Funding

Introduction

The early documentation on the Worldwide Library looked on everyone involved as volunteers in the first stage, but we were aware that we would have to move to funding, and both rewarding some for fundraising and commissioning some conversion work if we were going to make real progress. 

All of the first, development of basic systems, identifying and collecting e-text sources for conversion and basic web sites has been achieved completely with volunteers, but in order to make rapid progress and get more than a handful of books a month on line we are going to have to now start to move in part to a funded model.

WWL 50-50 project - Now Live

A concept developed by New Atlantis has been transferred to the Worldwide Library and involves a web site that includes advertisements where on the sale of items 50% is given to the Worldwide Library. The site is now live at www.50-50.org  

This system is also able to accept online credit card donations involved in registering as a seller, in making donations and optionally in being a part of the payments process. Users are introduced to a method that allows them to also take credit card payments for the sale of items.

The system and all payments are administered for us by Maximum Coverage Ltd. Maximum Coverage are doing this without making any charge to us connected with the proceeds from this system or credit card donations they collect for us, so all the revenue generated by this less just charges made by banks and  card processing companies come through to us.

International funding project

The international funding project will be managed on our behalf by Maximum Coverage Ltd, a company within the UK, that specializes in providing support services to non profit organizations, this means that all existing work within the Worldwide Library can continue, rather than have to stop for this to happen.

The model they have proposed and we have accepted, involves using no up front expenditure, and then uses an override principle where we still end up with the majority of the funds raised, but where fundraisers and organizers get a fair reward for the time and expertise they put in.

In total we will get 65% of all funds raised, with no costs to us at all towards raising it. Few charities or good causes could realistically expect to keep their total cost of fund raising and all associated activities, including bank charges for this side down to only 35% of the total raised, which is about the same as a retail margin on goods sold.

Rewards for organizers and fundraisers

The principle of overrides is that the cumulative override at each level is larger, but at each higher level they need to have a larger number of people below them to make a good reward. This is not MLM  as there is no recruitment commissions or anything like that, rewards are directly for those who succeed.

The principle level is the fundraiser, they put on fundraising events, work with volunteers, write to companies and trusts... and raise funds. Each project they work on is treated separately and costed, they recover whatever costs they have incurred and then retain 20% of the profit as their reward, passing on the balance to the area organizer. Fundraisers do not have bank accounts in the name of the Worldwide Library, but pass any cheques on to the area organizer to bank for them, and these count towards profit paid over, or if necessary the organizer will raise a payment back to them to cover costs or reward.

The local organizer recruits, looks after supports and encourages a number of fundraisers. They are working on an override of 26%, this means they get 6% on all profits raised by the fundraisers. Therefore they have to have at east 4 fundraisers to get as much as the average fundraiser, but can of course have more. They are not handling any money, or doing any accounting, so can concentrate on helping the fundraisers and receive their payment from the area organizer. They cover their own expenses out of the margin they receive.

Area Organizers are looking after an area possibly as large as a state in the USA or several counties in the UK. They recruit, motivate and support the local organizers, and handle cheque banking and accounting of activities of fundraisers. This is the first level that has a branch bank account in the name of the WWL. On the 14th of every month they calculate the free balance in the account, this is the balance, less cheques drawn but not presented and known commitments coming up for commissions etc. They pay over to the national manager 80% of the free balance on the 14th. The override they are working on is 30%, giving them 4%, and as this is of a number of areas this would seem to be higher, but this also involves quite a lot of admin and they also have to cover the cost of running the bank account out of this. They cover their own expenses out of the margin they receive.

National Organizers look after a country, or possibly with smaller countries several together. they have a smaller margin with an override of 32%, so they get 2%, but this is of the total amount raised within a country, so the figure could become significant. On the 28th of each month they balance the cheque account, deduct the override amount due to them and pay over 90% of the account balance by bank transfer to the account of  Maximum Coverage Ltd. They cover their own expenses out of the margin they receive.

Appeals to companies

National organizers will look after or assign appeals to international companies and national companies based in their country.

Area organizers will co-ordinate appeals to companies within their area.

Each may undertake it themselves or pass it down to another level or set up specific fundraisers specifically for these appeals.

Recovering costs

Only fundraisers receive costs before handing on the margin they have made, each organizer level has to cover all their own costs out of the override they receive.

Fraud prevention

Area organizers are the first level to be able to handle cheques, and are receiving returns and funds directly for organizers and paying out to local organizers. This means that the fundraiser is being watched by both the area organizer and local organizer.

Beyond this level everything is visible as we shall be posting amounts raised by organizers and up onto a web site available to all organizers.

Considering a role

If you are considering these roles and would like to apply to be considered for one, we would advise you to create a set of 'guessed' fundraisers, and organizers up to the level of interest to you, and calculate from that the sort of revenue you can see the area of interest to you creating and therefore what your override would be worth. Once you have done this also take a best case and worst case prediction along the same lines to check that the worst case prediction could be sustained and that at the best case you could either handle the work load or manage others doing it within your override budget.

Once you have a role you would like to occupy, let Maximum Coverage know at funding @ worldwide-library.org ( no spaces) and they will hold on to your application until the relevant organizer above you is in post and then feed your application to them. In some cases they may go on and get your area set up while they are organizing the higher levels, and may make special arrangements with you for managing the short term.

The index site for the Worldwide-Library is www.worldwide-library.com  this indexes you to all the sites by function

General enquiries 'general-enquiries @ worldwide-library.org' (no spaces), or see the pages specific to the class of interest you have above left

The worldwide-library is a non profit company limited by guarantee, registered in England no 4369113