*Brin Wojcicki Foundation Announces $500,000 Grant to Wikimedia*
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – November 18, 2011 – The Brin Wojcicki Foundation,
started by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and 23andMe co-founder Anne
Wojcicki, awarded a $500,000 grant to the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs
Wikipedia and its sister sites. The Wikimedia Foundation kicked off its 8th
annual fundraiser on November 16, 2011.
The Wikimedia projects currently reach more than 477 million unique
visitors around the world every month (comScore, October 2011), making
Wikipedia the fifth most-popular web site in the world.
“This grant is an important endorsement of the Wikimedia Foundation and its
work, and I hope it will send a signal as we kick off our annual
fundraising campaign this week," said Sue Gardner, executive director of
the Wikimedia Foundation. "This is how Wikipedia works: people use it, they
like it, and so they help pay for it, to keep it freely available for
themselves and for everyone around the world. I am very grateful to Sergey
Brin and Anne Wojcicki for supporting what we do.”
The Brin Wojcicki Foundation has funded such organizations as the Michael
J. Fox Foundation, which is researching a cure for Parkinson’s disease. The
principals of the Brin Wojcicki Foundation are Sergey Brin, who co-founded
Google in 1997, and Anne Wojcicki, who co-founded 23andMe, a personal
genetics company.
*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
http://wikimediafoundation.orghttp://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 477 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, October 2011).
Available in more than 280 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than
100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia
Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily
through donations and grants.
Media Contact:
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org
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The campaign for this year is officially launched! Congratulations to
everyone working on it, and fingers crossed for its success.
Thanks,
Sue
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Sue Gardner" <donate(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Nov 15, 2011 2:30 PM
Subject: Thank you from the Wikimedia Foundation
To: "Susan Gardner" <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org>
Dear Susan,
You are amazing, thank you so much for donating to the Wikimedia Foundation!
This is how we pay our bills -- it's people like you, giving five dollars,
twenty dollars, a hundred dollars. My favourite donation last year was five
pounds from a little girl in England, who had persuaded her parents to let
her donate her allowance. It's people like you, joining with that girl, who
make it possible for Wikipedia to continue providing free, easy access to
unbiased information, for everyone around the world. For everyone who helps
pay for it, and for those who can't afford to help. Thank you so much.
I know it's easy to ignore our appeals, and I'm glad that you didn't. From
me, and from the tens of thousands of volunteers who write Wikipedia: thank
you for helping us make the world a better place. We will use your money
carefully, and I thank you for your trust in us.
Thanks,
*Sue Gardner*
Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director
For your records: Your donation on 2011-11-15 was USD 1000.00.
This letter may serve as a record of your donation. No goods or services
were provided, in whole or in part, for this contribution. The Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit charitable corporation with 501(c)(3) tax
exempt status in the United States. Our address is 149 New Montgomery, 3rd
Floor, San Francisco, CA, 94105. U.S. tax-exempt number: 20-0049703
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I came from pub and before going to bed, I checked emails and news.
And I saw that the conflict with police is escalating. As many
Wikimedians participate in OWS and other Occupy protests in US, it
would be good that you report here what's going on with you.
Erik, Sue, Frank, et al,
Can you please say more about the plans for a Middle East education
program? (yes I have read notes from the recent trip on outreach wiki)
What is the timeframe? Who is going to run it? Will you establish a
"trust" there? Where will the office be?
If the program is to be duplicated, I certainly hope there are not the
same issues with quality, as has happened in Pune. What lessons have
you learned and what will you do differently?
Knowing that there is quite a backlog, last time I checked, with
pending changes on Arabic Wikipedia, I am very concerned for the
ability of volunteers there to handle a massive influx of new content.
I am also concerned if you setup a trust in, say Egypt, that will put
a damper on any efforts to form a chapter, which I know has been
discussed.
If done carefully and well, I would be very delighted to see outreach
programs be a success for Arabic Wikipedia, and hope that will be the
case.
Cheers,
Katie
*Wikipedia’s Contributors and Authors at the Center of Wikimedia’s Eighth
Annual Fundraiser
*
SAN FRANCISCO, November 16, 2011 - The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit
behind Wikipedia, today announced the launch of its annual fundraising
campaign. The annual fundraiser brings in critical revenue so that
Wikipedia and its sister projects can remain freely available to people
around the world. Funds raised in this campaign by Wikimedia and its
regional chapters will be used to maintain Wikimedia’s server
infrastructure and improve software, expand global reach, and provide
direct support to a global volunteer community. The Foundation's total
2011-12 planned spending is $28.3 million USD.
This year’s campaign will focus on telling the story of the volunteers and
editors who donate their time to further the Wikimedia mission: to spread
free knowledge around the world. Through the duration of the campaign, the
users of Wikipedia and its sister projects will learn about the unique
personalities behind our projects, as well as the passions and motivations
that fuel their contributions. As in previous years, Wikipedia founder,
Jimmy Wales, will also play a visible role in the fundraising campaign.
