Minutes 2011-08-27/Presentations

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AT presentation on Growth

Wikimedia UK

Future Size and Growth

a concepts paper for discussion

Growth

Since its founding in 2008, Wikimedia UK has grown year on year in:

  • Membership
  • Income
  • Activities

Board members expect this to continue.

It seems Board members also want this to continue

But:

  • How large? and
  • How quickly?

Aren't clearly articulated.

This presentation sets out my personal vision for growth with hope that we can come to an agreement on:

  • To what extent we want Wikimedia UK to grow
  • What we can reasonably aim for in the near future

Measuring size

I propose to use three combined measures of size:

1. Membership

  • Easy to measure
  • Membership is a base for participants, donors, supporters, project leaders, trustees etc.
  • Assumes the membership stays as active as now - quality as well as quantity

2. Income

  • Easy to measure
  • Income funds (some) activities
  • Easy to compare to other organisations

3. Number of Projects

  • Harder to measure
  • Best indication of work done to achieve our objectives
  • Captures voluntary work better than financial measures

Approach

First, I've looked at how large we could possibly become

  • Based on simple comparisons with other organisations
  • "blue sky" thinking
  • Purpose is to get an idea of scale
    • Numbers can always be argued about
  • Want to set out an ambitious yet realistic aim

Then I've looked at how quickly we could reasonably grow to get there

  • There is a limit to how quickly organisations can grow
  • Growth requires change throughout an organisation - in how things are approached as well as what is done

How many members?

First question is: what is our pool of potential members?

Propose - all people in the UK who regularly use Wikimedia

i.e. readers as well as editors

Note readers are the ones who tend to donate

There are roughly 15,000,000 readers based on:

How many of these could we convert to members?

Compare the National Trust:

That would give us 750,000 members.

How much income?

We currently raise £20 per year from each donor

With direct debits this could be increased to £50 (£4/month)

From members alone, this would give us £38m

In addition, we may be able to raise sums from:

  • Gift aid - another 20%

- Large gifts, bequeths etc. - say another 10% - Project-related government grants - say 20% - Trading income - say 5%

Total - £60m+

This would make us about the 100th largest UK charity, alongside charities like the Dogs Trust, ActionAid and the Alzheimer's Society http://www.charitiesdirect.com/charities/top500.php

How many activities?

Most of what we do has massive potential to be scaled up:

That's not to mention other partners such as local history societies, family history societies, businesses, media companies, stately homes, local charities etc. etc.

Suppose we could get 30% doing one event per year

That would mean 3,500 events per year

How fast could we grow?

As a rule of thumb, it is not realistic to more than double per year

Looking at this crudely, if we doubled every year if we doubled every year we would reach our full potential in:

  • Members (250 to 750,000) - 12 years
  • Income (£600k to £60m) - 7 years
  • Activities (10 to 3,500) - 8 years

Growth of income may be harder given how dependent we currently are on the fundraiser

By contrast, growth of membership may be easier as this is relatively untapped

How feasible is this?

We can assess this by looking at what this would mean for the near future and how this could be archieved:

2011:

  • 500 members
    • target some of the 50,000 donors, 5,000 regular editors or hundreds attending our events
    • Achievable? YES
  • £1.2m income
    • Growth in global target
    • Sign up direct debits
    • Claim back Gift Aid for ?20%?
    • Achievable? PROBABLY NO
    • More realistic target? £750k
  • 20 Events
    • GLAM taskforce
    • Edinburgh activities
    • Freshers fair
    • Achievable? YES

2012:

  • 1000 members
    • Full time staff tasked with increasing participation
    • Continue to target some of the 50,000 donors, 5,000 regular editors or hundreds attending our events
    • Achievable? YES (could exceed)
  • £1.5m income
    • Active fundraising staff
    • Gift Aid for 80%
    • Monthly direct debits for 10%
    • Payroll giving
    • Achievable? YES
  • 40 Events
    • New staff facilitating roll out
    • GLAM taskforce
    • Freshers fair
    • Other activities
    • Achievable? YES

2013:

  • 2,000 members
    • Soliciting members at events
    • Continuing to target donors, regular editors
    • Achievable? YES (could exceed)
  • £3m income
    • Growing number of regular direct debits
    • Payroll giving by major companies
    • Achievable? YES
  • 80 Events
    • Events organisation replaced by programme organisation
    • Successful formats rolled out throughout country
    • National engagement e.g. through MLA, Russell Group
    • Formation of local branches say in Scotland, Bristol etc.
    • New lines of activities started
    • Achievable? YES

Wikimedia UK and Charitable Status

WMUK Board Meeting, Derby, August 27, 2011

  • WMUK is currently applying to the Charities Commission to become a UK Registered Charity
  • A submission was made in late July, & we hope for a response in September; WMUK and our auditors are optimistic we will succeed
  • Apart from satisfying WMF’s aspirations for all chapters, this will bring specific operational benefits, as follows:
    • Greatly increased credibility with and comprehension from other organizations – currently an issue for us
    • Through Gift Aid, an immediate 25% is added by the government to contributions made to us where a short declaration form has been completed. (example) This is ONLY available to UK registered charities.
  • Gift Aid:
    • Designed to make tax relief easier, especially for small donations
    • Introduced in 1990 and highly successful
    • Donor pays £10 and completes a short form; charity receives £12.50. No tax return entry.
    • Now used at ticket desks of many museums, exhibitions, etc.
    • Now expected by donors in the UK
  • Forgoing Gift Aid, if it is available, is throwing money away. On last year's appeal we lost up to £150k because we were not registered.
  • Donors are also likely to reduce their gift, or not donate at all, when they see Gift Aid is not offered, especially by a Registered Charity.
  • Payments direct to WMF cannot get Gift Aid
  • Our submission to the Charities Commission placed emphasis on the existing fund-raising arrangements, which were explained in detail, and also that the chapter was independent of WMF
  • The just-signed 2011 Fundraising Agreement was attached to the submission as an appendix
  • If the arrangements are changed, we will have to submit a revised submission to the Charities Commission
  • The implications of this have not been explored with our lawyers, but it may well mean the difference between a successful application and a rejection
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