Hey Everyone,
I wanted to send a quick reminder that on Tuesday, 27th November, at 16:00 UTC, we will launch our mobile and banner campaigns. We expect to run the fundraising campaign on English Wikipedia in 6 countries: USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. You may notice some final systems tests running between now and then.
---Banners and Ideas---
You can see all of our current most effective fundraising banners on our Fundraising Ideas page where you can also contribute any specific ideas or stories we should tell via social media, banners, emails etc. ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2018-19_Fundraising_ideas )
Like last year, we will come to you for ideas and suggestions to test. In addition to bringing in donations, we aim to use the campaign to educate all readers about Wikipedia and the community who creates it. The fundraising team’s A/B testing strategy works in iterative steps, so look at our banners and have a think about what one element you would change or add and how would you make it different. Think of sentences we can use to tell our story that would make you proud. Look at other non-profit websites and see if there are ideas that you think we should try.
To get people thinking, here is a list of things of what works and what does not:
WHAT WORKS
* Localisation - We refer to which country the reader is from, what day it is and the general type of device they use (mobile or desktop).
* Reverse Social Proof/Exceptionalism - Unlike other commercial or non-profits, our donors like to feel special. (They should. They are.)
* A personal, frank tone - Words like humbly or sincerely are important in asks
* Anchoring the donation amount - We refer to the $3 small amount, we refer to the average donation amount and in email we refer to past donation amounts.
* Coffee and Ubiquity - It works, mainly because it is something that is common in many people’s lives. Coffee, metro lines, libraries, public parks etc.
WHAT DOESN'T
* Social proof (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof) - It’s a well known concept that individuals will align their actions to others in order to acquire acceptance from a wider group. It is a concept used very broadly in both commercial and non-profit worlds. We've been told by people from all industries, academics and from our communities that this works. For Wikipedia it doesn't. We've tried and tested and re-tested again and again. It really doesn't work for us
* Idealism - Wikipedia: As long as the internet/the world exists, we pledge that Wikipedia will strive to make it a better place. Stories of helping farmers or children across the world.
* Breadth - Facts like: English Wikipedia just passed 5 million articles.
From Argentina to Zimbabwe, your gift keeps the world learning.
---Reporting Issues---
If you see any technical issues with the banners or payments systems please do report it on phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?template=118862
If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer them to: donate {{at}} wikimedia.org.
Here is also the ever present fundraising IRC channel to raise urgent technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising ( http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4)
---Next Updates & Social Media---
Tomorrow we will be posting a blog and also releasing some updated social media frames.
A huge thank you to everyone who works to create and support Wikipedia who make it a resource that people love and want to donate to. Fingers crossed!
Hey all! Just an update!
The main campaign has been running for a little under two weeks and so far things are ticking over nicely!
===Procedural notes===
Banners limited: As has been standard practice we are limiting the number of times a reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose to not dismiss the banners. A user should only see a banner a maximum of 5 times per browser. After this it will result in the banners being suppressed for a period of 1 month.
Latin America: To focus on our English campaign and to reduce potential technical stresses we disabled our low level Latin America campaign. It will be re-enabled in January.
Testing: We've been working hard over the past week to incorporate as much community feedback as we can both in terms of design and text. Will try to update you on this as soon as possible.
===Supporting the fundraiser on social media!===
You can support the fundraiser on social media:
Anywhere: Please share why you love Wikipedia and free knowledge using the hashtag #ILoveWikipedia. with the donation link ( https://donate.wikimedia.org) and the hashtag. Ask your friends to do it, too! I’m sure teachers, college students, journalists, developers or librarians in your circle might have something to add…
===Fundraising on the Wikipedia Portal===
We have just released a small fundraising appeal on the www.wikipedia.org portal. This experiment was developed by online fundraising lead production manager Peter Coombe and UX designer Robin Schoenbaechler. It has been made possible thanks to extensive collaborations across the foundation, in particular with engineering manager Sam Smith and portal engineer Jan Drewniak. We thank them for their guidance and enthusiasm. Thanks also to Volker Eckl, who supplied input on the integration of our new content into the portal as well as the legal team for conducting a legal review before it went live. This experiment is planned to run for the duration of the English campaign (throughout the month of December).
