Sue Gardner wrote: > Hey folks, > > Here is the RTTB for October. November will follow soon :-) > > Enjoy! > Sue > > > Report to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees > > Covering: October 2008 > Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation > Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees > > MY CURRENT PRIORITIES > > 1. Planning for Bangalore and Davos trips > 2. Finalization of staff goals and performance check-ins > 3. Planning for development of the strategic plan > 4. Ongoing major donor solicitation and stewardship, foundation proposal > follow-up > 5. Bits and pieces (all-staff meeting, CPO recruitment, Wikimania 2008 > postmortem, office space revamp, Board Nominating Committee, etc.) > > THIS PAST MONTH > > BOARD MEETING > > The Board met the first weekend of October at the WMF offices in San > Francisco, with all Board members in attendance. During the meeting, the > Board reviewed and approved the Gift Policy and Privacy Policy. As always, > these are posted at: > > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Policies > > Treasurer Stuart West presented an update on the audit, informing the Board > that the audit is progressing much more quickly than last year, and that the > Board will receive the financial statements within a few weeks. Vice-Chair > Jan-Bart de Vreede made a presentation on Open Standards and a discussion > was held about file formats. > > Discussions were also held about Advisory Board and Board development, and > the formation of sub-national chapters. Erik Moeller gave updates and > answered questions regarding Wikimedia's technology priorities, and the > online fundraiser. Minutes from the July meeting were approved. > > The minutes of the October meeting will be approved and published following > the next board meeting, in January. > > FUNDRAISING AND GRANTS > > Extensive work was done by all departments on fine-tuning the various > components of the Annual Campaign in preparation for the launch the first > week of November: > > * Further testing and development of the CiviCRM donor database, including > e-mail capabilities – for the first time, we've got automated e-mail thank > yous set up for all donors > * Development of campaign management tools for sitenotice deployment, such > as scheduling and weighting of different sitenotices > * Lining up external support by design and PR firms; producing the first > sitenotices; developing audio PSAs > * Identifying core messages that need to be translated and coordinating > volunteer translations > * Streamlining and documenting all fundraising related procedures, such as > donor thank-yous > * Developing a fundraising agreement between WMF and the chapters which want > to participate in the online fundraiser > * Investigating historical PayPal data that hasn't been imported into the > database > * Inviting past $1000+ donors to make leadership gifts prior to the > beginning of the 2008 fundraiser. > > For the first time, the online fundraiser is led and coordinated by a > dedicated staff member, Rand Montoya. > > We followed up on leads from the Funders' Briefings in September, including > people who could not attend the briefings. > > There were 935 donations made in the month of October for a total of USD > 65,503.32 > > OUTREACH > > Frank Schulenburg worked with the Argentinian chapter to finalize plans for > the first Wikipedia Academy in Buenos Aires, to be held in early November. > Frank also spoke at the FSCONS conference in Gothenburg, Sweden and > supported Wikimedia Germany's Zedler Medal article writing award as well as > the Quadriga Award ceremony. > > Frank also participated in a dedicated meeting/conference where the current > state of Wikimedia was discussed among Wikipedians and > academics:http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Siggen > > Sue spoke at conferences in Florida and Germany, and met with the Knight > Foundation in Florida. > > SOS Children UK, in coordination with the Wikimedia Foundation, released a > complete 2008/9 revision of the Wikipedia Selection for Schools, which is > perhaps the most successful "checked content" project derived from the > English > Wikipedia.http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/2008-9_Selection_for_Schools > > TECHNOLOGY > > We welcomed two additions to the technical staff: Trevor Parscal, who will > work as a software developer, and Ariel Glenn, who will do development work > but also help with technical support for the San Francisco office. > > Thanks to a volunteer, Robert Stojnic, and the deployment of new search > servers, we've enabled new search features, limited to the English Wikipedia > for > now:http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-October/040022.html > > We've also enabled the PediaPress technology on all Wikibooks wikis. It > allows wiki-to-PDF export, wiki-to-ODT export, and print-on-demand delivery > of collections of pages. Pending further review, usability and scalability > improvements, we hope to deploy it on Wikipedia and our other projects soon. > This work is funded in part by the Open Society Institute and the > Commonwealth of > Learning:http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2008-October/001367.html > > Brion has led development of a code review tool, which was deployed and has > seen rapid adoption, localization and improvement. The tool allows MediaWiki > developers to add comments and tags to code changes through a web-based > interface: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki > > Thanks to new dedicated hardware, the database dumps were restarted for all > languages. The English Wikipedia full-history dump continues to be > prohibitively slow; we're exploring solutions for this. Dump status is > visible here: http://download.wikipedia.org/ Concise summary: > http://www.infodisiac.com/cgi-bin/WikimediaDownload.pl > > We continued consolidation of our infrastructure to Ubuntu, and this process > received some media attention, including a widely quoted Computer World > story: > http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9116787&; > > Erik and Michael Dale attended the Open Media Conference at Yale > University: > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-November/047009.html > > Rob has led the process of consolidating and tracking our domain name > registrations. We also continued our build-out of infrastructure in a new > data-center in Tampa, and we started to gradually phase in new Sun storage > equipment for media uploads. > > RESEARCH > > During the week of October 20, the first Wikimedia Foundation Reader & > Contributor Survey was launched in 20 languages. Its goal is to collect data > about the demographic make-up of the Wikipedia community and audience, its > motivations, interests, and beliefs. 4000 completed responses had already > been received by October 24. > > Erik Zachte's statistics server has been delivered and deployed, and Erik > has started compiling some interesting reports for us. He has implemented > the first report on pageviews, based on Domas' pageview data: > http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthly.htm Related blog entry: > http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/10/wikimedia-page-view-stats-i/ > > Erik has also taken a first stab at quantifying volunteer contributions made > during the fiscal year 2007-2008: > http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/10/quantifying-volunteer-contribution/ > This data is important to put organizational spending in relation to our > global ability to achieve impact together. > > COMMUNICATIONS > > The Wikimedia Foundation's first-ever Annual Report was finalized with the > audited financial information, published on the Wikimedia Foundation > website, and e-mailed to all past donors: > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report The report is a summary > of key activities of WMF in the fiscal year 2007-2008, an explanation of our > projects (including a two-page > "anatomy of a Wikipedia article"), an overview of our spending and the > 2008-2009 budget, a brief look at the program activities of chapters around > the world, and a recognition of our supporters. > > In the month of October, we participated in media interviews with Computer > World, a website of news and product coverage for information technology > managers and The Republican, a website providing coverage of the Western > Maryland town of Oakland, as well as of Garrett County. > > GRANTS AND PARTNERSHIPS > > Work continues on several grant proposals, including a major grant proposal > related to usability improvements. Sara compiled a spreadsheet of our > foundation prospects and rated them according to various criteria. She has > also started to consolidate all reporting requirements attached to current > grants so we can keep full track of our obligations. > > Sara attended the Craigslist Non-Profit Bootcamp in San Mateo, where she > networked with individuals from other like-minded organizations. > > FINANCE AND ADMIN > > The audited financial statements for the fiscal year 2007-2008 were > finalized and approved by the Board. A summary was included in the Annual > Report, and the full statements will be posted in November. > > Work began on the 990 tax returns and continued on transitioning bank > accounts from Suntrust to Citibank. > > On October 20, we welcomed Daniel Phelps as the new Office Manager. > > LEGAL > > Policies and agreements were reviewed and an audit resolution was drafted in > preparation for the Board meeting. Work was done to follow up on > state-by-state registrations. > > Negotiations continued with the Free Software Foundation regarding the > wording of the GNU Free Documentation License 1.3. > > BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT > > Work continued on two major leads and many smaller ones. In addition, some > older relationships were investigated or tied off. Some commercial trademark > uses were also investigated. > > Kul has started building a sponsorship platform for events such as Wikimania > and Wikipedia Academies. > > IN COMING WEEKS > > Sue attending Free Software, Free Society conference in India (Dec. 8 – 15) > Board Meeting, January 8 – 10, 2009 > Sue attending World Affairs Conference in Davos (Jan. 28 – Feb. 1)
Thank you Sue. A question. When the chapters and the Foundation held their meeting in netherlands in spring, there was an agreement from the WMF side that a practical proposition regarding business agreements made by chapters would be presented to chapters by WMF business development team. I am not aware we received anything practical which could clarify what chapters may or may not do, as well as clear procedures for future partnerships. Maybe I missed the email entirely. If not, can you update us on when we can expect clarification ? Could this happen before the next WMF-chapters meeting ? Thanks Ant _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
