We're trying out a new fundraising site:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/en
Big thanks to Frank Schulenburg from the German chapter, who designed
it, and to Tim Starling and Brion Vibber, who implemented it. Thanks
also to David Strauss and others who helped along the way. Special
thanks to
PediaPress.com for creating a gift certificate PDF generator
on very short notice on a pro bono basis. :-)
Obviously this is too late to make a big difference, but parts of it
will hopefully be re-usable. There's still some work to be done --
translations, integrating chapter donation methods, etc. -- but I
think the core of it is sound. I'm copying Frank's rationale for the
design, and some more thoughts of my own below:
- - - - -
[Story box:]
People love to hear stories. We have great stories to tell. I'm
convinced that people are more likely to donate after reading one of our
stories around Wikipedia. But we are talking about a webpage and
therefore our stories have to be short and they need to have a clear plot.
Just have a look at the example of Patricio Lorente. The story has four
parts:
1) Introduction of Patricio as a normal kind of guy. There seems to be
nothing unusual to tell about him.
2) Something happened in the life of Patricio. Something that changes
his attitude towards life in general.
3) Patricio gets involved with Wikipedia. He begins to do something very
special and useful.
4) You don't want him to stop his very special and useful work just as a
result of a lack of money, don't you? Donate.
Each story we are telling should have the same or a similar plot, but if
it's necessary you can change the sequence:
1) Jaan-Cornelius, one of millions of pupils on earth.
3) He does something very special.
2) Something happens (terrorist blasts) and Jaan-Cornelius' work
suddenly proves to be very useful.
4) You should donate to give him the opportunity to continue his work
(properly meaning: donate to keep the servers running)
In the next days and weeks we should collect as many good stories as we
can. Perhaps another example could be the story of one of our volunteers
who helps to keep the servers running. Or one of our technical staff who
cares about the usability of Wikipedia. Or one of our volunteers of the
e-mail support team...
We should jump at the chance and try to involve the communities. We all
know: Wikipedians love to get involved. They strongly dislike not being
asked. Let's have a posting at the village pump, illustrate our new
fundraising concept and ask the community members to tell us "their"
Wikipedia stories.
[Donate box:]
The fastest route to donate: let visitors enter the amount and the
currency on the _first_ page. Enable them to "donate now". Nobody likes
to click through four or five webpages before he gets the sign to
"donate now". Let's keep things simple.
As tax deductibility is a key interest for most of our donors we provide
a short text which points out that the Wikimedia Foundation is a tax
exempt charitable corporation. This part of the webpage is planned to be
variable. The dutch version should have a notice like "If you want to
deduct your donation from your taxable income please donate to Wikimedia
Netherlands".
[Additional donation methods:]
What's the most common way to donate in the Netherlands? or in France?
At this part of the page we can provide information about how to deposit
money in our bank account, how to send a cheque, and so on...
That means: we really need information about the most common payment
options in each country. Perhaps Delphine as a chapter coordination can
help with that.
- - - - -
I might find some time over the holidays to work on some additional
stories for the site. But if you have any ideas yourself, feel free to
post them, to me or to the list. :-)
Technically, the entire design is served through a wiki, which
hopefully will make it reasonably straightforward to make changes as
needed.
Any feedback is appreciated. :-)
Happy holidays to all!
Erik