===Donor Messages===
Here are some messages of thanks from our donors:
------------------------------------------------------ I have an extensive multidisciplinary academic, info management, and IT background. Knowledge is my addiction. Thank you for the constant gratification of my habit! ------------------------------------------------------- I've trawled through countless articles on this website. i've read the entire glossary of ice hockey terms and know where and when aleister crowley was born, lived, and died. i just want to thank you for helping me find my passion for information. ------------------------------------------------------- Thank you, and everyone who volunteers their time to help Wikipedia. I have yet to contribute much myself, but I am incredibly thankful for everything Wikipedia has done. It's provided so much knowledge and information to people all over the globe, it's helped me so much personally to learn more about the world we live in, and it's going to continue helping countless more to come. Thank you ------------------------------------------------------- I find the mission of Wikipedia to be extraordinarily generous and provides me a bit of hope for humanity. My favorite articles tend to be about historical events, primarily interesting people such as Kings, Generals, and scholars. Thank you Wikimedia for all the great things you have done and continue to do. ------------------------------------------------------- You have saved my ass more times than I can count. College? I'm slaying that cause of y'all. Thank you so much. You can't understand how useful you are. ------------------------------------------------------ Teachers in school used to say not to trust Wikipedia. But I have noticed that over time it's very reliable- with good soured links. And misinformation gets corrected very quickly. I think it gets a bad rep in the public k-12 system. Thank you to the editors for preventing people from filling pages with misinformation! ------------------------------------------------------ Thank you for all you do! It's thankless work but, it is very much appreciated!! You are making the world a better place!! Thank you! Thank you for the countless hours, the fact checking, and grammatical error corrections. I implore you to keep going so we can all live in blissful ignorance until we need to reference something that needs to be accurate. Thank you for your dedication and sacrifice. It has not gone unnoticed. ------------------------------------------------------
***That’s all for now folks! Thank you everyone for your support! I’ll update you again soon!***
Regards
-- Seddon
Community and Audience Engagement Associate Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation
On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 1:31 AM Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hey Everyone,
I wanted to send a quick reminder that on Tuesday, 27th November, at 16:00 UTC, we will launch our mobile and banner campaigns. We expect to run the fundraising campaign on English Wikipedia in 6 countries: USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. You may notice some final systems tests running between now and then.
---Banners and Ideas---
You can see all of our current most effective fundraising banners on our Fundraising Ideas page where you can also contribute any specific ideas or stories we should tell via social media, banners, emails etc. ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2018-19_Fundraising_ideas )
Like last year, we will come to you for ideas and suggestions to test. In addition to bringing in donations, we aim to use the campaign to educate all readers about Wikipedia and the community who creates it. The fundraising team’s A/B testing strategy works in iterative steps, so look at our banners and have a think about what one element you would change or add and how would you make it different. Think of sentences we can use to tell our story that would make you proud. Look at other non-profit websites and see if there are ideas that you think we should try.
To get people thinking, here is a list of things of what works and what does not:
WHAT WORKS
- Localisation - We refer to which country the reader is from, what day it
is and the general type of device they use (mobile or desktop).
- Reverse Social Proof/Exceptionalism - Unlike other commercial or
non-profits, our donors like to feel special. (They should. They are.)
- A personal, frank tone - Words like humbly or sincerely are important
in asks
- Anchoring the donation amount - We refer to the $3 small amount, we
refer to the average donation amount and in email we refer to past donation amounts.
- Coffee and Ubiquity - It works, mainly because it is something that is
common in many people’s lives. Coffee, metro lines, libraries, public parks etc.
WHAT DOESN'T
- Social proof (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof) - It’s a well
known concept that individuals will align their actions to others in order to acquire acceptance from a wider group. It is a concept used very broadly in both commercial and non-profit worlds. We've been told by people from all industries, academics and from our communities that this works. For Wikipedia it doesn't. We've tried and tested and re-tested again and again. It really doesn't work for us
- Idealism - Wikipedia: As long as the internet/the world exists, we
pledge that Wikipedia will strive to make it a better place. Stories of helping farmers or children across the world.
- Breadth - Facts like: English Wikipedia just passed 5 million articles.
From Argentina to Zimbabwe, your gift keeps the world learning.
---Reporting Issues---
If you see any technical issues with the banners or payments systems please do report it on phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?template=118862
If you see a donor on a talk page, OTRS, or social media with questions about donating or having difficulties in the donation process, please refer them to: donate {{at}} wikimedia.org.
Here is also the ever present fundraising IRC channel to raise urgent technical issues: #wikimedia-fundraising ( http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23wikimedia-fundraising&uio=d4)
---Next Updates & Social Media---
Tomorrow we will be posting a blog and also releasing some updated social media frames.
A huge thank you to everyone who works to create and support Wikipedia who make it a resource that people love and want to donate to. Fingers crossed!
-- Seddon
*Community and Audience Engagement Associate* *Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org