“Our community - both our donors and those who actually help write projects
like Wikipedia - is made up of people who are curious, brilliant, and
engaged,” said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation.
“This year we want to share their stories. I think people will find it
interesting to read about the folks who work behind the scenes in the
projects -- and ideally, I am hoping that some readers will be inspired to
start editing themselves, as well.”
*Three Wikipedia contributors to look out for
*
Alan Sohn (user:Alansohn) has contributed so much tech-related information
to more than 2,500 original articles on Wikipedia that his time commitment
to the hobby would equate to hundreds of thousands of earned dollars if he
focused only on his day job as a New Jersey-based systems consultant. “But
money is not the incentive here,” Alan says. “You deal in a different
currency on Wikipedia.” He believes the Foundation has harnessed an
invaluable resource of cooperating individuals dedicated to sharing
unbiased, accurate information.
Susan Hewitt (user:Invertzoo), a US citizen originally from England, knows
her snails. She harbors such a fascination for gastropods and has
cultivated such an extensive knowledge of their existence that she can’t
help but want to share. “That’s what makes Wikipedia so magical,” she says,
“there’s this unspoken light inside all of us that comes from the desire to
help educate, to help share knowledge.” Susan donates because she believes
she has a moral obligation to support any free service she uses so
frequently.
West Virginia native, and San Francisco Bay area-based, Brandon Harris
(User:Jorm) left a high-paying career in the tech industry to help make
positive changes to society. He now works as a programmer for the Wikimedia
Foundation because everything in his soul tells him it’s the right thing to
do. Brandon is particularly motivated by the thought that WMF produces with
“sticks and wires” what massive, big-budget companies only dream of pulling
off.
During the 2010 annual fundraising campaign, the Wikimedia Foundation
raised $15 million in fifty days, a 72% increase over 2009’s total of $8.7
million.
The 2011 campaign will run through January 2012, with appeals from Brandon,
Susan, Alan, Jimmy Wales, and many more atop pages on Wikipedia and its
sister sites, asking readers for their support.
You can also follow the conversation about the annual fundraising campaign
via @wikipedia on Twitter (http://twitter.com/wikipedia) or Identi.ca (
http://identi.ca/wikipedia). To donate to the campaign, visit:
http://donate.wikimedia.org.
*MORE VISUAL MATERIALS*
For photos of the Wikipedia contributors, as well as samples of the
fundraising banners, visit:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:Fundraising_2011_press_materia…
*About the Wikimedia Foundation
*
http://wikimediafoundation.orghttp://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 454 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, September 2011).
Available in more than 280 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 18
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than
100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia
Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily
through donations and grants.
*Media Contact:
*
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org
*(to be removed from future mailings, please reply to this email with
'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the subject line)*
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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Hey guys! As you've probably all come to expect, there'll be another office
hours session on the article feedback tool this week at 22:00 UTC (and yes,
I have checked :P). In attendance will be the full gamut of devs, managers
and technical specialists! Also me. It's deliberately scheduled to make it
possible for US east coasters to attend, so those of you who read
foundation-l and are interested in the AFT, please do come along (Risker,
I'm lookin' at you :P).
For those in Asia/Australasia, 3am UTC (you can check how that relates to
your timezones at
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?hour=3&min=00&sec=0&da…)
on Saturday will see an office hours session on the AFT aimed at you folk
;). It'll just be me, I'm afraid, but if you want to engage on the AFT,
have any suggestions, or just want to discuss it, you're welcome to attend
:).
--
Oliver Keyes
Community Liason, Product Development
Wikimedia Foundation
I sent this request already to some internal lists, but here there might
also be quite some volunteers who have a thought about thanking volunteers
:)
----
It is almost the end of the year, and that is for me personally usually a
moment to thank some of the people I have worked with over the past twelve
months. That triggered me to try and figure out what methods are currently
being used in the Wikimedia universe to thank the real life volunteers.
Therefore I have set up this questionnaire. I have tried to make it
simple&quick to answer, but at the same time to leave plenty of opportunity
to leave suggestions.
Please find it here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dDBXU3l2LXlae…
.
It should take you roughly 3-4 minutes to fill it out. I hope you are
willing to spend these minutes and help me (and others) understand better
what thanking in Wikimedia is all about.
I am targeting both individuals and organizations with this. If you want
to seperate the two, just fill it out twice. Please focus on what *has been
done* so far, not what you're planning to do. I want to be able to make the
replies available publicly. For individuals without names etc of course,
for organizations I would like to be able to add the name of the
organization unless there is an objection. For the rest it is of course
totally informal and it is for sharing practices. I'm trying to figure out:
* How important you think thanking is * What are the best practices and the
coolest ideas * Whether physical or online methods are used primarily Thank
you for your help! Lodewijk
ps: oh yes, of course: you can share this with everybody you like. I hope
someone can send this to the chapters-l especially.
