[Foundation-l] Re : foundation-l Digest, Vol 89, Issue 76

Mon Aug 29 08:36:22 UTC 2011

On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>   wrote:
>
>   If the question is one of "minimum standards of accountability" the
>   WMF's first obligation would be to publish the standards which it
>   requires, presumably consistent with IFRS. Chapters incorporated within
>   particular jurisdictions will be subject to the financial reporting laws
>   of their respective jurisdictions.  These are more important than the
>  FUD and distrust at the heart of recent proposals.  There is no doubt
>   that a small band of individuals unaccustomed to large infusions of cash
>   will have challenges to face, but in these cases the WMF would do better
>   to help these chapters find competent help in their own countries than
>   to play the role of a distrustful parent.
>

We could also have the case where a chapter does better than the foundation
for some parts of its accomptabilty. Even if they are "a small band of
individuals unaccustomed" they have no choice than to respect the local laws
in some countries much more demanding for the charities that the U.S.
laws.And they are motivated volonteers to do so.

Let's give two examples with the WMFr accomptability.

If as WMFr treasurer I'd like to release for French members and donators the
same kind of certified report than the KPMG stamped WMF financial
report, it would
just be impossible under the French laws. Because under this laws, this
report is not enough precise, not enough understandable  (for example, try
to know, if you have no US accountings knowlegde or even if you have, how
much the foundation spends for servers, programmers wages and all of the IT
stuff in the KPMG report...).

As treasorer of a French general interest association which collecting
donations from public, I have to provide a financial report far more
accurate than the WMF one but also supplemented by a document understandable
by people with no accounting abilities (call "Compte Emploi Ressources",
could be roughly translated by "Use and Ressources account"). This document
must shows in a simply but very precise way how much have been collected,
how much have been used and for what. And this document, as the financial
report, must be certified by our public auditor ( "Commissaire aux comptes"
aka accounting commissioner). Our public auditor presents his reports to our
general assembly, answers audiences questions (his responses to this
questions have the same official commitment than its writtens comments of
our accounts and governance and must be recorded) and then our general
assembly vote to approve, or not, this two documents.

This public auditor not only certifies our accountings, he also checks and
certified for stakeholders (donators, members, states autorities, etc.) that
we respect the laws, the differents contracts and agreements WMFr has signed
and our goals as defined in our statutes. For 2010, he particulary focused
to check if we had got tax lawyer advice before our funds transfer to the
foundation and that both WMFr and the WMF follow this advice, if all our
donators have received their tax exemption receipt, if we have paid all the
social insurance, retirement funds for our employee, ask me to explain how
WMFr checks all the credit card donations go to our bank account or how I
had calculate the number of volonteers hours written in our documents, and
few others things I do not have in mind now. He has a mandatory access to
all documents the WMFr board releases to all its stakeholders (members
included so, he has an access to our internal wiki)

If we keep too much money collected by a appeal for donations on our bank
account, he will made a written comments that will ask us not to fundraise
until we have spent the money for the use we ask donations. And not respect
this kind of written comments could lead us to lose our charities status and
the tax deductability.

And no way for the WMFr board to fire its Commissaire aux comptes because he
is too demanding or too picky. The appointment of this public auditor is
validated by a vote of all the members during a general assembly and he is
appointed for 6 years, not revocable during this time, to avoid any pressure
from the board.

As you can see, lots of legal constraints.  And I believe some of this legal
constraints, are quite the same in several European chapters as the rules
for charities using donations from the public have been hardened this last
few years in the European Union. And as far as I know, this rules are harder
than those applied to US charities 501 (c).

That's means, if a small group of volonteers could reach a such level of
certified information for donators, WMF, much more staffed than any chapter,
could also reach it or even do better, even i'ma aware that the WMF
accountings is more complex than a chapter one. In my opinion, in a wikimedian
good practices assesment, WMF should implement a such certified  "Use and
Ressources account"  easely understandable by everyone, with no accounting
knowledge. Release this certified understandable report in the 5 or 6 most
used languages in the world will also show that WMF is not only an american
or anglo-saxon foundation. Not obvious to everyone.

I could also take the example of employeees salary and benefits transparancy
.
Lodjewick (believe it's him, sorry if wrong)  in an another thread
mentioned that
he has had to answer in his chapter on the issue about Foundation high
executives
wages. We had a similar and quite hash debate on WMFr mail lists in the
past, partly based on spooky ideas about foundation salaries. But this i
nformation is not easy to find for a simple donator. As Wikimedia France has
now 4 employees and hopes to be able to recruit new ones in the future, the
WMFr board are thinking how to give a high level of transparancy so that our
donators could see the fairness of our wages policy. France is culturally not
comfortable to make public such salaries. And WMFr has no legal obligation
as a charity to do so. Our commissaire aux comptes just checks that salaries
granted to employees by the WMFr board are not a misuse of the organization
assets. And we haven't reached the limits, especially as we have not yet
states or local governements subsidies, forcing us to declare our main wages
. It's just that if we can, we want to improve our transparancy for our
donators. The WMfr board is curently discussing this issue. We are looking
what other French associations best practices are, for example some give the
3 high salaries and group statistics for the other ones, all easely
accessible directly from their web site. Personally, I would support a full
transparency and that a donor could know the salary of all positions within
the association.

I guess the other chapters also have ideas for better governance and
transparency (and I'm interesting in), because of the background of some of
their members, history of the chapter, practices in their own countrie or
others reasons. They will implement some, and the fundraising is a good
school for that. They could share with the movement and that will allow the
chapters and the foundation to improve their accomptability practices.

Sorry for this long mail but we are speaking of accomptability, Not a lighly
subject.

Speaking for my own

-- 
Thierry Coudray
Administrateur - Trésorier
Wikimédia France <http://www.wikimedia.fr/>
Mob. 06.82.85.84.40
http://blog.wikimedia.fr/