About Finance and Administration

The Finance and Administration Department is responsible for the timely and professional fiduciary overview of all finance activities, including procurement, and over-seeing the physical space and internal technological/infrastructure needs of Foundation staff.

The core responsibilities and objectives of the Finance Team include: managing and controlling daily, weekly, monthly and annual finance operating workflows such as accounting and the procure to pay process, the processing of the Foundation’s financial transactions, external reporting, and treasury and compliance filings. The team also leads the financial management workflows for the Annual Plan, budgeting, investment management, and other financial decision making activities in support of the Foundation’s mission.

The Finance Team partners with other Foundation teams such as the Legal Team to undertake risk management activities, including developing the Foundation’s insurance portfolio, to protect the Foundation, its Board members, its employees, its assets, and its websites. The team also supports and partners with the Community Resources Team, the Funds Dissemination Committee and other Movement organizations to enable their objectives by providing or securing ongoing financial expertise and capacity. Finally, the team enhances financial systems functionality to increase transparency and improve effective and efficient financial operating workflows.

Office IT and Administration provide the physical and information technology infrastructure that the Wikimedia Foundation staff needs to serve our community and the Wikimedia sites. The Office IT Team handles the IT infrastructure in the San Francisco office (such as desktop PCs, internal servers, networking infrastructure, and video-conferencing equipment). The Administration Team provides support staff for each team, as well as maintaining the physical infrastructure that the rest of the organization needs for their work, such as planning and managing the office space. The Travel Team, as part of our Administration Team, provides travel support to employees, Board members, volunteers, and others working for the Foundation.

Our annual critical outcomes include: the responsive resolution of Staff's physical and internal information technology requests and requirements, the successful completion of the annual audit (which is approved by the Board's Audit Committee), the publication of the Foundation's 990 form, the finalization of a SMART and transparent Annual Plan, and improved quarterly and mid-year Annual Plan reporting.

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Non-Program 1: WMF Headquarters Office Relocation

The WMF offices will be relocated by October 1, 2017. Between July and October 2017 we will need to effectively implement an office design, as well as plan for a smooth move to 1 Montgomery, San Francisco, CA, while insuring minimal disruption of staff.

Outcomes

Outcome 1: Successful WMF HQ Office move by October 1, 2017 as well as continued facilities and building support provided to create the inclusive, varied office environment desired by staff and leadership.

Objectives/Activities

Activity 1: Successful permit and construction as build designs are delivered to general contractor for construction completion. (Beginning Q2)
Activity 2: Successful planning and building of the network, technical, space, and budget information needed for the team and the organizational move to 1 Montgomery, San Francisco, CA.

Milestones/Targets

Milestone 1: Commencement date of October 1, 2017.

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Non-Program 2: Accounting and Procurement Operations:

Maintain our commitment to the Annual Audit, Form 990 filing and other compliance reporting. Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our business and accounting operations for Finance and Administration, and provide administrative and business operations services to our budget owners, leadership, and teams.

Outcomes

Outcome 1: Reduce the required business days for accounting close.
Outcome 2: Clearly document and improve workflow activities.
Outcome 3: Confirm clear expectations within each team about their roles as business operations professionals, supporting effective and best practices for managing events, contracts, travel and expenses as related to team collaborations and general administrative services.

Objectives/Activities

Activity 1: Initiate an assessment and inventory of business workflows and systems handled within the Finance and Administration Department.
Activity 2: Establish a Roadmap for improvement - Revise objectives for our business/financial workflows, make potential refinements to systems and to our control activities.
Activity 3: Implement refinements needed in current business operations.

