Wikimedia Nederland Quarterly Statement of Activities for the first quarter of 2012

This is the report of activities of Wikimedia Nederland for the first quarter of 2012, as required by the chapter grant agreement for 2012. Actual goals for this year have been defined in the program plan for 2012 mostly in terms of goals at the end of the year, and so it is not really possible to measure the current state against those targets. However, most of the budgeted activities came with a definite timeframe, and so we can measure progress against that timeline, as is done in the table below. While in particular the hiring of a director was delayed, we are now glad to report that a suitable candidate has been found, and that she will start working from May 1, 2012.

Board

Until the Annual General Meeting on March 24, 2012, the composition of the board was as follows:

Ziko van Dijk, president
Siebrand Mazeland, secretary
Paul Becherer, treasurer
Marco Swart
Maarten Brinkerink
Jane Darnell
Cyriel Brusse

At the AGM, board members Siebrand, Marco, Maarten and Jane stepped down, and the three other board members nominated themselves for re-election. They were re-elected and four new board members were elected. The current composition of the Board is (board roles per board resolution of April 14, 2012) :

Ziko van Dijk, president
Paul Becherer, secretary
Ad Huikeshoven, treasurer
Cyriel Brusse
Sandra Fauconnier
Frans Grijzenhout
Sarah Morassi

Activities

Activities have mostly been extracted from the Chapter Reports as available on Meta.

January

On January 21, there was a backstage tour at the Teylers Museum in Haarlem. This was combined with the annual WMNL New Year's reception and served as the kick-off for the Teylers Challenge, an article-writing competition for articles on subjects related to Teylers Museum.
The anti-SOPA protest was a news item in the Netherlands as well, and WMNL president Ziko van Dijk was interviewed on this on national TV.

February

User:Husky gave a short one-day course on editing in Wikipedia to volunteers in Gouda, co-organized by Goudanet and The Gouda platform for History. People made their first edits and wrote their first article on Gouda history. Around 10 people participated including people from the local library. The volunteers will continue to edit Wikipedia in the next few months.
The board of WMNL met in Zutphen on the 4th and 5th for a strategy weekend. The results were to be presented to the members before the general assembly on March 24th, so they will have time to give feedback on the results. That did not entirely succeed, so this will be on the agenda for a special general assembly in June.
On the 25th the WMNL board had an afternoon scheduled on the day of a WikiSaturday to receive people interested in a board position.

March

Wiki Loves Monuments - NL is starting off again. Volunteers are being recruited, and a meeting was organized with the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed.
The annual general meeting took place on March 24th. The activity report and financial statement from the board was approved. Four of the seven board members stepped down, while the three others were re-elected and four new board members were elected.
Ziko and Paul participated in the Chapters Meeting in Berlin on 30 March - 1 April. Ziko also attended the Movement Roles meeting on 29 March and was involved in the preparing of a charter for the Wikimedia Chapters Association.
The working group around the Wikimedia Conference NL of coming November takes shape. Most of the work is still ahead.

Measurement against timeline and targets

Most targets as put forth in the Annual Plan cannot yet be evaluated as they are end-of-year targets. Nevertheless, we have attempted to measure activities against the timelines provided in that same document. This is included in the table with financial information. An explanation of the colours and statuses:

OK	Continuous item. Spending is within reasonable limits
On schedule	Timed item. Activity is on schedule to be finished (delivered) on time
Not yet started	Timed item. Timeframe for that activity has not yet arrived.
Needs attention	Continuous item. Currently underspending or too little activity
Overdue, in progress	Timed item. Delayed, but being worked on, with reasonable expectation of delivery
At risk of delay	Timed item. Possibly delayed because an item that it requires is delayed and is not yet worked on.
Overdue, not started yet	Delayed, and not being worked on. Risk of non-delivery.
Overdue, postponed/cancelled	Delayed, and postponed until next year or cancelled.

No items have yet been postponed until next year or cancelled, but as the year unfolds, we may encounter this.

Individual description of yellow and red items follows below the table. Some of the items contain references to events past the reporting period.

