NYC General Assembly # Occupy Wall Street

http://occupyaudit.org/

This is another Interocc joint so they’re probably reliable.

@torn — Very interesting!

FROM THE Occupy Audit WEBSITE (http://occupyaudit.org/):
Occupy Audit is an open, transparent, and accounting organization that is here for the sole purpose of auditing the Occupy Movement and related activities. This audit can take place both on the financial side and in-kind donations to make sure that all donations and resources are being used properly, and most importantly that the information is compiled and accessible to the entire movement and the public.

Occupy Audit functions as a third-party organization and is not accountable directly to the movement, but any occupier and interested supporter is welcome to join Occupy Audit and help build transparency and accountability of the movement.
____________________________________________
Please consider getting involved with Occupy Audit.

Right now we are still in the Scheduling process of our Meetings, but you can get on our email list with this link:

http://wc.tc/mailman/admin/email-list_occupyaudit.org

For more information visit the Occupy Audit Main Pad: http://titanpad.com/OccupyAudit

INPUT YOUR FINANCIAL and/or RESOURCE DATA:

If you are on a Financial Committee or are a Treasure of a group or organization in the Movement Please submit the following information to: input@OccupyAudit.org
1.Name, Location, and basic information about Your group, organization or GA.
2.How much have you Fundraised? (Include other Major In-kind Donations and Resources)
3.How much have you Spent/ How much is Left?
4.What is Fundraising Target?
5.What is your Financial and Legal Structure?
6.Do you have a public internet link to your financial information? Please Provide the Link

(For now we will not be collecting expenditure details and instead just get links to organizations online financial information)
__________________________________________-
Email: input@OccupyAudit.org
Public Contact List:
Jay Cabrera: (415) 323-5833, jay@occupysystems.net PO Box 20175 Stanford CA, 94309

i like it.

This is the group I suggested we have a phone conference with before Valentine’s Day. Jay is very accessible and is a committed Occupier. I think this would be a great connection!

In the interest of not duplicating efforts (unless it’s too late), below is the content of the email I just sent off to the Occupy Audit folks:

*******

1.Name, Location, and basic information about Your group, organization or GA.
-Shazz Baric, New York, reform group (defunct), Occupy Wall St.

2.How much have you Fundraised? (Include other Major In-kind Donations and Resources)
-I was involved with Occupy Farms that received $3k from the General Assembly in OWS but I’ve since turned over my financial point person responsibilities. OWS has as an org received somewhere in the ballpark of $750k in donations, as far as we can tell. There are some questions about the transparency of our finance working group

3.How much have you Spent/ How much is Left?
-good questions. We’re working on helping our finance working group in OWS become more transparent. I think we’re sitting on $100k left in the org. The last comprehensive report they released was back in October.

4.What is Fundraising Target?
-we haven’t talked about this at the GA level. We generally don’t openly talk about fund raising. Many in the organizational side believe that we should bleed the general fund dry and move to affinity financing. I’m going to an affinity group meeting tonight to get a report back. I’ve heard upwards of 7 figures are sitting on the sidelines or already in play by these affinity groups. But they do not have to abide by the same standards of the Occupy movement as far as accountability and transparency.

5.What is your Financial and Legal Structure?
-Of Occupy Wall St? Legally for tax purposes it’s a project of the Alliance for Global Justice, and so we go on their books come tax time, which absolves us from liability. But this also means that as an org OWS cannot take on liability or do actions that endanger the Alliance for Global Justice, or they’ll terminate our sponsorship, leaving us vulnerable to the IRS.

6.Do you have a public internet link to your financial information? Please Provide the Link
-the official blog for the accounting/finance working group of OWS is as follows:

http://accounting.nycga.net/

This is where they’re supposed to post updates on our incoming donations, expenditures and reports.

My own personal scribd account where I’ve been posting docs on an attempt to audit our finances is below:

scribd.com/shazz_baric

Another working group in OWS that is currently working on accountability and transparency, including but not only confined to financial matters, is Accountability and Transparency. Their group page is linked below:

http://www.nycga.net/groups/accountability-transparency/

I hope this information is helpful in an organization wide creation of better practices that embody our values. Thanks for getting this discussion started!

-Shazz

Anything new on this?