While there is no absolute requirement to spend money within a year,
there is a requirement to justify your reserves. Having big reserves
just because you didn't get around to spending it isn't going to sit
very well. Transferring more to the WMF is an option, but we don't
want to end up with raising funds for the WMF looking like our primary
mission (that wouldn't necessarily preclude charity status, but it
would complicate things - it may also not sit well with the
membership). The big question is, is transferring the funds to the WMF
going to further our mission better than spending it ourselves in a
rush? That's not easy to answer...
On 20/06/2011, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
To deal with these points one by one;
* Charity status - a bit of a change of tack here. We are seeking a meeting
with the Charity Commission to work out some issues face to face, and the
objective is to submit a revised application in August.
* Recruitment - We're recruiting the Chapter Manager position and the Office
Manager position. The logic is that the senior post will have a very heavy
input into the development of our staff structure, which is as it should be
- while there is an obvious workload for the Office Manager to get on with.
* Budget/underspend - yes, we will be underspent on staff, we're
overspending on some other areas (for instance, the Opportunity Fund, where
we haven't yet said no to a proposal from an individual for money to make
something cool happen).
The way we are working is to look at the long-term development of the
organisation. Thinking "OMG we have money we must spend it now!" is not the
right way to take decisions. The Charity Commission says charities need to
spend money "reasonably promptly" to fulfill their objects and that is what
we intend to do, but "reasonably promptly" does not require us to spend
money within 12 months of receipt.
We need to develop an outline 2012 Budget by October 1st (this is one of the
fundraiser deadlines). In doing so we will take into account the likely 2011
underspend. Speaking personally, if I think we have a level of reserves that
is too high as we enter 2012, I will suggest we make a further transfer to
the Foundation.
Hope this helps,
Chris
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 10:28 PM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
In addition to the charity status already
mentioned (which is
extremely concerning in its absence), I'm concerned about the budget.
Recruiting just a CEO (or whatever they end up being called - please
don't forget that "Chapter Manager" was agreed as a placeholder name
by the last board and shouldn't be used as the final name without a
lot of thought. I still think a more standard name that outsiders will
understand is needed) and an office manager and then letting the CEO
handle the recruitment of the rest of the staff was originally my
preferred strategy. I changed my mind when I saw how much money we
were making in the last fundraiser and realised that we needed to
speed things up.
If you go along with your preferred strategy, especially getting off
to such a slow start (I know that's partly the fault of the last
board, and take my share of the blame, but the new board was formed 2
months ago and hasn't moved particularly fast so far), then you are
going to massively underspend on budget. What is the plan to deal with
that? The charity commission aren't going to be impressed if we're
raising lots of money and not spending it.
On 15 June 2011 20:03, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
There is a brief write-up of the Board's two-day-long face-to-face
meeting
last weekend, up on our blog:
http://bit.ly/jTHRLi
Key highlights are;
- we're going ahead with advertising for two staff, a Chapter Manager
and
an
Office Manager
- we've committed ourselves to participating in the 2011 Wikimedia
Fundraiser
- we did a lot of useful work that's necessary for the development of a
long-term strategy - we'll share this with you guys shortly (we're
waiting
for the notes to be typed up!)
There will be more details on all of this soon, but we thought it was
best
to share what we have now rather than wait.
Regards,
Chris
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