Summary of activities statement Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland Jan 1, 2012 - March 31, 2012

Preliminary figures, not audited

Expenses	Year-to-date		Budget 2012		Timeline	Status
General public
Press releases and contacts	-		-		cont	OK
Improve communication methods	-		-		jan - jun	On schedule
Reiterate strategic goals, vision, plans, objectives on website	-		-		jan - mar	Overdue, not yet started
Develop and publish reporting standards	-		-		jan - mar	Overdue, in progress
Annual report	-		3.000,00		jan - mar	Overdue, in progress
Total general public		0,00		3.000,00

Donors
Research CBF prerequisites	-		1.200,00		jan - mar	Overdue, in progress
Set up recurring donations process	-		1.500,00		jan - mar	Overdue, not started yet
Draft test and send appeal	-		2.000,00		mar - jun	At risk of delay
Communicate achievements and plans to donors	-		-		mar - jun	Needs attention
Research charity websites and submit information	-		-		mar - jun	On schedule
Total donors		-		4.700,00

Community and members
Wikimedia Conference Netherlands or similar	-		10.000,00		may - nov	Not yet started
Small-scale community events [C]	979,02		2.000,00		cont	On schedule
Improve membership application process	-		400,00		mar - jun	Not yet started
Approach existing donors for increased participation	-		-		mar - jun	On schedule
Research membership types	-		-		mar - jun	On schedule
Wiki Loves Monuments NL 2012	-		10.000,00		mar - sep	Not yet started
Placing articles/how-tos in relevant "traditional media"	-		-		cont	Needs attention
Small activities budget	-		1.500,00		cont	Needs attention
Consider/develop additional "specialist" volunteer position and/or advisory board	-		-		jan - mar	Overdue, not started yet
Budget for unspecified programs [S]	5.000		20.000,00		cont	Needs attention
Total community and members		5.979,02		43.900,00

International
Reps to Chap. Conf. / Fundraising Summit	-		1.500,00		feb-apr	On schedule
Reps to Wikimania [W]	966,49		3.000,00		jul	On schedule
Travel budget for volunteers [W]	861,58		5.000,00		cont	OK
Wiki Loves Monuments International	-		15.000,00		mar - sep	On schedule
Support translation rallies	1.000,00		2.000,00		cont	On schedule
Software testing for CoSyne project	-		10.023,00		cont	Delayed, in progress
Total international		2.828,07		36.523,00

Institutional contacts and cooperation
Create volunteer guide for partnerships	-		1.000,00		jan - mar	Overdue, not started yet
Recruit and train volunteers	-		-		apr - jun	At risk of delay
Respond to contact requests	-		-		cont	OK
Develop GLAM-tools	-		40.000,00		cont	Delayed, in progress
Institutional contacts and cooperation		-		41.000,00

Internal
Create board manual	-		-		jan - mar	Overdue, in progress
Recruitment of board members	-		-		cont	OK
Training of board members / volunteers	-		3.000,00		cont	Needs attention
Hire and retain director	-		10.000,00		jan - mar	Overdue, in progress
Total internal		-		13.000,00

Surveys and studies		-		10.000,00	cont	Needs attention

Overhead
Office space [O]	2.750,01		12.000,00		cont	OK
Accounting/controlling/advice	-		10.000,00		cont	OK
Misc. travel and meeting costs [T]	2.565,08		7.000,00		cont	OK
Banking fees (incl. interest)	27,16		1.000,00		cont	OK
Insurances	-		5.000,00		cont	OK
Salary administration	-		1.500,00		cont	Hiring delayed
Technical facilities	438,84		3.000,00		cont	OK
Total overhead		5.781,09		39.500,00

Staff		5.587,06		120.000,00	cont	Hiring delayed

Total expenses planned activities		--		--

Activities added by GA
Legal advice	-		5.000,00		cont	Needs attention
Promotion	73,78		10.000,00		cont	Needs attention
Total activities added by GA		73,78		15.000,00

Total expenses		20.249,02		326.623

Income	Year-to-date		Budget 2012		Timeline	Status
Membership fees	2.950,00		3.500,00			OK
Donations	1.363,00		10.000,00			Lower than projected
Donations for WMF [D]	110,00				-
Chapters grant [G]	-		233.123,00			Delayed
Total income		€ 4.423,00		€ 246.623,00

Result	Year-to-date		Budget 2012		Timeline	Status
Result		€ -/- 15.826,02		€ -/- 80.000,00

Footnotes

[D] Donations that have been marked as 'For the WMF' by the donor. These will have to be accounted for in the final settlement of the 2012 Chapter Grant

[O] Rent and office supplies. Includes two months that have not yet been billed

[S] Support of Chapters Conference of 5.000 euro has been allocated to unspecified programs

[C] WikiSaturdays and New Year's get together with backstage tour at Teylers Museum

[W] Two flights to Wikimania that have already been booked

[G] Amount includes original plan and the amount for two lines added by General Assembly. Inclusion has subsequently been approved in writing by WMF.

