I liked the idea of clearly indicating what the current amount of funds would go for and what the next major funding milestones are. (Sorry, whoever it was who posted this initially as an alternative to things becoming "urgent" - I'd cite your post but I didn't find it upon looking again!)
The thing is, that might not work to bring in the bucks the same way "urgent" does.
Maybe in light of the comment about Pareto: there are going to be a few people who can contribute a lot (including non-monetary contributions) and many who can contribute a little (again, including both monetary and non-monetary contributions).
Those who want to contribute "a lot" in terms of hands-on involvement, volunteer hours, and so forth, would probably be very well served by clear links to the "thermometer" or a clear indication of project and fundraising milestones. Those who just want to contribute X amount of money because it makes them feel good have no need for that stuff.
Obviously we're talking about *fund*raising here, but it's still a good time to look for ways to increase non-monetary contributions, possibly including connecting with those users who would prefer a "co-op" model to a "charity" model.
On 1/2/11, Mono mium monomium@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps you should work on establishing the Wikimedia brand...
On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
2011/1/1 Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com:
On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org
wrote:
But to suggest that the choice of such shorthand is tantamount to "lying to and misleading our donors" is, indeed, irresponsible hyperbole. It's clear that the choice was, in fact, made to _reduce_ potential confusion of donors about who/what they're being asked to support.
Hang on:
On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 11:20 AM, Philippe Beaudette pbeaudette@wikimedia.org wrote:
When we get letters saying things like "I'd donate, but only to
Wikipedia, not to Wikimedia", it spells out for us that it's possible we could attract more people with the institution of Wikipedia than the institution of Wikimedia.
See the immediately previous sentence in Philippe's email: "Yes, it'll come as a shock to all of you <tongue-in-cheek> but there are people who don't know that Wikimedia is anything more than a mis-spelling of Wikipedia. </tongue-in-cheek>." He's talking about the exact same issue.
-- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
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