Meeting:2021 AGM/Treasurer's Report
Financial statements
The attached financial statements will be submitted to Consumer Affairs Victoria and Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission as part of our annual information statement.
Assets
The association held assets of $67,409 at 30 June 2021, on a cash basis. There was
- $62,943 in the Westpac account
- $3,985 in our debit card account
- $482 in the PayPal account
Income
WMAU received a total of $8,662 revenue for the 2020-21 financial year, made up of:
- Membership dues: $544
- Donations: $8,084
- Bank interest: $34
Simple APG
$39,147.89 was received in June 2020 from the Wikimedia Foundation as our Simple Annual Plan grant for the 2020-21 financial year. As foreshadowed at last year’s AGM, we returned $8,620 which represented the component of the 2019-20 grant (totalling $37,125) which we were unable to undertake due to the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on travel.
Expenditure
Wikimedia Australia was funded by a Wikimedia Foundation grant for 2020-21, to implement our annual plan. Working from an understanding that direct content creation on projects is to be volunteer activity, the plan addressed two goals:
- To support the current Wikimedia community in Australia in the work of realising Wikimedia’s mission; and
- Outreach and engagement to attract new contributors and inform the Australian public about Wikimedia.
When it became apparent that budgeted travel for Wikimania and local activities would not be possible, we applied to re-allocate part of the 2020-21 budget towards the next stage of growth as a Chapter. This funded a pilot program so we could engage a contractor to establish a remunerated executive officer role. This was seen as an important step in separating out some of the operational work that took away capacity for committee members to exercise their strategic role. This role worked across the community support and outreach programs.
Community support
In 2020-21, funding was provided to coordinate projects in Western Australian universities, including visiting lectures, project meetings, engagement with academics and planning edit-a-thons.
A series of videos in Nyungar language videos was produced in partnership with Curtin University.
A limited number of in-person events were successfully held in Canberra, New South Wales and Victoria and funds for catering, prizes and travel were provided where requested.
The good news this year was that we made some grants under the mini-grant support programme to support Australian contributors.
I encourage members to let others know about this source of funding for good ideas or mini projects that can help their work, particularly if you have contacts who could automate time-intensive tasks, or could make valuable Australian data or source material open access. We see stronger engagement in our regional and the global movement as another way of supporting Australian contributors, and broadening the understanding of our issues, and the potential support base for our work. To that end we are committed to telling Australian stories in global Wikimedia channels and assisting contributors to present at conferences, create video support materials and write about issues they face.
There is an online application form, or contact a Committee member to discuss ideas for a project.
Outreach
Our primary funded activities in Outreach this year have been content competitions, through 1Lib1Ref and Wiki Loves Earth, and engagement with Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAMs) including the development of four facilitated online training modules.
A set of design assets was commissioned to support our new, much-needed communication strategy, and together these set up the chapter to provide regular, high quality communication with key audiences.
Operations
In addition to expenses against the Annual Plan there are ongoing operational costs such as Bank fees, software and subscriptions, insurance, and communications. We also incur costs to support office bearers in terms of compliance training and accounting advice.
Concluding remarks
A personal thanks to Alex and Steve for their prompt attention to requests for approving payments. Despite all the challenges, this year has seen an exciting step forward for the chapter, with the significant increase in professionalism and capacity for community support and outreach thanks to Caddie’s appointment. Thank you to the WMAU Committee for being prepared to take this leap; to the WMF grants committee for their faith in our organisation, and to Alex and Caddie for the responsibility of making it work. As we move into 2021-22 with this model as our new business as usual I encourage all members to support the new Committee and the Executive Officer to ensure we use our financial resources in a way that realises maximum value.