Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia financials - bank fees
The actual bank fees for payment processing for the month of January were $84,237 on donation revenue of $3,695,574, which is an average of 2% of revenue in processing fees for Paypal and Global Collect for the month of January. We are beginning two projects to attempt to reduce payment processing fees for both Paypal and Global Collect. The $42K number was the amount in excess of budget for bank payment processing fees, due to donations being in excess of budget for the month of January. Garfield Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 9:38 PM, En Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: I notice that the financial report at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_February_2012 says something about “higher bank fees ($42K)”. Has anyone taken a hard look at these fees to see if WMF could organize its utilization of bank services in such a way that it can lower this expense, including the possibility of moving the WMF’s bank account(s) to one or more different financial institutions? $42k seems like a very large amount of money for a nonprofit such as WMF to spend on bank fees in a single month. I can speculate that the definition of bank fee might include things like currency conversion fees, but even so, $42k seems like a lot. Pine ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext 6787 415.882.0495 (fax) www.wikimediafoundation.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia financials - bank fees
The Wikimedia Foundation's does not currently pay any fees to send money via our bank. We do not use Paypal very often to send money and it is usually free for us to send money via Paypal. In the fundraising agreement, a payment processing chapter is not required to send money to our bank in the US. They have the option of transferring money to our EU bank. As for Paypal, we currently have Paypal's lowest commercial rate for receiving money and the Foundation has applied to get the lower charity rate. Garfield Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 3:56 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.comwrote: It would also be interesting to understand why everyone (for reimbursements, grants, scholarships etc.) is required to send and receive money to/from the USA bank or PayPal accounts although there is an EU bank account and bank transfers within EU are mostly free, while PayPal has very high fees and is not even usable everywhere and bank transfers to USA can cost hundreds of dollars (not to mention currency conversion headaches). Nemo __**_ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.**org foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/foundation-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext 6787 415.882.0495 (fax) www.wikimediafoundation.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia financials - bank fees
It would also be interesting to understand why everyone (for reimbursements, grants, scholarships etc.) is required to send and receive money to/from the USA bank or PayPal accounts although there is an EU bank account and bank transfers within EU are mostly free, while PayPal has very high fees and is not even usable everywhere and bank transfers to USA can cost hundreds of dollars (not to mention currency conversion headaches). Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia financials - bank fees
On Sun, Mar 11, 2012 at 6:56 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.comwrote: It would also be interesting to understand why everyone (for reimbursements, grants, scholarships etc.) is required to send and receive money to/from the USA bank or PayPal accounts although there is an EU bank account and bank transfers within EU are mostly free, while PayPal has very high fees and is not even usable everywhere and bank transfers to USA can cost hundreds of dollars (not to mention currency conversion headaches). Nemo __ Wouldn't that be because the WMF, and the bulk of its spending, is based in the U.S.? It would seem logical, then, that most of its funding is needed there as well. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia financials - bank fees
On 11 March 2012 13:23, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: Wouldn't that be because the WMF, and the bulk of its spending, is based in the U.S.? It would seem logical, then, that most of its funding is needed there as well. The bulk of its spending might be in the US, but a large minority isn't. There are grants to chapters and individuals outside the US, there are the WMF's own activities in India and Brazil, there are numerous WMF staff that work remotely from outside the US, etc.. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikimedia financials - bank fees
I notice that the financial report at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_February_2012 says something about “higher bank fees ($42K)”. Has anyone taken a hard look at these fees to see if WMF could organize its utilization of bank services in such a way that it can lower this expense, including the possibility of moving the WMF’s bank account(s) to one or more different financial institutions? $42k seems like a very large amount of money for a nonprofit such as WMF to spend on bank fees in a single month. I can speculate that the definition of bank fee might include things like currency conversion fees, but even so, $42k seems like a lot. Pine ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia financials - bank fees
I'm not in accounting, but my guess is that this involves Paypal processing fees for the fundraiser... pb ___ Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 415-839-6885, x 6643 phili...@wikimedia.org On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 9:38 PM, En Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: I notice that the financial report at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_February_2012 says something about “higher bank fees ($42K)”. Has anyone taken a hard look at these fees to see if WMF could organize its utilization of bank services in such a way that it can lower this expense, including the possibility of moving the WMF’s bank account(s) to one or more different financial institutions? $42k seems like a very large amount of money for a nonprofit such as WMF to spend on bank fees in a single month. I can speculate that the definition of bank fee might include things like currency conversion fees, but even so, $42k seems like a lot. Pine ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
