Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Private Inurement Prohibition
> Wikimedia Discussion > The Wikimedia Foundation
Avirosa
http://www2.guidestar.org/rxg/news/webinar...hq_v=0827c2813d

QUOTE
The Private Inurement Prohibition requires a tax-exempt public charity to operate so that none of its income or assets unreasonably benefits any of its board members, trustees, officers, or employees. In an age of heightened scrutiny of the charitable sector by the IRS, Congress, and donors, it is important that a charity takes all necessary steps to ensure that it doesn't violate this prohibition by paying one or more of its employees excessive compensation.

In the first half of this one-hour webinar, listen to attorney and former state charity official Karl Emerson give an overview of best practices in nonprofit compensation. GuideStar's Chuck McLean will then explain how the 2010 GuideStar Nonprofit Compensation Report, the only large-scale analysis of its kind that relies exclusively on data reported to the IRS, can help you to determine appropriate executive compensation.


A.virosa
thekohser
Good stuff, venom guy. I'm registered!
thekohser
My question went unanswered by the presenters.

QUOTE
The charity that runs the #5 website in the world, the Wikimedia Foundation, was recently rated 1 star out of four in "organizational efficiency" by Charity Navigator. Yet, the executive director is receiving a 12.5% salary increase this year. Thoughts?

Note, as a follow-up to my question, the founder of the Wikimedia Foundation is the President of the commercial company Wikia, Inc. For some considerable amount of time, 60% of the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation were Wikia employees.
thekohser
GuideStar has this about the Wikimedia Foundation's programs:

QUOTE
Program: Operate free education websites, including Wikipedia

Budget:
$1,615,343
Category:
Population Served:
General Public/Unspecified

Program Description:

The Wikimedia Foundation operates the fourth most popular web property
world-wide, Wikipedia.org. In addition to Wikipedia, the Wikimedia
Foundation also operates Wikimedia Commons, Wikibooks, Wikinews,
Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikiquote, Wikispecies, and a
number of related websites.

The Wikimedia Foundation owns and administers the computing
infrastructure allowing these projects to exist. It also makes
available public copies of all content contributed to Wikimedia
projects.

Program Long-Term Success:

Program Short-Term Success:

Program Success Monitored by:

Program Success Examples:

As of May 2009, Wikipedia serves more than 315 million unique visitors
every month, according to comScore. It is the most comprehensive
reference work ever compiled in human history, written by hundreds of
thousands of volunteers, and available in more than 250 language
editions.

In addition to the direct access to Wikimedia's website, content from
Wikimedia projects is also re-used in numerous ways, ranging from
online mirrors by third parties to offline distribution on DVDs, USB
sticks, computers of educational institutions, and so on. This is
possible due to Wikimedia's policy to allow free re-use of Wikimedia
content.

Program: Support and grow the Wikimedia volunteer community

Budget:
$170,991
Category:
Population Served:
General Public/Unspecified

Program Description:

The Wikimedia Foundation fosters the development of international
Wikimedia chapter organizations, advises and facilitates various
volunteer activities, develops training materials and resources, and
other programs to engage and support existing volunteers and recruit
new participants.

Program Long-Term Success:

Program Short-Term Success:

Program Success Monitored by:

Program Success Examples:

The Wikimedia community has managed to scale across many different
languages and countries. This is in significant part due to the
support that the Wikimedia Foundation has provided for developing
structures of international participation. For example, as of July
2009, there are 24 recognized Wikimedia chapter organizations. These
are independent, primarily volunteer-run non-profit organizations
promoting the cause of Wikimedia within a specific geographic region.
The Wikimedia Foundation supports these chapters with grants, advice,
and various resources.

Wikimedia chapters have pioneered various events, such as "Wikipedia
Academies", typically one or two-day events where an audience is
introduced to the Wikimedia world, as well as specific workshops
designed for schools, universities, and other target audiences.
Wikimedia chapters also play a leadership role in developing
partnerships with cultural institutions such as galleries, libraries,
archives, and museums. For example, Wikimedia Germany has negotiated
the release of more than 250,000 copyrighted photographs from German
archives under free content licensing.

Program: Support Wikimania conference

Budget:
$172,662
Category:
Population Served:
General Public/Unspecified

Program Description:

The Wikimedia Foundation supports the execution of an annual
international conference, Wikimania, which brings together Wikimedia
volunteers and interested newcomers in a single location. Typically
attended by 400-600 people, Wikimania is the largest international
wiki-focused event in the world. It has been organized in Frankfurt,
Germany (2005); Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (2006); Taipei, Taiwan
(2007); and Alexandria, Egypt (2008). Wikimania conferences are
planned for Buenos Aires, Argentina (2009) and Gdansk, Poland (2010).
In addition to providing financial support for the conference (which
is organized by a local planning team and international volunteers),
the Wikimedia Foundation funds and administers travel scholarships for
volunteers.

Program Long-Term Success:

Program Short-Term Success:

Program Success Monitored by:

Program Success Examples:

Wikimania has brought hundreds of people from around the world
together to discuss topics which are hardly discussed in any other
forum: how online collaboration can help to bridge the digital divide,
how content quality in open wiki environments can be increased, how
wiki technology can continue to innovate, what emergent social norms
can be observed in wiki communities, and so forth. They have also been
used to conduct direct workshops and training sessions on subjects
such as image editing, software development, article writing, etc.
Program: Develop and improve collaboration technologies

Budget:
$469,760
Category:
Population Served:
General Public/Unspecified

Program Description:

The Wikimedia Foundation employs staff developers and contractors to
help improve and maintain the software that supports all Wikimedia
projects. All software development is open source and open to external
contributors, and the software can be re-used by anyone for any
purpose. The core software is called MediaWiki.

