Affiliations Committee/Resolutions/Affiliate Annual Reporting Deferment Policy

Purpose of the policy/ Policy statement: This policy is intended to define conditions under which an affiliate can request for a deferment in reporting expectations.

Detailed policy statement: The Affiliations Committee recognises that there may be circumstances beyond the control of an affiliate that may curtail the affiliate’s ability to run its normal business and to compile a competent annual report. In such circumstances, the Affiliations Committee believes that such an affiliate should be extended every courtesy needed to retain its affiliate status.

Whereas affiliates are already offered grace periods (up to 4 months for chapters & thematic organizations and 1 month for User Groups) to prepare and submit their annual reports, it may be necessary to grant additional time for an affiliate to prepare its annual reports.

The following circumstances shall render an affiliate eligible for annual reporting deferment for an additional year without losing affiliate status:

Natural disaster in the locale of the affiliate area of operation.
Global health pandemic.
State of war or active war.
Direct government restriction.

During the deferral period, the affiliate shall be deemed to be fully compliant with all applicable affiliate requirements and shall have access to all privileges enjoyed by all affiliates in good standing, including access to Wikimedia Foundation grants, Scholarships to Wikimedia events such as Wikimania and Wikimedia Summit.

At the end of the deferment period, the affiliate shall be expected to provide a report on any activities conducted during the deferral period, either as a separate report or merged with current year report.

Applicability: This policy shall only be applicable to all recognized and active affiliates who are not under suspension and meet conditions for deferment.

Related policies/References for more information: This policy expands the affiliate expectations after recognition policy.

Implementation procedures: The Wikimedia Foundation staff liaison to Affcom, whose duty is to maintain true and current record of Affiliate reporting compliance status, shall be responsible to receive deferment request, and after verification, apply the “deferred” compliance status on the reports page.

Whereas

The Affiliations Committee wishes to clearly define the conditions under which an affiliate can defer its annual reporting requirements;
At present, an affiliate experiencing unfavorable local or global conditions beyond its control that hinders its ability to run its business and to prepare competent annual reports, has no official recourse to a reporting period extension or deferral;

Therefore be it resolved that: The Affiliations Committee adopts an annual reporting deferment policy and its publication on this day July 4, 2023.

Liaison's Signature: Per committee resolution process, this resolution published on behalf of the Affiliations Committee. --DNdubane (WMF) (talk) 16:34, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]