This was noted a few days ago on the Fundraising FAQ, but to help spread the word, the fundraiser is now scheduled to end on January 3. This extension of time will allow some more testing with the new fundraising site. Also, considering that donations increased over the weekend following Thanksgiving in the US, if people are feeling more generous over the holidays (or just trying to beat the end of the tax year), so much the better.
--Michael Snow
On Dec 20, 2007 9:27 PM, Michael Snow wikipedia@att.net wrote:
This was noted a few days ago on the Fundraising FAQ, but to help spread the word, the fundraiser is now scheduled to end on January 3. This extension of time will allow some more testing with the new fundraising site. Also, considering that donations increased over the weekend following Thanksgiving in the US, if people are feeling more generous over the holidays (or just trying to beat the end of the tax year), so much the better.
--Michael Snow
The people planning this do realize that this takes the fund drive to 84 days, right?
The longest previous drive was 34 days.
I'd be among the first to point out that WMF needs the money, but eventually I have imagine that several short drives is better than 1 really long one.
Also, I'd bet good money that the "Thanksgiving bump" came primarily from launching the Fundraising blog on the 23rd and not from that holiday. (Though the end of the tax year might actually be motivating now.) -Robert Rohde
On 12/21/07, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
I'd be among the first to point out that WMF needs the money, but eventually I have imagine that several short drives is better than 1 really long one.
The two main reasons for extending the drive:
* Hopefully we'll have a new fundraising site up soon, and this will allow us to do some more testing on what difference it could make;
* We want to benefit from any increased likelihood to give over the holidays.
Obviously there are many things about this fundraiser that have been very broken; the fact that I (still as Board member) spent my weekend brainstorming with an old student friend of mine over the design of the sitenotice to get the current one ready tells you something about the bandwidth that WMF has had for the execution of this thing: There's an audit underway, we're relocating, we're hiring, etc. So no, simply extending the FR by another few days is not going to do miracles, but hopefully it'll net something like another $50K-$100K, which isn't nothing.
Erik
Also, I'd bet good money that the "Thanksgiving bump" came primarily from launching the Fundraising blog on the 23rd and not from that holiday.
Easy way to check that - if the extra money was mainly in USD (does anywhere else celebrate Thanksgiving? if so, add their currencies to the list), it was likely from Thanksgiving, if it was spread evenly among the currencies, it was probably the blog.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Also, I'd bet good money that the "Thanksgiving bump" came primarily from launching the Fundraising blog on the 23rd and not from that holiday.
Easy way to check that - if the extra money was mainly in USD (does anywhere else celebrate Thanksgiving? if so, add their currencies to the list), it was likely from Thanksgiving, if it was spread evenly among the currencies, it was probably the blog.
Nope. You may have missed two important factors in the analysis 1) the blog was exclusively in english, which means a rather significant part of our readership was not able to read its content 2) the blog is only advertized at the top of all english-speaking projects.
So, if the money was mostly in US dollars, it may have been thanksgiving, or the blog.
Ant
On 21/12/2007, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Also, I'd bet good money that the "Thanksgiving bump" came primarily from launching the Fundraising blog on the 23rd and not from that holiday.
Easy way to check that - if the extra money was mainly in USD (does anywhere else celebrate Thanksgiving? if so, add their currencies to the list), it was likely from Thanksgiving, if it was spread evenly among the currencies, it was probably the blog.
Nope. You may have missed two important factors in the analysis
- the blog was exclusively in english, which means a rather significant
part of our readership was not able to read its content 2) the blog is only advertized at the top of all english-speaking projects.
So, if the money was mostly in US dollars, it may have been thanksgiving, or the blog.
Good point, you need to compare USD to other currencies from English-speaking countries, which does reduce the sample size quite a bit, so it's not as reliable a check.
May be it will help in analysis a bit if the donation form contained tick boxes with predefined reasons? that is beside the comment box or make the comment box the 'other' option.
--user:alnokta
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