Talk:Planned Spending Distribution 2007-2008

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Timeline
The budget runs from 1st of july 2007 till 30th of june 2008.

Some points of interest

 * Spending on technology more than doubles in the current year compared with last year, to USD 2.3m in 07-08, from 0.724m in 06-07. This is partly to redress some deficiencies - for example, we only have two developers, and we intend to hire more. It's also an acknowledgment of our increasing popularity: for example, this year, our bandwidth bill is expected to be double last year's.


 * Key positions have been or will be filled in 07-08, that were vacant or filled on a part-time basis only in 06-07. That includes for  example: legal counsel, accountant (was half-time), biz dev (has been half-time), COO, executive director.


 * We are creating new positions that we think are necessary for the Foundation to improve and grow. You all know about the jobs posted on the Foundation site: we're hiring, for example, a fundraiser, someone to look after public outreach, someone to look after partnerships development, etc.


 * We are setting aside a small amount of money to commission work that can't be done by the staff, for either capacity or expertise reasons. For example, we've occasionally been hiring project managers, developers, legal firms, and analysts/advisors/consultants of various kinds.


 * The overall monthly spend is USD 383K in 07-08, compared with 151K in 06-07. That's roughly 4.6m annually in 07-08; 1.8m in 06-07.  Bear in mind that spending last year was artificially depressed by the high number of vacancies, which led to a general lack of activity.


 * One of the categories represented on the pie chart is "Program Services," which accounts for 4% of the total budget, or USD 185K. In the non-profit world, "program services" generally refers to initiatives designed to deliver core-mission services. So for the Foundation, for example, it would include partnering with NGOs to get Wikipedia materials into schools in the developing world, or staging Wikipedia Academies to strengthen the smaller-language projects. In this budget, the "program services" allocation will fund, for example, positions dedicated to partnerships development, volunteer coordination and public outreach. Typically in non-profits, the higher the percentage of the overall budget dedicated to program services, the better. That's because most charities want to reduce administrative overhead and reserve as much of their resources as possible for mission-related service delivery. In our case however, we would likely consider that the "Technology" portion of the budget part of core services delivery as well, since that money pays for bandwidth, servers, and so on. So, the fact that only 4% of our budget goes to program services doesn't really suggest that WMF underallocates towards core service delivery.

Sue Gardner 18:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Office of executive director

 * the office of the executive director covers
 * salary of the ED
 * salary of the assistant
 * relocation to San Francisco (eg, travel to SF to select offices etc...)
 * consulting (eg, fundraising consulting, communication consulting, branding consulting etc...)

board
Covers not only board members expenses, but rather board activities. Some costs should probably be included in other parts of the budget. We'll update that later. Were included in that percentage

During the year 2006-2007, 3 board meetings were held. In Florida in november 2006, in Rotterdam in january 2007 and in Florida in march 2007. During the year 2007-2008, one meeting was held in Amterdam in june 2007, and one will be in Florida in october 2007. I expect there will be 4 meetings during the year. Participants are typically 8 (Board + ED), half in Europe, half in the USA, and meetings last on average 3 days.
 * Board meetings (in Florida or elsewhere)

Advisory board During the year 2007-2008, there was already one advisory board meeting. I do not expect a second one during the year. Advisory board meeting was hosted within Wikimania building. It lasted 2 days (3 nights) with 25 people. We also participated to the costs of travel of 4 advisory board members.

Wikimedia meeting During the year 2006-2007, there was one meeting organized in Frankfurt, Germany. 25 people, including a facilitator. 3 days. Total cost is unknown. During the year 2007-2008, a similar meeting will be organized, same place, for about 30 people, including a facilitator. 3 days. WMF will have to pay for the travel and hosting of board members (6), staff and others (6), and probably some chapter members (6). 1500 dollars on average for travel. 150 per diem. Plus location of the meeting room and facilitator honorarium. note: the meeting was adjourned

Other travels In the past, the board had agreed to have each member have a budget of roughly 2000-3000 to travel per quarter at most. This budget did not include board meeting participation. It includes Wikimania travel.

Board development Training by expert in communication, books, registration to websites etc…

Figures
 * Board meetings: $55K (4 meetings)
 * Other Board Travel: $60K
 * Advisory Board Meeting: $15K
 * Other Special Projects: $15K
 * D&O Insurance: $15K
 * Chapters/governance meeting: $40K

TOTAL: $200K

Anthere 16:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)