Executive Director Report
December is always a month of finalizing projects, big and small before the end of the year. The only motion this month is to ensure that we have no big event expenses or penalties thus freeing up funds for other mission activities in our draft 2021 budget.
Tom Pappas, Vandana and myself have been working away on a proposed, very lean, and program centric budget. This budget will be shown and discussed during Tom's officer report. I decided to break the budget into program segments to better show where profits and expenses are coming in, with a goal to help the donor community easily understand what percentage of our annual budget is directed to program, and also for the Foundation to work on ensuring all program areas have the opportunity to earn income to match their expenses. We look forward to adding merchandise and trademark licensing to our income sources, as well as involving the community in graphic swag designs for the merchandise.
In preparation to move to a post-balance finance reform, I have made two operational adjustments: all negative project and chapter balances have been reset to $0, as this has the same effect as a $0 balance, and I have instructed our accountants to move all funds from long term inactive projects and chapters that would have otherwise been decommissioned back to the general pool. All these projects and chapters will continue to exist in case they become active again. I will ensure that if any of these projects or chapters become active and then have an policy compliant expense or a pre-approved expense - pretty much the way it is working now and how it will work post finance reform, I will have such expenses approved. There are no financial consequences to affected chapters and projects. We have a record of their balances in case finance reform does not pass in the form I am expecting.
Our staff have been busy working on a policy to procedure initiative, as many policies changed through the policy review process, and it's not clear if we are adhering to those policy objectives. We will be documenting our processes for the community based upon the new policy settings, and ensuring consistency of actions, such as all leaders getting an email address automatically. Once our procedures are documented, it is my intention to manage to policy. I would like the Board's support in managing to policy by preferably either working with us on exceptions, or revising the policy if the exception is the rule. We cannot keep on having "choose your own policy or procedure" - it's confusing and demoralizing to our community and staff alike, as expectations are not being met. We will communicate many of these changes to the community as the procedures are QA'd and approved by myself.
In staffing news, our Events Director, Emily Berman, has decided to leave OWASP and take up a very senior position at a developer-centric events company. We wish Emily all the best, and I think we will all miss her terribly. I thank her for a fantastic virtual events response to COVID throughout 2020. We learnt a lot together, and this will help us throughout 2021 with Alonna and Kelly taking up the reins.
I look forward to meeting with the new Board at a special meeting in mid-January. If you are a continuing or new Board member, please read the non-profit strategic impact book to prepare for this meeting. If you don't yet have a copy, please work with Dawn Aitken to obtain one or simply expense the book (physical or e-book) via the standard mechanism.
Our offices will be closed from the 24th of December, re-opening January 4, 2021. I wish the Board, our members, our leaders, and our Community all the best during the holiday season, and hope we have a much better 2021.
Motion: this month is to ensure that we have no big event expenses or penalties thus freeing up funds for other mission activities in our draft 2021 budget.
Tom Pappas, Vandana and myself have been working away on a proposed, very lean, and program centric budget. This budget will be shown and discussed during Tom's officer report. I decided to break the budget into program segments to better show where profits and expenses are coming in, with a goal to help the donor community easily understand what percentage of our annual budget is directed to program, and also for the Foundation to work on ensuring all program areas have the opportunity to earn income to match their expenses. We look forward to adding merchandise and trademark licensing to our income sources, as well as involving the community in graphic swag designs for the merchandise.
In preparation to move to a post-balance finance reform, I have made two operational adjustments: all negative project and chapter balances have been reset to $0, as this has the same effect as a $0 balance, and I have instructed our accountants to move all funds from long term inactive projects and chapters that would have otherwise been decommissioned back to the general pool. All these projects and chapters will continue to exist in case they become active again. I will ensure that if any of these projects or chapters become active and then have an policy compliant expense or a pre-approved expense - pretty much the way it is working now and how it will work post finance reform, I will have such expenses approved. There are no financial consequences to affected chapters and projects. We have a record of their balances in case finance reform does not pass in the form I am expecting.
Our staff have been busy working on a policy to procedure initiative, as many policies changed through the policy review process, and it's not clear if we are adhering to those policy objectives. We will be documenting our processes for the community based upon the new policy settings, and ensuring consistency of actions, such as all leaders getting an email address automatically. Once our procedures are documented, it is my intention to manage to policy. I would like the Board's support in managing to policy by preferably either working with us on exceptions, or revising the policy if the exception is the rule. We cannot keep on having "choose your own policy or procedure" - it's confusing and demoralizing to our community and staff alike, as expectations are not being met. We will communicate many of these changes to the community as the procedures are QA'd and approved by myself.
In staffing news, our Events Director, Emily Berman, has decided to leave OWASP and take up a very senior position at a developer-centric events company. We wish Emily all the best, and I think we will all miss her terribly. I thank her for a fantastic virtual events response to COVID throughout 2020. We learnt a lot together, and this will help us throughout 2021 with Alonna and Kelly taking up the reins.
I look forward to meeting with the new Board at a special meeting in mid-January. If you are a continuing or new Board member, please read the non-profit strategic impact book to prepare for this meeting. If you don't yet have a copy, please work with Dawn Aitken to obtain one or simply expense the book (physical or e-book) via the standard mechanism.
Our offices will be closed from the 24th of December, re-opening January 4, 2021. I wish the Board, our members, our leaders, and our Community all the best during the holiday season, and hope we have a much better 2021.