I can see the logic in trying for a different funding source, fundraising banners and their messaging have been a cause of tension between the WMF and the community; and asking our readers for money relies on our readers coming to our desktop sites directly and is at risk in a world where our data becomes ubiquitous, but increasingly repackaged and presented by others.
But there are a couple of alternate strategies which I think would serve us better.
Firstly evolution is better than revolution, and in our case that could mean shifting the emphasis from annual one off donations to signing people up for recurring donations. Here in the UK many people open a bank account in their teens and keep it for life. So if you sign people up for a regular payment by direct debit you have a revenue stream that will persist for decades. Short of financial disaster or death people rarely cancel direct debits to charities. I know WIkimedia UK had a lot of success at signing people up for direct debits back in 2011 when they were part of the fundraiser, there has also been some work done on asking former donors to give again. Shifting from a strategy of asking our readers for donations to one of asking new and past donors to sign up for a regular contribution would give us more financial security, less dependence on people using our sites directly and hopefully open the way for less intrusive messaging that is more mission aligned and doesn't scare people into thinking that Wikipedia is under financial threat. It would also be a much smaller step from our current strategy than one of asking big corporates and grant givers for money. When a donor who gives 0.0001% of the WMF's income threatens to stop donating you can ignore the threat and treat their complaint on its merits. When a donor who gives 0.1% of the WMF's income is upset they are likely to have inside contacts whose job it is to keep such donors donating.
Secondly having CC-BY-SA contributions repackaged and reused as if they were CC0 is a trend that the WMF could resist, first with diplomacy and if necessary with lawyers. Remember in most languages we aren't currently under threat from someone creating a rival to Wikipedia, our threat is from mirrors that present Wikipedia in more attractive ways. Attribution would undermine the business model of those mirrors who aim for the ads they wrap our content in to be less intrusive than WMF fundraising, legalese and editing options. It would keep a proportion of the really interested and the really grateful clicking through to Wikimedia sites where they can be recruited as donors of either time or money. It would also realign the strategy of the WMF with the aspirations of a large part of the community, those whose motivation comes in part from contributing under CC-BY-SA rather than CC0.
Regards
Jonathan/WereSpielChequers