(This press release is also available online here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_ann...

Wikimedia Foundation launches tenth-annual online fundraising campaign to support Wikipedia and increase access to free knowledge

(San Francisco, California) 3 December 2013 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects, today announced the launch of its tenth-annual year-end fundraising campaign. The online fundraising campaign aims to raise $20 million, while the remainder of the Wikimedia Foundation's funding will come from individual gifts given outside the year-end campaign, and from foundation grants. The overwhelming majority of the Wikimedia Foundation's funding comes from individual readers giving an average of $15.

The Wikimedia Foundation's online fundraising brings in the resources needed to keep the Wikimedia projects freely available to everyone around the world in their own language, and guarantees that Wikipedia will never have to rely on advertising. Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation maintain server infrastructure, improve and simplify the software that runs our projects, support initiatives around the globe to increase the number of project contributors, and make Wikipedia accessible to billions of people who are just beginning to access the internet.

"People donate to Wikipedia because they find it useful, and they trust it because even though it's not perfect, they know it's written for them. We aim to tell the truth, and we can do that because of the millions of people who donate what they can each year," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "The average donor is paying for his or her own use of Wikipedia, plus the costs of hundreds of other people. The support of so many people keeps us independent and able to deliver the world's knowledge for free. Exactly as it should be."

Every year, as the number of Wikipedia readers and donors grows, the Wikimedia Foundation is able to shorten the duration of its end-of-year campaign. We thank all our donors for their support. We also want to thank the volunteers who help make our campaign a widely localized and internationalized endeavor. In 2012, for example, more than 1,000 people translated the fundraising banners into more than 100 languages, which prompted donations from nearly every country on the planet.

The 2013 year-end fundraising campaign builds on the success of previous years and will run through the end of this year. To make a donation, click the banners at the top of Wikipedia, or go directly to donate.wikimedia.org.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

http://wikimediafoundation.org http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix, Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive more than 530 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most popular web property worldwide (comScore, October 2013). Available in 287 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 30 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.

Press Contact Matthew Roth Spokesperson, Wikimedia Foundation +1 415-839-6885 ext 6635 (San Francisco) mroth@wikimedia.org

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