Jimmy Wales wrote:
Dan Grey wrote:
Is it reasonable to believe that donations will increase in line with readers? Has anyone analysed the available data to see if this is happening?
I think it is reasonable _to an extent_, yes. It is far from certain. Mav can perhaps give you some statistics on this, but I believe he is more pessimistic than I am about this.
I would add that the correlation between readership and donations is more apparent during the periods when we are explicitly having a fundraiser. We may be able to support the sites to a large extent that way for now, but having fundraisers too frequently will desensitize people to them. Getting into a position where we have to run intrusive sitewide notices every other month would lead to a vicious cycle of diminishing donations leading to declining performance.
Mav can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure routine donations during non-fundraising periods are nowhere near enough to maintain normal operations. We need to do a lot more to establish ongoing revenue streams, whether it's through this partnership or others. I've passed along and pushed for a few ideas in that regard. It would be nice to have more people doing that, and then we could more easily dispense with those to which people end up raising objections.
Volunteer to help Danny finding grants and preparing applications. Get the Wikimedia Foundation added to your employer's matching program for charitable donations if you have one. Do some research and come up with other ideas to produce income. Just because we're a nonprofit doesn't mean we can disregard the importance of money.
--Michael Snow