Borders/MSF USA had a policy of paying the E.D. no more than 3 times the rate of the entry level positions. When I left at the end of 2004, the entry level salary was $35,000 and the E.D. was $105,000. Not sure what it is now. How are they structured? Was there another layer of management at the international level? $105k sounds very low for the top person in an organisation of any significant size. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
Le 27/12/2012 21:34, Thomas Dalton a écrit : On Dec 27, 2012 10:50 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: this is the most current iteration of a type of thread that I find contributes a great deal of stress to my work here. There are a number of assumptions that strike me as bad faith and many of them are targeted at people I work with (some of them I consider friends), so it is very difficult for me to read this I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone could think my proposal that the salaries of Foundation employees be increased so that none of them are less than 50% of the top executive salary is made in bad faith or targeted towards anyone. I suspect the assumption of bad faith is because he doesn't believe anyone could genuinely propose such a ridiculously bad idea. When limits on such ratios are discussed the usual figure I hear is a limit of 10%. 50% is completely unrealistic. Either you would have to massively overpay your junior staff (wasting donor's money) or you wouldn't be any to attract any experienced senior staff. Hello Thomas, are you saying that NOBODY can and will do a good job for five times less money? There are extremely talented people in the third world, and extremely passionated people in the first world, that may accept such a pay. I'm dubious about your statement. Cheers. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On Dec 28, 2012 1:02 AM, cyrano cyrano.faw...@gmail.com wrote: Le 27/12/2012 21:34, Thomas Dalton a écrit : On Dec 27, 2012 10:50 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: this is the most current iteration of a type of thread that I find contributes a great deal of stress to my work here. There are a number of assumptions that strike me as bad faith and many of them are targeted at people I work with (some of them I consider friends), so it is very difficult for me to read this I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone could think my proposal that the salaries of Foundation employees be increased so that none of them are less than 50% of the top executive salary is made in bad faith or targeted towards anyone. I suspect the assumption of bad faith is because he doesn't believe anyone could genuinely propose such a ridiculously bad idea. When limits on such ratios are discussed the usual figure I hear is a limit of 10%. 50% is completely unrealistic. Either you would have to massively overpay your junior staff (wasting donor's money) or you wouldn't be any to attract any experienced senior staff. Hello Thomas, are you saying that NOBODY can and will do a good job for five times less money? There are extremely talented people in the third world, and extremely passionated people in the first world, that may accept such a pay. I'm dubious about your statement. Well, I suppose any is a bit of an exaggeration. It would be extremely difficult though. Why would someone from the third world come to San Francisco and accept a salary 5 times lower than they could get at a similar organisation ? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 4:57 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: On Dec 28, 2012 12:52 AM, Matthew Roth mr...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I suspect the assumption of bad faith is because he doesn't believe anyone could genuinely propose such a ridiculously bad idea. When limits on such ratios are discussed the usual figure I hear is a limit of 10%. 50% is completely unrealistic. Either you would have to massively overpay your junior staff (wasting donor's money) or you wouldn't be any to attract any experienced senior staff. As a comparison, Doctors Without Borders/MSF USA had a policy of paying the E.D. no more than 3 times the rate of the entry level positions. When I left at the end of 2004, the entry level salary was $35,000 and the E.D. was $105,000. Not sure what it is now. How are they structured? Was there another layer of management at the international level? $105k sounds very low for the top person in an organisation of any significant size. That's what the E.D. probably thought :) and it was definitely scuttlebutt among folks at the office. MSF was structured in some ways like WMF and its chapters. MSF USA was a non-operational chapter of the overall MSF, meaning that we raised funds and did recruitment of volunteers, but we were not allowed to organize any operations (i.e. missions in the field to administer aid). The five operational organizations were all in Europe: France, UK, Spain, Switzerland and Netherlands. Each of the 19 chapters had it's own organizational hierarchy. I'm not sure about the compensation of the other chapters at MSF, but I imagine they were not compensated too much higher. This was one of the points of pride in maintaining the golden rule there (15% of money raised spent on admin, 85% spent on programs), so salaries were lower than peers like the IRC and others (ironically, another point of pride and similarity with us is that MSF also moved away from taking govt money). MSF USA got its first operational mission in Guatemala in 2004 (soon followed by Nigeria). I imagine that trend has increased as the chapter matured so to speak. Sorry to digress. -Matthew -- Matthew Roth Global Communications Manager Wikimedia Foundation +1.415.839.6885 ext 6635 www.wikimediafoundation.org *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
