Picking up on the comment by Tobias about less intrusive fundraising, I would make sure we are pursuing the following:

1 Build up a past donors database, communicate with them effectively and then as long as they donate annually make sure they aren't irritated by ads for people who haven't donated at all. (I gather something is now being done here, but I know it wasn't in the past).

2 Get tax deductible/refunded status in as many countries as feasible. Especially countries like the UK where the tax is refunded to the charity rather than the donor. (I know the UK chapter is working on this, and that it isn't easy here, but there are probably other countries with similar systems where we may not even have started).

3 Ramp up Merchandising. Unlike almost any charity I can think of we can offer Xmas gifts for every taste, including for dads. Middle aged men are notoriously difficult to buy presents for, we are one of the few charities that could market calenders, mugs or mousemats suitable for fans of milhist, wrestling, NASCAR or indeed flowers, waterfalls and scientific elements. This is a real opportunity for the fundraising team to work with the Featured content crowd and the wikiprojects. It could also make a serious contribution to my annual Xmas present buying headaches.

4 Use IP location to not put up ads in countries where we are unable to accept donations in the local currency.

Most of the charities I've worked with in the past have not actually made money on the first donation they get from a new donor, generally it costs more to recruit a new donor than they give in the first donation. The real income stream is from repeat donations in future years and from merchandising. Wikimedia is in the amazing position that it can get new donors for less than the cost of recruiting them. However that is only true because the advertising that we do internally is treated as free. In reality that advertising brings with it a big overhead in terms of annoyance to both our volunteers and our readers. I'm not suggesting that we put a monetary value on that internal webspace, but I would suggest that we measure that annoyance better and set some targets to minimise it. Money raised per ads served would help, as would excluding IPs and users who've already seen an ad and not responded. We might also consider not serving ads on pages that are disproportionately viewed by minors

WereSpielChequers

However the main point of mail was to discuss how we're going to raise funds without being annoying to readers, and I welcome any input from WMF staff, chapters and volunteers :-)

-- Tobias