>
> Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:12:42 +0000
> From: B?ria Lima <berialima(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia India Program Trust
>
> *The way I see is India is a land of immense potential for the Wikimedia
> > Movement. IMHO, There is enough space of 10 chapters and Wikimedia
> offices
> > to co-exist and work together in India.*
> >
>
> Did you ever read the Chapter Agreement you signed with WMF? That document
> states that WMIN is the ONLY chapter of WMF in India, and that any one
> organization must have their "approval" to work in Indian soil (I'm saying
> that based in WMPT agreement, WMIN one might be different.)
>
>
I think that the spirit of an agreement is more important than its wording but
I would like to comment both.
Regarding the wording, in my opinion what the contract says can be
interpreted exactly the other way around. It says that to create another
chapter in the same geographical area WMIN will be consulted. [1] It
doesn’t say that the approval of WMIN is needed. Furthermore to create an
organization different than chapters not even that consultation is foreseen.
As for the spirit I feel that the impression that chapters have private
ownership of land is a big mistake that can leads us to a situation contrary to
our values. This exclusivity is contrary to the spirit of sharing. We are
not cultivating potatoes where the owner of the land keeps the potatoes. We
give the potatoes away. The more and better people working the land more
potatoes can give away. We don’t need land owners, what we need are
people working
the land.
I think these organizations should be happy of having there each other andsee
a chance that what one of them can’t do, perhaps will be done by the other.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Agreement_between_chapters_and_Wikimedi…
Hi all,
The Sept-Oct activity report for the Board of Trustees is published on
Meta here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_Reports/September-October,_2011
This is an informal report that we started doing a few months ago to
try and communicate more about what the board and individual trustees
are doing. You can find past reports (July-August and May-June) at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_Reports.
Text of the report follows. Feedback is welcome! -- phoebe
-----
Board of Trustees -- activity report September-October 2011
* Resolutions and votes
New chapters: The Board approved three new chapters in
September-October: Wikimedia District of Columbia, Wikimedia
Bangladesh, and Wikimedia Venezuela. Congratulations to all!
Update to the donor policy: The donor privacy policy, an updated
version of which was approved in July by the Board, had some small
amendments which the Board approved; the latest version of the policy
can be found at donor policy.
* Other Board work
Meetings: The Board met for its regularly scheduled meeting on October
7-8, in San Francisco (agenda).
The next IRC meeting is scheduled for November 6, and the next
regular quarterly meeting is scheduled for 3-4 February 2011 in San
Francisco. Agendas will be posted here.
Audit Committee: The Audit Committee met in late September to review
the preliminary results of KPMG's independent audit of the 2010-2011
fiscal year. Other agenda items included an update on the 2011
fundraiser. Stu and also Renata from the Audit Committee spent time
with new Chief of Finance and Admin Garfield Byrd, helping orient him
to the foundation and broad movement.
Future of fundraising process: The Board, led by Jan-Bart, kicked off
a process to develop a fundraising model for 2012 and beyond. The
first step is developing criteria against which fundraising and funds
dissemination models will be judged; the Board will then ask Sue and
the staff, with community input, to develop potential models and judge
them against the criteria. The process is laid out here, with links to
the pages for criteria, which everyone is encouraged to edit and
discuss.
* Trustee outreach and other activities
- Kat attended the Creative Commons Global Summit in Warsaw, Poland.
- Phoebe attended WikiSym 2011, an academic conference about wikis and
open collaborative software that was held this year in Mountain View,
California. There were many papers about Wikipedia research presented;
some of them are summarized here. Phoebe also presented a workshop at
WikiSym, with Reid Priedhorsky, about collecting the literature about
wikis and Wikipedia; see the workshop page for details.
- Ting attended WikiConvention 2011 in Nürnberg, Germany from Sep. 9th
to 11th, a community gathering of German Wikimedians. On Sep. 23rd he
made a speech on the OpenWorldForum in Paris about the Biography of
Living People Policy on Wikimedia projects.
- Stu continued to help develop Reports and started a new
movement-wide transparency page, Financial reports.
- Sam attended the launch of the Digital Public Library of America in
Washington, DC on October 21-22, as part of their Audience and
Participation workstream. He spoke in their plenary session about the
need to improve digital citations and the m:Wikicite project proposal.
- Bishakha was neckdeep in supporting the community team behind
WikiConference India 2011 which will take place from 18 to 20 November
2011.
- Jimmy spoke around the world in September: in Cambridge (YouGov),
Lima, Peru (conference of former South American Presidents),
Indianapolis, Indiana (marketing conference), London (ICT4D
conference), and Austin, Texas (school board members conference).
Additionally, he attended the unveiling of the new Human Rights Logo
in New York (where he was one of the judges). October took him to
London, Istanbul, San Francisco, Frankfurt, Bologna, New York, and
Amsterdam.