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:
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I have an extensive multidisciplinary academic, info management, and IT
background. Knowledge is my addiction. Thank you for the constant
gratification of my habit!
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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(a)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*
--
Seddon
*Community and Audience Engagement Associate*
*Advancement (Fundraising), Wikimedia Foundation*