Two weeks ago I emailed the fundraising team with the following note, quietly and discretely pointing out an error in their messaging. Sadly I haven't had a reply and I think that in the UK they are still using the £3 buys a coffee for a programmer line:
Aside from the incidental nature of the appeal, £3 and $3 are very different sums of money. When I saw $3 I thought that was an expensive way to buy coffees and that the WMF should invest in a kettle and some mugs. But £3 for a coffee, now that just looks wasteful, even to someone living in an expensive part of London. I dread to think what it looks like to someone living in other parts of England, let alone cheaper parts of the world. "£3 gets coffee and biscuits for a potential wikipedian coming to a training session", that I could defend.
There's also the honesty/credibility factor. I doubt I am the only person seeing different versions of these ads including different currencies, if the sums are this far apart the suspicion has to be that none of the figures are to be trusted. Not a great help to our program of improving Wikipedia quality and getting such details right in our articles.
Regards
Jonathan Cardy
To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We receive no government funds. We survive on donations from our readers. If all our past donors simply gave again today, we could end the fundraiser. Please help us forget fundraising and get back to improving Wikipedia.
We are deeply grateful for your past support. This year, please consider making another donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=3&ms=NDc2NDYzOTUS1&r=NzU3Mzc1MDY0NjcS1&b=0&j=NTgzMzA0NDgwS0&mt=1&rt=0 .
https://donate.wikimedia.org http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=3&ms=NDc2NDYzOTUS1&r=NzU3Mzc1MDY0NjcS1&b=0&j=NTgzMzA0NDgwS0&mt=1&rt=0
Thank you, Jimmy Wales Wikipedia Founder
PS: Less than 1% of our readers donate enough to keep Wikipedia running. Your contribution counts! *DONATE NOW »*
http://links.email.donate.wikimedia.org/ctt?kn=3&ms=NDc2NDYzOTUS1&r=NzU3Mzc1MDY0NjcS1&b=0&j=NTgzMzA0NDgwS0&mt=1&rt=0
"our final email"? This is the last email reminder you'll receive"? Surely that should be qualified with "... this year."?? If that weren't embarrassing, what about...
- Using *bold* AND *italics *AND yellow backgroud colouring all at the
same time in the heading.
- Sending an email on the 18th of December saying that if "ALL past
donors simply gave AGAIN today" [my emphasis] then you wouldn't need to do any more fundraising "for the rest of the year", i.e. for 2 weeks!!
- On the one had it says "we'll never run ads" but in the sentence
immediately beforehand pleads help to us stay "ad-free another year".
- Does the phrase "Less than 1% of our readers donate enough to keep
Wikipedia running" mean a) that less than 1% of readers donate, which is enough to keep us running, or b) that less than 1% of readers who have donated, donated enough to keep us running (implying that the other 99% of donors didn't donate enough)?
- Finally, this email is addressed from Jimmy, but when you receive a
"thank you for donating" email, it's addressed from Lila. [I should note that the thank you for donating email IS very positive and mission-oriented].
*Effectiveness != Efficiency* One of the official WMF Fundraising principles https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles is "*minimal disruption*...aim to raise money from donors *effectively*" [emphasis is original]. I believe that this wording has been interpreted by the fundraising team to mean *"*do the fundraising as quickly as possible". However, I contest that "less disruption" and "more effective" is not the same as "shorter fundraiser". i.e.: Effectiveness != Efficiency.
I am sure that these desperate fundraising emails/banners are *efficient *at getting the most amount of money as fast as possible (they have been honed with excellent A/B testing), but, they achieve this by sacrificing the core WMF fundraising principle of being *minimally disruptive. *In fact, they actually appear to be following a principle of being "as *maximally *disruptive as they can get away with, for as short a time as required".
Can the WMF to say how "minimal disruption" and "effective fundraising" is defined in practice, and how they are measured?
*Shareable vs Desperate* On the same day that the WMF communications team release this inspiring and positive "year in review" video https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/12/17/wikipedias-first-ever-annual-video-reflects-contributions-from-people-around-the-world/, this fundraising email sounds negative and desperate. It is all about not advertising and staying online for another year.
Couldn't the "year in review" video have been used in the fundraising email to tell a positive story about all we have achieved this year? That's the kind of thing Wikimedians will want to share and feel proud about, not something that almost bullies you to donate out of a sense of moral-obligation.
*Fundraising "operating principles"* I would like to reiterate my call to see us develop some practical "operating principles" for fundraising that would give some real-world guidelines for website-banners and emails. Board of Trustees member Phoebe has done an excellent job of summarising the fundraising conversations on this list from the last few weeks here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_principles I would like the Board to ask the Fundraising team (once this fundraiser is finished) to develop these operating principles in a collaborative process with interested community members. This is in the hope that in the future, the community can help spread the word and feel empowered to join the fundraising campaign for our movement, rather than simply hoping it will go away as quickly as possible.
