Treasurer Search

The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, is looking to appoint a new Treasurer to its Board of Trustees, effective December 2007. The term for the current Treasurer has ended.

The Wikimedia Board of Trustees manages the Foundation and supervises the disposition and solicitation of donations. The Board of Trustees is the ultimate corporate authority in the Wikimedia Foundation Inc.

Board members are unpaid volunteers who are excited about supporting the international charitable mission of the Wikimedia Foundation: to bring free knowledge to the entire planet.

ROLE SUMMARY
Required duties include, but are not limited to the following:
 * Manage, with the finance committee to be created, the board's review of and action related to the board's financial responsibilities;
 * Work with the chief executive to ensure that appropriate financial reports are made available to the board. Regularly reviews reports to board on key financial events, trends, concerns, and assessment of fiscal health;
 * May work directly with the bookkeeper or other staff in developing and implementing financial procedures and systems;
 * Serves as support to the financial officer of the organization and as chairperson of the finance committee;
 * Serves on the audit committee;
 * Review the annual budget that is presented to the balance of the board for approval;
 * Review the annual audit and answers board members' questions about the audit;
 * Provides financial and operational advice and guidance to the board as required.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

 * Maintains knowledge of the organization and has a personal commitment to its goals and objectives;
 * Understands financial accounting for American nonprofit organizations;
 * Must be comfortable in a highly collaborative, consensus-oriented environment;
 * Accounting and financial background - an accounting or other financial designation (i.e. CPA, CA, CFA, or other International equivalent), with a thorough understanding of American GAAP.
 * MBA or business degree would be helpful, although not required;
 * Some experience with legal frameworks and contracts would be helpful;
 * Background or familiarity with fundraising would be an asset;
 * Has previously served as a treasurer on another non-profit board (at least five years);
 * Willing to commit time for board meetings, committee meetings and special events;
 * Works well in a group, is able to work with a decentralized international team, using electronic communication tools.

EXPECTED TIME COMMITMENT
It is expected that the Treasurer will be able to attend four meetings per year, which may possibly be held outside of the USA. In addition, participation in the Foundation’s annual conference would be preferred. Cost of attending these meetings will be reimbursed. Other time expectations would be reviewing quarterly reports, budgets, and policies and helping to oversee the audit process.

CONTACT
Please contact us at treasurer-search@undefinedwikimedia.org if you are interested in this position.

ABOUT THE WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a US-registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the world’s 10 most visited websites, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikinews and the Wikimedia Commons media repository.

The Wikimedia Foundation relies primarily on donations and other contributions in order to run its operations.

The Wikimedia Foundation was created in 2003 to manage the operation of existing projects and is currently based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Foundation will relocate to San Francisco, California in the near future. Wikimedia has local chapters in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Serbia, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Poland.

http://wikimediafoundation.org