Are these new improved banners available for inspection and comment? Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Megan Hernandez Sent: Friday, 20 November 2015 10:07 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising Update
Hi all,
We are just a few weeks away from the launch of the December English fundraiser. The end of the year is the most critical time of the year for Wikimedia’s fundraising: The goal this year is $25 million. The campaign will launch in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland on Giving Tuesday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giving_Tuesday, December 1st.
In these past months of preparation, we have relied on feedback from the volunteer community, readers, and staff through discussion pages, feedback sessions, phone calls, interviews, user testing, surveys and A/B tests. Thank you to everyone for participating! It has truly been a helpful experience and wonderful to hear from so many voices from all different parts of the movement.
In just the last two weeks, an independent research firm conducted a new survey of Wikipedia readers. (You may remember that we did a similar survey last February.) We heard from you last spring that there were some additional concerns that you would like us to explore with readers. We tried to look into those concerns in this survey. We have uploaded the survey report on Commons https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Wikimedia_Reader_Survey_November_2015.pdf for anyone who is interested in reading it. We have also setup a section on the Fundraising Meta page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising#Reader_Survey_November_2015 to discuss the survey.
The feedback from readers, the volunteer community and staff has been critical to shape the campaign. Several improvements have been made so far as a direct result of this input. We have changed a few specific sentences of the message that were discussed heavily on meta pages and also tried a variety of design ideas based on comments.
We also have some fresh banner ideas that came about through a recent workshop with staff. We will be testing those new banner ideas in small runs throughout the campaign as well. And we’re still gathering ideas! To see the latest version of the message and submit your ideas, please visit the fundraising ideas meta page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas.
Since last year, we have made improvements to our banner targeting and analytics systems with the goal of raising the budget, while limiting the number of banners and disruption for our readers. We aim to run the campaign for roughly two weeks at a high traffic level and then at a much reduced level for the rest of December.
The fundraising team faces a great challenge this year: the highest revenue target in WMF history along with a decline in page views – particularly in desktop pageviews where readers are more likely to donate. The team has and will continue to work hard to make improvements needed to reach this goal. We cannot do this alone. Thank you to everyone who has offered input, expertise, time and energy into helping make this fundraiser a success.
We look forward to your ideas and questions. Since the team experiences an incredibly high volume of seasonal work, we will not be able to respond immediately to questions or feedback. We will review feedback and bug reports regularly and we have dedicated time to post an update by mid-December and again at the end of the campaign. Here’s how to get involved:
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To file a bug report or technical issue, please create a phabricator ticket https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?template=118862 or email problemsdonating@wikimedia.org -
To see the latest news from the team, see the fundraising meta page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising -
To suggest a banner idea, visit the test ideas meta page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas -
To read the latest reader survey, see the https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Wikimedia_Reader_Survey_November_2015.pdffull report on commons https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Wikimedia_Reader_Survey_November_2015.pdf -
To learn more about the fundraising program and last year’s campaign, see the 2014-15 fundraising report https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2014-2015_Fundraising_Report
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the campaign preparations. More importantly, thank you to the entire Wikimedia community for building this incredible project that readers love and support with their donations. None of this would be possible without you.
Megan