Megan,
As pointed out previously,[1] the Wikipedia Reader Survey mentioned in the Fundraising Report didn't ask respondents to assess the urgency of the fundraising message against the Foundation's actual financial situation (or if they were asked, those results weren't reported). Several members of this list had suggested this be done. It is disappointing that it wasn't.
One example banner shown in the report for example says:
"Wikipedia readers. We survive on donations. If everyone reading this gave $3, we could keep it online and ad-free for another year."
As a number of people have told you, this type of banner message is widely understood to signify that the Wikimedia Foundation lacks funds to keep Wikipedia online without ad revenue for another year. But in fact, you took enough money this year alone to keep Wikipedia and all other Wikimedia projects online and ad-free until the year 2040, if you allocated the funds received to that purpose.
On the suggestions page in Meta,[2] I proposed on September 1, 2015 that you test a wording which, instead of telling people you need money to keep Wikipedia online without ads, just told them "to take one minute to keep our work going for another year".
That would be an honest message: you are doing a lot of work. Most of this has nothing to do with keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free, but much of it is valuable. Moreover, I and many others would like the Foundation to do more in certain areas. I understand that doing stuff costs money. But donors need to understand what their money is used for.
It took you four weeks to reply to my suggestion, only to tell me that the version you tested still asked people for money "to keep it online and growing". And you say that you don't have time to test anything else now.
So I am fully expecting that we will see messages of the "Wikipedia readers. We survive on donations. If everyone reading this gave $3, we could keep it online and ad-free for another year." type in two months' time.
This is a shame. It is quite possible that readers would donate amply out of generosity and gratitude, without having to be frightened with the spectre of Wikipedia blinking out of existence.
If you told readers specifics about the Foundation's work, instead of the platitudes contained in an out-of-date FAQ,[3] people might even be inspired and enthused into donating.
To me, all of this reflects very, very poorly on the Foundation. There are many different kinds of wealth. Money is a kind of wealth, integrity is another. Long-term, the latter brings better rewards.
Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-03-18/Op-ed [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas#Banner...
[3] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/en
On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 6:03 PM, Balázs Viczián balazs.viczian@wikimedia.hu wrote:
Hi,
This job is pretty impressive, congratulations to the team :)
Is there a per country breakdown available somewhere?
Balázs
2015-10-02 18:56 GMT+02:00 Megan Hernandez mhernandez@wikimedia.org:
Hi Rodrigo,
Thank you for the question and for all your help with the latest Brazil campaign! I've copied your question over to the talk page and replied there to keep track of the comments together in one spot.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising/2014-15_Report#Latin_Americ...
Thanks!
Megan
On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 11:38 PM, Rodrigo Padula <
rodrigopadula@gmail.com>
wrote:
Excellent report!
I'm really impressed with the low level of donations from Latina
America.
We need to do something to stimulate people to contribute a little bit
more
to our mission.
During the first two weeks of the campaign in Brasil, I received a lot
of
messages from friends requesting information about the Wikipedia
banners
asking for donations, a lot of people thought that it was spam, spyware
or
something fake. So, I guess the low level of donations from Brasil (specially) can be linked with that issue.
In August I started a local effort talking to some journalists
regarding
the importance of the donations to our movement.
I contacted some of our contacts to spread it, and many posts was
published
here regarding the fund-raising campaign, with a really good impact.
http://bit.blog.br/wikipedia-pede-doacoes-para-ajudar-a-manter-site-no-ar/
( interview replicated on twitter and facebook of http://diariodepernambuco.com.br/ to more than 800.000 followers)
http://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/vida-e-cidadania/wikipedia-comeca-nova-campan...
http://www.tecmundo.com.br/wikipedia/84931-wikipedia-volta-pedir-doacoes-lei...
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/tec/2015/08/1670681-wikipedia-comeca-nova-campa...
http://g1.globo.com/tecnologia/noticia/2015/08/wikipedia-pede-doacoes-para-s...
What we can do to help to improve the local level of donations? I'm
really
interested to help with that problem here and our user group can spend
some
time on it, for sure it is something that need some attention.
How can I get more information about the donations from Brasil, mainly
to
identify if after the news published by the local media it improved(or
not)
the level of donations?
There are any way to track it?
Best regards
Rodrigo Padula Project Manager / User Group Coordinator Wikimedia Brazilian Community User Group of Education and Research http://www.wikimedia.org.br
2015-09-30 22:36 GMT-03:00 Megan Hernandez mhernandez@wikimedia.org:
Hi everyone,
The fundraising team is happy to share the report on the 2014-15
fiscal
year fundraising. Please take a look at the report https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2014-2015_Fundraising_Report
and
we
look forward to your feedback on the report talk page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising/2014-15_Report.
Thank you to Wikimedia volunteers, readers, donors, staff and
fundraising
team for making this the most successful year yet.
Megan Hernandez
--
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