(This press release is also available online at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_rai…
The Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012
Wikipedia fundraiser
More than 1.2 million Wikipedia readers donated to keep Wikipedia and
sister sites ad free and free to all
SAN FRANCISCO, December 27, 2012 - The Wikimedia Foundation, the
non-profit that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects, today
announced the successful completion of its ninth annual fundraising
campaign in record time. Wikipedia readers donated $25 million and
once again affirmed the value of the project by guaranteeing that the
online encyclopedia will remain ad-free.
"I'm grateful that the Wikipedia fundraiser was so successful. Our
supporters are wonderful and without them we could not do the job of
delivering free content worldwide," said Sue Gardner, Executive
Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "We're thrilled to be able to
introduce our readers to the editors around the world who create
Wikipedia and to invite our readers to join in editing."
Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation maintain server
infrastructure, support global projects to increase the number of
editors, improve and simplify the software that supports our projects,
and make Wikipedia accessible globally to billions of people who are
just beginning to access the internet.
More than 1.2 million donors contributed to the 2012 campaign, which
ran on English Wikipedia in 5 countries (United States, Canada, Great
Britain, Australia and New Zealand) for only 9 full days, down from 46
days in 2011. The most successful 24-hour period for donations this
year brought in $2,365,564 million from 145,573 donors. Messages and
formats optimized in this year's campaign will be used in another
short fundraising drive for the rest of the world in April 2013.
Though the fundraiser is an important part of Wikipedia's success,
volunteer contributors are the heart of the world's largest
encyclopedia. To highlight the tens of millions of hours they put into
the projects each year, the Wikimedia Foundation will conduct a thank
you campaign with short videos that showcase some of the roughly
80,000 volunteer editors, photographers and free-knowledge advocates
from around the world who regularly contribute to Wikimedia projects.
The campaign starts on December 27th and runs through the end of the
year.
Meet all the Wikimedians who we're profiling in our thank you campaign
here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All
Some of the Wikimedians being profiled:
Mei Jiun Kwek is a botanist from Malaysia who uploads photos to
Wikimedia Commons to accompany her work on crop species in her
country. She encourages researchers to share their material on a
freely licensed database to improve open access to knowledge.
(Video link on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_-_Mei_Jiun_K…
and on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcGotJ927YM)
Dumisani Ndubane is an electrical engineer from South Africa who
started uploading his circuit analysis class notes to Wikiversity, a
project supporting open educational resources, which did not have much
information in his field at the time. By participating with volunteers
from around the world, Ndubane not only grew to appreciate the value
of collaboration, he helped improve the quality of free tutorials and
coursework.
(Video link on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_Dumisani_Ndu…
and on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXvhABH-jFs)
Adrianne Wadewitz is a professor from California who uses Wikipedia as
a teaching tool in her classroom and helps her faculty peers to
incorporate digital technology in their teaching and research methods.
She describes a memorable moment when one of her students turned in an
essay largely plagiarized from a Wikipedia article Wadewitz had
written.
(Video link on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_Adrianne_Wad…
and on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qwZ7jL4xyY)
About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 483 million unique visitors per month, making them
the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November
2012). Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 24
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of
roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the
Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded
primarily through donations and grants.
Press contact:
Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415-839-6885 x6635
mroth(a)wikimedia.org
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