On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 7:16 AM, Gerard Meijssen <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Hoi,
> I had a read and I would like to know how much time and effort is involved
> in the reporting requirement.
That absolutely depends on the type of entity and complexity of finances,
and on how neat its ongoing record-keeping is. For a small user group with
a few projects a year, no staff, and adequate record-keeping (e.g. on a
simple spreadsheet) in real time, a financial report can take as little as
20 minutes. For larger more complex entities, a financial report might
take hours or even more than a day.
The activity report, likewise, can be a single half-page for a small group
that has had 2-3 types of well-understood activities, or it can be a 20page
report with details, descriptions, graphs, models etc. Again, the more
real-time tracking you've made (perhaps in the context of a project grant,
or just your monthly or quarterly reports), the easier the annual reports
are.
Remember that the public annual activity report is an _already existing_
contractual obligation with all movement orgs. I.e. this moment in time is
not the first time groups are asked to do this; it is merely the first time
there might be real-world implications to remaining out of this basic level
of compliance for a long time.
> I honestly believe that the point of reporting can be many things. There
> has to be a balance though between what you ask for and what it costs to
> produce this information.
>
Agreed.
> Has this question ever been addressed.
Yes. We have revised our report forms several times, always to make them
clearer, crisper, and easier to just fill out, and we are letting the
smaller/lighter end of the scale be exceedingly flexible (e.g. there is no
set format or form for user groups' activity report. It literally can be a
half page listing a couple of meetups and an editathon).
> Also with penalties riding on the reporting, what is the benefit of this
> and what is the cost of people not attending because of this insistence on
> compliance or else ?
>
As you say just above, the benefits ("the point") of reporting "can be many
things". To us, beyond some basic level of due-diligence on our part in
terms of being reasonably assured funds were spent as intended, the main
benefits of reports are opportunities for learning and sharing what is
learned across relevant practitioners in the rest of the movement. Toward
that end, too, we have _replaced_ some reporting requirements with the
option(!) to compose a learning pattern based on your experience, rather
than submit a full report.
Since we consider this activity and basic compliance bar to be quite, quite
low, it is our position that any group that cannot meet it and has no
exceptional mitigating circumstances, is probably a group on which movement
resources would be better spent in mentorship and local support, than in
internatonal travel for a working meeting with active, practicing groups.
It is implicit in the fact we let groups return to compliance before
determining final eligibility to attend the conference that we think many
of the groups that were non-compliance when we first published this table
only need a little encouragement to get their act together and improve
their governance enough to meet the criteria.
We do intend to work with those groups that won't achieve compliance in
time to see how we (or other movement resources) can help them get back on
their feet.
A.
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