Individual items

General public

Annual report 2011: The annual report has not been finished yet (timeframe was March), but work is in progress. Financial statements were presented to the membership at the AGM and have been approved. They will be published online in the coming weeks. The annual report should be finished and printed before June.

Develop and publish reporting standards: Overdue, but closely related to the work on obtaining the CBF certification. Also, it is to be expected that much of the 'final' standards will be externally driven and not fully within our own control.

Promotion (activity added by GA): At the request of the annual general meeting of October 22, 2011, an extra line item of EUR 10,000 was added to the budget, to be used for mass-communication on Wikipedia and Wikimedia. If significant progress is to be made this year, work on this should start in the coming months.

Donors

Research CBF prerequisites: The Centraal Bureau Fondswerving (CBF) is a Dutch independent monitoring agency for fundraising organisations and charities in the Netherlands. Its certifications are well-regarded, and involve a thorough audit of the organizational aspects of charities. Although this has been delayed, it is currently being worked on. The hiring of a director seems to be a major step towards being able to obtain this certification. One of the prerequisites for the CBF certificate is an auditor's report for charities with an income exceeding EUR 150,000, and having an employee enables the separation of duties that is required for such a statement.

Recurring donations: No process has yet been set up. This also puts the next item in line at risk, which is testing this process on our existing donor data base.

Communication to donors: We have not yet communicated plans and achievements clearly to donors, at least not in 2012. With a schedule of 4 mailings to donors and other interested people.

Community and members

Articles in relevant 'traditional' media: Somewhat related to the "Promotion" item under "General public", the same remark applies.

Small activities budget: Ever since this 'fund' was established in 2009, WMNL has been underspending on this, despite the fact that it is meant to support our core asset: volunteers with good ideas. The number of applications is generally very low.

Consider/create 'specialist' volunteer positions and/or advisory board: This has not yet been concretely discussed by the board. Currently, we have a number of these 'specialist' positions, but no general policy has been set.

Budget for unspecified programs: This was meant as a way of not having to say no to volunteers with new but sound ideas for new programs that are too large for the small activities grants. Keeping in mind that projects like Wiki Loves Art NL and Wiki Loves Monuments pretty much came out of the blue, we consider it important to keep the momentum on such projects. The risk we identify is that this line item is used for important but unbudgeted expenses that are not fully volunteer-driven projects.

International

Software testing for CoSyne project: Due to a very limited availability of the liaison board member for this project, we are surrently running behind on schedule for this project. We are trying to avoid failure to deliver but may have to rethink how to proceed with this.

Institutional contacts and cooperation

Develop GLAM-tools: This refers to a larger project in collaboration with a cultural heritage partner and several other chapters (total budget EUR 400,000 over two years). Though progress is being made, there is not yet a formal agreement, and there is not much room for more delay.

Create volunteer guide for partnerships and train volunteers: The current 'specialist' volunteers for cultural partnerships do not have sufficient time to properly deal with all requests for contacts and partnerships for cultural institutions. To alleviate that, the plan was to draft up a document that could serve as a guide for volunteers (Wikimedians and non-Wikimedians) interested in managing such contacts between WMNL and cultural partners. This guide can then be used to train new volunteers. The creation of this guide has not yet started, and that also puts the training of new volunteers at risk.

Internal

Hiring process: Though not finished in March as foreseen, the hiring process was well under way by the end of the reporting period. At the AGM, the search committee reported on progress: two candidates had been selected and were later presented to the entire board during the weekend of April 14 and 15. A final candidate was then selected and was officially hired on April 21, with starting date May 1, 2012.

Board manual: The intention is to produce a document that clearly stated tasks and responsibilities of the board as a whole and the various positions and roles within the board. While this has not been finished within the stated timeframe, it is work in progress (first draft is available). The board change and transfer of duties are much more deliberate this year than they were on previous occasions.

Training of board members and volunteers: No definite activities were undertaken on this subject in the reporting period. Concrete plans will have to be drafted up. Nevertherless, this has the attention of a specific board member, and the board change weekend (April 14/15) deliberately did involve a thorough introduction into the international aspects of the Wikimedia movement - one of the subjects that previous non-Wikimedian board members indentified as a gap in their knowledge. The new board members much appreciated this overview and it surely contributed to their knowledge.

Surveys and studies

Surveys and studies: While no definite timeframe was fixed in the Annual Plan, a successful set of surveys required concrete action in the coming months.

Income

Chapters grant 2012: Finalization of the amount and the transfer is awaiting a final report by Wikimedia Nederland on the use of the 'professionalization grant' of 2010 ([1]).