After all, the final official WMF fundraising principle is: "Maximal participation: Consistent with the principles of empowerment underlying Wikimedia’s success, we should empower individuals and groups world-wide to constructively contribute to direct messaging, public outreach, and other activities that drive the success of Wikimedia’s fundraising efforts"
-Liam p.s. by the way, has anyone from the WMF talked the Russian community yet about why they aren't allowed to donate? _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Message: 4 Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 19:12:41 -0500 From: MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Our final email Message-ID: D0B8D003.463EC%z@mzmcbride.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Liam Wyatt wrote:
*Effectiveness != Efficiency* One of the official WMF Fundraising principles https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_principles is "*minimal disruption*...aim to raise money from donors *effectively*" [emphasis is original]. I believe that this wording has been interpreted by the fundraising team to mean *"*do the fundraising as quickly as possible". However, I contest that "less disruption" and "more effective" is not the same as "shorter fundraiser". i.e.: Effectiveness != Efficiency.
Thanks for this e-mail. I agree with you that these donation solicitation e-mails are terrible and unbecoming.
In my opinion, the fundraising principles are simply too weak. They seem to have been designed with maximum flexibility, which for guiding principles would typically be fine, but the fundraising team needs much stricter boundaries. Harder rules, backed by a Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees resolution, are required. Repeated and repeated misbehavior on the fundraising team's part makes it clear that the current guidelines aren't enough. New rules would specifically address, for example, how big and obnoxious in-page donation advertising can be, with hard maximums.
The fundraising rules also need to make explicit that lying is flatly unacceptable. Having the first rule be "don't lie" might be the easiest solution here, though it's shocking that this needs to be written down. The fundraising teams, past and present, regularly lie to our readers in an effort to extract donations. Specific examples of lying include calling Sue Gardner the "Wikipedia Executive Director", calling Brandon Harris a "Wikipedia programmer", and repeatedly making manipulative and misleading suggestions that continued donations keep the projects online.
The Wikimedia Foundation recently raised $20 million. Assuming a generous $3 million to keep the projects online per year, that's over six _years_ that the projects could continue operating before needing to ask for money again. Contrast with e-mails and in-site donation advertising that suggest that the lights will go off soon if readers don't donate today.
MZMcBride
Message: 5 Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 00:21:31 +0000 From: David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Our final email Message-ID: CAJ0tu1GosObr6texiO5U+GpB2kZsxqQ1N8ykkmsA1aLPOF2mww@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
On 19 December 2014 at 00:12, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The fundraising rules also need to make explicit that lying is flatly unacceptable. Having the first rule be "don't lie" might be the easiest solution here, though it's shocking that this needs to be written down.
+1
And we're not talking about semantic arguments, we're seeing blatant falsehoods.
- d.
Message: 6 Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 10:59:50 +1000 From: Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Our final email Message-ID: CAHF+k3-6xezDZ+Q5O45-KNeEfd7O-92aeUzd83AHun30LdS4Kw@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
On 19 December 2014 at 10:12, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
The fundraising rules also need to make explicit that lying is flatly unacceptable. Having the first rule be "don't lie" might be the easiest solution here, though it's shocking that this needs to be written down. The fundraising teams, past and present, regularly lie to our readers in an effort to extract donations. Specific examples of lying include calling Sue Gardner the "Wikipedia Executive Director", calling Brandon Harris a "Wikipedia programmer", and repeatedly making manipulative and misleading suggestions that continued donations keep the projects online.
The Wikimedia Foundation recently raised $20 million. Assuming a generous $3 million to keep the projects online per year, that's over six _years_ that the projects could continue operating before needing to ask for money again. Contrast with e-mails and in-site donation advertising that suggest that the lights will go off soon if readers don't donate today.
Please add my name to the list of people who are troubled by what's been said and done in the latest round of fundraising.
I think that most of us, even if we feel some distaste for begging for money, realise the importance and necessity of engaging in fundraising. The fact that we're asking for money is not the problem. The problem is that in order to maximise the amount of revenue gained, the Fundraising team has engaged in a misleading scare campaign. In the short term, that means that a few more dollars will flow into the Foundation's coffers, but in the long term it just damages the brand and the entire movement.
It is very disappointing that the responses from the WMF to these entirely reasonable concerns so far have been either:
a) Silence b) Completely ignoring the point ("The fundraiser has been very successful because we've received more money, and those who are not aware that they've been mislead are not upset!") c) Semantic word games ("Well, in a technical sense what we've said is not a lie, depending on how you look at it")
The solution that I'd like to see for next time is less focus on A/B testing that has its sole purpose of maximising the amount of revenue raised, and more of a view to alternative ways to raise money. Imagine a world in which we gave our readers a positive message that we already had enough money to keep the lights on thanks very much, but needed more to build cool new tools, improve the quality of the project content, and implement more innovative projects to meet our movement's goals.
Regards, Craig Franklin
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End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 129, Issue 85