I think you guys did a great job, all in all. We can't and shouldn't expect it to be perfect, and obviously you can't please everyone. I'm happy to say that the disgruntlement I described in my "strong negative reaction" thread at the beginning of the fundraiser did not prevent a very successful outcome for the drive. It really shows the value of a professional staff, a value that we've seen in a number of areas around Wikimedia. There will always be people against asking for money, against banners, etc. But they don't come with ideas on what to replace money with... (perhaps WMF can get into providing natural gas to EU countries?), so in the mean time money it is!
Personally I appreciate that the foundation is working to make fundraising a year round project, particularly with respect to large donations from individuals and other foundations. I wonder if we can't work more closely with other, more established charitable foundations though. If we connected our fundraising drive to the fundraising of another charity, particularly one that is very well known (like the B&M Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Red Cross, etc.), wouldn't that make our drive more high profile in the press and the donor world? Right now we get a lot of online buzz, but it doesn't seem to translate into wider coverage. Working with them would also much more clearly establish our charitable credentials, which directly targets the major perception gap in the world about Wikimedia.
We could pair our whole drive with the drive of another major organization, or parcel out days or weeks separately (a week where our drive is "In cooperation with the American Red Cross, with donations split between these two very valuable organizations" etc.). I don't know if we would get more from the dual appeal than we lose by splitting donations, but we could always have separate "Click here to donate to Wikimedia" and "Click here to donate to the Red Cross."
Something to perhaps consider, anyway.
Nathan