Through these improvements, the Wikimedia Foundation has been able to
add key functionality to Wikipedia over the years, such as quality
assurance tools, improvements to the user interface, improvements to
multimedia handling, print-on-demand functionality, etc. It has also
integrated numerous volunteer-developed features and enhancements. In
2009, the Wikimedia Foundation launched a large-scale usability
initiative funded through a restricted gift of $890,000.

Program Long-Term Success:

Program Short-Term Success:

Program Success Monitored by:

Program Success Examples:

The success of the Wikimedia free knowledge projects is in many ways
dependent on Wikimedia's ability to maintain and improve the
underlying technology. But in addition to the proof of Wikimedia's own
success, the adoption of the MediaWiki software by thousands of other
companies and organizations, including government organizations, as a
standard technology for building collaborative knowledge databases
underscores the trust that is placed in Wikimedia as a maintainer of
the software, and the impact that its activities are achieving around
the world, far beyond Wikimedia's own web properties.


So, if we add that all up, you get $2,428,756.

Somebody remind me why they need $10 million (going on $20 million) to execute programs that cost $2,428,756?
gomi
QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 12th October 2010, 11:47am) *
Somebody remind me why they need $10 million (going on $20 million) to execute programs that cost $2,428,756?

I guess they think they need an endowment. At a normal institutional take rate of 5%, a $20m endowment yields $1m/yr, leaving them only $1.5m/yr to raise. The larger their endowment, the more insulated they are from public opinion.

I think you're on the right track, Greg -- attack Wikipedia by attacking their funding. But be smart about it -- in this regard they are operating like most mid-sized non-profits wish they could. Regular, sizable embarrassments will make it difficult to raise their annual funds, as well as contribute to an endowment.

I'm truly surprised that the porn-hosting thing hasn't had better legs. I certainly think that has better potential than "citation needed" on [[Halibut]], but that's just me. You can also tell that by professionalizing the foundation staff they are distancing themselves from Jimbo, so I think direct attacks on his personality are of limited usefulness. On the other hand, I don't know how much of their fundraising is sourced (directly or indirectly) by him, versus their internal staff.

Someone mentioned it elsewhere, but a crusading state Attorney General or a bent-out-of-shape Congressperson holding hearings could dry up their funding pretty quickly, but once they reach $30m+ in endowment, it won't matter much.

As another note (vis the title of this thread), the Public Inurement Prohibition and Excess Benefits doctrine really aren't going to get you very far unless the behaviour is spectacular and egregious. See here for a discussion in a slightly different context.

anthony
QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 12th October 2010, 6:00pm) *

My question went unanswered by the presenters.


From Erik:

QUOTE

Happy to respond to questions raised in a constructive setting at a later time, e.g. IRC Office Hours.


So: 1) IRC is more productive than the mailing list?; 2) "Sorry, you have asked this question in the wrong forum, please try again later." I believe the proper term for that is "stonewalling", though I had to look it up.
Milton Roe
QUOTE(anthony @ Tue 12th October 2010, 6:04pm) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 12th October 2010, 6:00pm) *

My question went unanswered by the presenters.


From Erik:

QUOTE

Happy to respond to questions raised in a constructive setting at a later time, e.g. IRC Office Hours.


So: 1) IRC is more productive than the mailing list?; 2) "Sorry, you have asked this question in the wrong forum, please try again later." I believe the proper term for that is "stonewalling", though I had to look it up.

No, I think stonewalling has more to do with Public Immurement Prohibition. blink.gif

For the love of God, Montresor! ohmy.gif fear.gif

MR

(Just once, I want to see some politician at a Town Hall Meeting or Press Room Briefing, suggest that the question was trolling, and that answering would be troll feeding. ermm.gif )
Subtle Bee
QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Tue 12th October 2010, 6:16pm) *

(Just once, I want to see some politician at a Town Hall Meeting or Press Room Briefing, suggest that the question was trolling, and that answering would be troll feeding. ermm.gif )

Happens all the time, just different l33tsp33k. Usually involves not dignifying questions with an answer, or a dumb joke right before you run out of time after just one more question from Joe Friendly.

Stay angry, people.
Avirosa
QUOTE(gomi @ Tue 12th October 2010, 8:03pm) *
As another note (vis the title of this thread), the Public Inurement Prohibition and Excess Benefits doctrine really aren't going to get you very far unless the behaviour is spectacular and egregious. See here for a discussion in a slightly different context.


I entirely agree, though I didn't avail myself of the Guidestar webinar. Realistically it would require a US Tax payer (which I am not) to bring an effective complaint against Wales and the EMF, I just thought the webinar would be a useful briefing for WR readers on the limits of the IRS code in constraining non profits, given how often the subject comes up on WR. I'm going to remain content with my limited knowledge of the US system, which is enough to convince me that 'spectacular and egregious' is indeed the condition needed to get the IRS interested enough to investigate misuse of non profit funds.

A.virosa


CharlotteWebb
QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Wed 13th October 2010, 1:16am) *

No, I think stonewalling has more to do with Public Immurement Prohibition. blink.gif

For the love of God, Montresor! ohmy.gif fear.gif

Poe:
When you read him, you'll shit bricks.

QUOTE(Subtle Bee @ Wed 13th October 2010, 1:28am) *

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Tue 12th October 2010, 6:16pm) *

(Just once, I want to see some politician at a Town Hall Meeting or Press Room Briefing, suggest that the question was trolling, and that answering would be troll feeding. ermm.gif )

Happens all the time, just different l33tsp33k. Usually involves not dignifying questions with an answer, or a dumb joke right before you run out of time after just one more question from Joe Friendly.

Or until security guards can react.
thekohser
GuideStar has posted the presentation materials in its archive.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.