Hello Everyone,
I am the director of the charitable organisation mySociety, part of the UK's 'civic hacking' scene. I am writing because last week we launched a new site which some of our users have already turned towards helping both Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg:
http://www.pledgebank.com/gutenberg
(and more modestly)
http://www.pledgebank.com/wikipediapage
As you can see PledgeBank works by helping to reassure people that if they choose to do something of altruistic value, they won't be left doing it all on their own, effectively wasting their effort.
PledgeBank could be a handy tool for building critical mass around new WikiUniverse projects, especially potentially niche ones. i.e, you can say you'll only start when enough people have signed up, like this guy is doing here:
http://www.pledgebank.com/parking
Anyway, that's all from me. If you've any thoughts, questions or comments, please get in touch.
all the best,
Tom Steinberg