Milestones/Targets

Milestone 1: Document the inventory of business operations. Q1
Milestone 2: Establish Roadmap - Document and share the SWOT analysis with identified timelined tasks. Q2
Milestone 3: Outline and develop manageable training for areas of development. Q3
Milestone 4: Implement identified training and improvement plan that includes increased communications, clarified expectations, and updated documentation needed for improvements in business operations systems. Q4

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Non-Program 3: Internal Financial Management Process

We will provide clearer financial data to budget managers. We will continue to provide guidance on financial decisions and resource reallocation, and, by doing so, we expect to increase the transparency between Finance and other departments. Financial reporting will support a more timely and efficient budget management process. We will sustain an effective resource allocation workflow and management process that includes thorough planning, organizing, and controlling and monitoring financial resources in order to achieve WMF’s Annual Plan budget and objectives.

Outcomes

Outcome 1: Budget managers and stakeholders receive accurate and timely financial data throughout the year.
Outcome 2: The Foundation has an accurate and dynamic forecast of the end-of-year financial position that incorporates all recent financial data.
Outcome 3: The Foundation can accurately budget and track spending.

Objectives/Activities

Activity 1: Build automated reports. Investigate integration between the budgeting platform and other internal information systems. (Complete by end of Q2)
Activity 2: Research reporting capability to produce real time updates on financial projections with multidimensional comparisons. (Complete by end of Q2)

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Non-Program 4: Annual Plan Process Improvement - Programmatic and Non-programmatic

An effective planning process allows the Wikimedia Foundation to plan, organize and refine its work to enable a higher impact. The Finance Team facilitates the planning process. Refining and improving the Annual Plan process has been one of the team’s highest priority programs in 2016-17 and it will continue to be a top priority in 2017-18. Annual plans and budgets provide a clear roadmap regarding how the Foundation will achieve its mission and vision. The budgeting and planning process will be clear, efficient and effective, thus enabling external and internal audiences to have a greater understanding of the Foundation's plans and resource allocations across several relevant dimensions. The Annual Plan helps implement the outcomes of the Movement Strategy process in 2018-19 and beyond.

Outcomes

Outcome 1: Budget managers have expanded and refined budgeting and planning modules within the budgeting platform aimed at additional high-need budget lines. Budget managers are able to more effectively manage resources toward outcomes throughout the implementation of their Annual Plans.
Outcome 2: There is an improved process for identifying, planning and implementing cross-departmental programs.
Outcome 3: A process for multi-year planning and budgeting is piloted during the 2017-18 Annual Plan based on the outcomes of the Movement Strategy.

Objectives/Activities

Activity 1: Explore and potentially develop additional financial planning tools for budget managers. Facilitate training to budget managers.
Activity 2: Collect, document and communicate learnings from 2017-18 Cross-Departmental program development and Annual Planning through a retrospective process. Develop and facilitate a refined cross-departmental development framework for the 2018-19 Annual Planning process.
Activity 3: Incorporate Movement Strategy and thematic directions to clarify the goals and purpose for multi-year planning. Engage stakeholders around multiyear planning to identify requirements. Partner with appropriate internal or external stakeholders to propose a multi-year planning process within the Annual Plan process.

Milestones/Targets

Milestone 1: Build any required budget manager reports by Q2.
Milestone 2: By 1/1/2018, kick off 2018-19 Annual Planning, including a multiyear planning process and a refined cross-departmental program process.

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Non-Program 5: Community Finance

The Community Finance program is designed to support the Community Resources Team and our movement affiliates with additional financial expertise and capacity. This program will elevate our communities’ ability to effectively utilize resources toward the mission and vision. More specifically, it will support the grant making team with an analysis of the implications of grant making decisions, and around issues of international accounting and compliance, as well as support our affiliates' expansion of their financial capacity. Financial analysis facilitates an increase in the impact of Wikimedia Foundation's grant making program. All affiliates are empowered to effectively leverage financial resource management to maximize their impact.

Outcomes

Outcome 1: The Community Resource Team can make informed and effective grant making decisions with an understanding of the financial implications of those decisions on the Foundation and grantees.
Outcome 2: Affiliates who are encountering financial barriers to implementing programs or achieving impact, receive targeted support so that they overcome those barriers permanently.
Outcome 3: The community has a framework for understanding the financial needs of affiliates with different attributes. That framework includes important inflection points and financial requirements. Common financial barriers are identified and analyzed.