Le 27/12/2012 22:12, Thomas Dalton a écrit : Well, I suppose any is a bit of an exaggeration. It would be extremely difficult though. Why would someone from the third world come to San Francisco and accept a salary 5 times lower than they could get at a similar organisation ? I don't understand how it matters, Why. His or her reasons are his or her owns. Though I never met to imply that he or her should work in one of the most expensive places of Earth. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:40 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: ... As Zack noted earlier this month, banners are down until the end-of-year push. This has not changed. From December 26 to Dec 31 we'll begin showing banners again to everyone for a final push to the year end goal. That's a huge relief. I was afraid those comments of December 4th had been superseded by his and his employees' subsequent comments. Cheers, James ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
On 25 December 2012 12:49, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: That's a huge relief. I was afraid those comments of December 4th had been superseded by his and his employees' subsequent comments. Your posts are assuming a ridiculous degree of bad faith, where you start from your own confusion and extrapolate downwards. If you try not to do that, you might get results more in accordance with reality. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
Your posts are assuming a ridiculous degree of bad faith, where you you start from your own confusion and extrapolate downwards we've stopped fundraising this year -- December 21 http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Fundraising_2012diff=4885494oldid=4884949 we're hoping to reach our US$25 million goal in the next few days -- December 14 http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-December/123043.html Essentially equivalent comments have been made to me in private. For those outside of the U.S., http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wikimedia-Foundation-Reviews-E38331.htm (2.8, 55%) should resolve correctly. Because Glassdoor is susceptible to sour grapes, it is probably best read in comparison to similar nearby companies. For example: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/WIKIA-Reviews-E428648.htm (4.5, 100%) http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9079.htm (4.0, 90%) http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Facebook-Reviews-E40772.htm (4.6, 94%) http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Twitter-Reviews-E100569.htm (3.7, 56%) http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Apple-Reviews-E1138.htm (3.9, 82%) http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Oracle-Reviews-E1737.htm (3.2, 63%) http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Intuit-Reviews-E2293.htm (3.7, 79%) http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Adobe-Reviews-E1090.htm (3.7, 84%) http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VMware-Reviews-E12830.htm (3.3, 63%) I hope the Board and leadership find some way to exceed the employee satisfaction scores of at least one of those nine others in the coming year. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] fundraising status?
James, Merry Christmas. I feel most of your points have already been addressed. Two quick comments, that others also asked about: * As Zack noted earlier this month, banners are down until the end-of-year push. This has not changed. From December 26 to Dec 31 we'll begin showing banners again to everyone for a final push to the year end goal. * I was also confused by the slide on reserves in the November monthly report, and looked into it. Let me correct a statement I made yesterday: reserves were projected to be at 6 months of expenses in October, and have stayed above 6.3 months. For the first time this year there are two different ways to measure expenses, thanks to the FDC budget, which allowed the confusion. For details, see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#Reserves SJ On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:29 PM, James Salsman jsals...@gmail.com wrote: SJ, I have been looking for the commitment you mentioned in Board and related records, but I can not find it: We have committed to ending the active banner-driven fundraising once we meet our targets. Does that commitment take precedence over the unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010 that Nemo pointed out at https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_principles which directs the Executive Director to implement ... 1) Maximizing public support: Fundraising activities in the Wikimedia movement should generally be directed at achieving the highest possible overall financial support for the Wikimedia movement, in terms of both financial totals and the number of individuals making contributions? If so, could you please share the background and Board deliberation records pertaining to it? I am concerned that the Foundation is bowing to the wishes of op-ed critiques in the press to the exclusion of the Board's unanimous resolutions. Again, I would not be so concerned if it were not for the evidence of the deception regarding measured fundraising message effectiveness, the nearly two million dollars in missing reserve funds, the sharply widening ratio between executive and junior staff pay, the high staff turnover, late vital projects, insufficient staff for the Education Program, employee dissatisfaction and below par compensation reported on Glassdoor.com, lack of a meaningfully wide call for community consultation or reasonable numbers of community members commenting on the recent narrowing focus changes, and lack of telepresence options for Wikimania attendees. Many of these issues dwarf the ignominious events of the Foundation's past, so I hope you, the other trustees, and the Foundation leadership will address all of them swiftly. Sincerely, James Salsman -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
