[Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[Zack Exley]

Sue:

I also hate the idea of premiums. We will never want to do lame "premiums".
But there may in the future be a cool thing to offer with donations, who
knows -- so why limit ourselves by saying we will "never ever" do something?

Zack




On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 5:46 PM, Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> A supportive anecdote for you, Matt:
>
> Back in 2008, I got toured through the fundraising operation of one of the
> major American public broadcasters. It had a large fundraising team that
> included a group dedicated solely to tracking and shipping premiums. Its
> boss advised us to avoid going down the premiums road: he said once you
> start it's very difficult to stop, because donors grow to expect them. I
> remember being reminded of a study, I think by Dan Ariely, in which he
> found that if you offer people small material incentives for doing
> something, they begin to see the transaction in self-interested terms, and
> the incentive can end up being viewed as too small -- insulting, and not
> good value. Essentially IIRC small material incentives can have the effect
> of shifting people from an intrinsically-motivated mindset (donor) into a
> transactional mindset (economically-self-interested rational actor).
>
> So, I agree with you that before we instituted premiums, we'd want to think
> long and hard about what benefits they would bring, and what unintended
> consequences might result.
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
> On Aug 15, 2013 4:20 AM, "Matthew Walker" <mwalker at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > >>Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in
> the
> > >>team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must*
> pay
> > >>to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.
> >
> > >This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these
> > >documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great
> to
> > >start a page. :-)
> >
> > In the past days there's been discussion internal to the fundraising team
> > -- it appears that the 'fundraising principles' I thought we held are not
> > uniformly held by others. In this particular instance it seems that gift
> > premiums are not entirely off the table. I've been told that the reason
> we
> > have not done them in the past is mostly due to technical limitations.
> The
> > current view is that we should keep our options open to future
> > experimentation if the situation allows.
> >
> > <personal hat>
> > At this I'll take off my foundation hat and state that I remain firmly
> > opposed to gift premiums being used as a donation incitement. I hope that
> > if we do, at some point, press forward and experiment with premiums that,
> > before this happens, ...
> > - We show reasonable evidence that the gain in monetary income will fully
> > offset the new cost in managing gifts.
> > - We either have some method to ship worldwide without subsidy; or we
> > communicate beforehand that we will not be able to do this in some
> regions
> > *and* that we understand and have a plan for the fallout that will
> probably
> > cause.
> > - We have premiums that actually mean something to the movement; e.g. you
> > do not donate $100 and get a t-shirt.
> > - We show reasonable evidence that if the experiment doesn't work that we
> > will not have hurt our future donation prospects. (E.g. will people
> always
> > expect premiums if we offer them once?)
> > - That we have a solid communications plan in place to immediately offset
> > any possible suggestion that you are 'buying' a piece of the foundation
> > with your donation.
> >
> > Just my two cents.
> > </personal hat>
> >
> > ~Matt Walker
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> > Fundraising Technology Team
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 11:50 AM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Matthew Walker wrote:
> > > >Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in
> > the
> > > >team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must*
> > pay
> > > >to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.
> > >
> > > Hi Matt.
> > >
> > > This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these
> > > documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great
> to
> > > start a page. :-)
> > >
> > > MZMcBride
> > >
> > >
> > >
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-- 
Zack Exley
Chief Revenue Officer
Wikimedia Foundation