Objectives/Activities

Activity 1: Act as a resource for the Community Resources Team for issues that have significant financial implications. Identify areas where further financial expertise is needed. Facilitate advice and resources from other accounting, audit, and finance experts. Provide financial analysis and guidelines for the FDC APG Applicants. Provide targeted financial consulting or reviews to APG applicants on-site or remotely.
Activity 2: Partner with all Program Officers and the Learning and Evaluation Team to identify affiliates encountering financial barriers. Provide targeted financial consulting directly to those affiliates. Connect affiliates with in-country financial expertise. Provide budgeting and accounting tools and templates for affiliates.
Activity 3: Build on the community analyses and frameworks developed by movement partners to describe financial requirements or challenges for a cross section of movement organizations and communities.
Activity 4: Conduct affiliate site visits and community consultations; review qualitative data and quantitative data; partner with internal members and experts to identify common financial attributes and requirements of communities and movement organizations.

Milestones/Targets

Milestone 1: Provide financial analysis to Program Officers and the FDC on relevant APG grant applications in accordance with grant deadlines.
Milestone 2: Respond to community requests for financial support within 1 week.
- Publish a budget template and accounting template on meta by Q2.
Milestone 3: Identify 2-5 common financial challenges of communities or affiliates by Q2.
- Identify 1-3 common financial stages or inflection points for Wikimedia communities by Q4.

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Non-Program 6: In-Kind Donation of Depreciated Machines (PILOT)

This initiative will use depreciated laptops not fully functional with the standard Foundation tools but completely functional for WMF Projects. Laptops will be redeployed for communities not able to afford them. This program offers a value add to engage with the Wikimedia program, thus extending the Foundation’s resources to enable communities with little or no resources to engage with Wikimedia projects.

Objectives/Activities

Activity 1: Inventory and image machines. The Foundation will go through existing inventory to confirm how many machines are available and in working order to be used (includes: imaging, confirming peripherals are functional, power adapter included). Individual machines will be tested for the following:
- Power Adapter;
- WiFi enabled;
- keyboard and trackpad fully operational;
- Open Source operating system compatibility with hardware.
Activity 2: Create Processes regarding who and how to deploy.
- Consult within the Community Engagement Team and communities to help shape guidelines. (By Q2)
- Develop a process on how to deliver machines.
Activity 3: Consult with communities after delivery of donated machines.

Milestones/Targets

Milestone 1: Determine if the pilot has been successful. (Q3)
Milestone 2: If successful, formalize the in-kind donation program and continue to donate depreciated machines to communities.

NOTE: When WMF donates the used equipment to recipients, we no longer have responsibility for it, and will request that recipients responsibly dispose of the equipment when it's finally inoperable.

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Non-Program 7: Continuous Information Systems Improvement

Through improvements to existing infrastructure, we bolster the Foundation’s tools and services that our Office IT department provides. When the staff has better services and tools, their reach to our communities improves. The goal of this program is to provide services that empower employees and assist them in becoming more efficient.

Outcomes

Outcome 1: Realized cost savings for phone services by switching from on-site Primary Rate Interface (PRI) to a cloud Voice over IP (VoIP) provider, which can be used for other activities.
Outcome 2: Improved retention and destruction capabilities for emails through software services.
Outcome 3: Enhanced security measures, to reduce our security vulnerabilities.

Objectives/Activities

Activity 1: Evaluate Business or Enterprise product to obtain added features.
Activity 2: Evaluate and potentially rebuild in-house PBX service (telephone network) and determine the benefit of a cloud-hosted service for VoIP services.
Activity 3: Improve the security of the Office systems and network by installing a System Information Event Monitoring (SIEM).

Milestones/Targets

Milestone 1: Successful implementation of new VoIP cloud service and upgraded PBX system.
Milestone 2: Roll out of additional services for staff.