Hello All!
So originally we were going to send an update after the first two weeks but with so much going on and following feedback, I'll cover as much as I can in as brief a form as possible and more regularly than planned:
-
Banners limited: We have already begun limiting the number of times a reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose to not dismiss the banners. For the moment, dismissing a banner or viewing a banner *up to 10 times* will result in the banners being suppressed for a period of 1 week. -
Big messaging update [1]: We've been playing heavily with the ideas of “fake news” and “facts matter”. In addition for first time since 2013, we have returned to an appeal coming from a specific individual, in this case Jimmy. Much of the inspiration for both came from interviews Fundraising did with both Jimmy and Katherine back in October. -
Big design update & in-line banners: We've moved away from the dark navy blue (seen as black by many people), which was considered by the community to be too mobid and foreboding, to a white background banner with red border. Following extensive testing we also moved to inline banners over the weekend replacing the top header banners. -
Promising Numbers: Currently we believe that we have raised around $13,000,000 (accounting for payments to be cleared). This has been helped enormously by both gains found in our banner campaigns that is allowing us to keep pace with the decline of desktop, as well as a brilliantly performing e-mail campaign. -
Awesome E-mail: November 30th 2016 saw our biggest day for email fundraising ~$950,000 (2016) vs ~$550,000 (2015) raised in a 24 hour period with approximately a similar number of e-mails. -
Stable Tech: This year has been extremely stable from a technical standpoint compared to other years, with the most perplexing issue being an odd dip that occurred in our donations and traffic [2] on December 1st for one hour. This occurred during the quietest period in a day for 2 days but then appeared to stop. Low impact but naturally could be a bigger issue if the problem occurred during peak fundraising hours or was more prolonged, investigations continue. -
Major gifts going great: Our major gifts team have been very busy, and have seen double the number of Major gifts donations during this period of the year compared with last year which means this page [3] getting a lot of updates recently. -
A brilliant social media team: In short awesome work has been done by them but I will send a separate more detailed update on this :)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_1117_en6C_dsk_p1_...
[2] - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152122 [3] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
People can follow progress of the fundraiser by loading the spreadsheet files provided here:
At the time of writing, the data in
yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv https://frdata.wikimedia.org/yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv Total amount received per day (not taking into account refunds)
indicate that you have received $15.8 million in donations since the year-end campaign started on November 29. The advertised target of the campaign is $25 million[1] – so after less than nine days, you are already more than 60% there.
Are you planning to end the campaign once the publicised target is reached, or will you go beyond the target as you did in the last two years?
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/11/29/wikimedia-foundation-annual-fundraiser...
On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:05 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello All!
So originally we were going to send an update after the first two weeks but with so much going on and following feedback, I'll cover as much as I can in as brief a form as possible and more regularly than planned:
Banners limited: We have already begun limiting the number of times a reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose to not dismiss the banners. For the moment, dismissing a banner or viewing a banner *up to 10 times* will result in the banners being suppressed for a period of 1 week.
Big messaging update [1]: We've been playing heavily with the ideas of “fake news” and “facts matter”. In addition for first time since 2013, we have returned to an appeal coming from a specific individual, in this case Jimmy. Much of the inspiration for both came from interviews Fundraising did with both Jimmy and Katherine back in October.
Big design update & in-line banners: We've moved away from the dark navy blue (seen as black by many people), which was considered by the community to be too mobid and foreboding, to a white background banner with red border. Following extensive testing we also moved to inline banners over the weekend replacing the top header banners.
Promising Numbers: Currently we believe that we have raised around $13,000,000 (accounting for payments to be cleared). This has been helped enormously by both gains found in our banner campaigns that is allowing us to keep pace with the decline of desktop, as well as a brilliantly performing e-mail campaign.
Awesome E-mail: November 30th 2016 saw our biggest day for email fundraising ~$950,000 (2016) vs ~$550,000 (2015) raised in a 24 hour period with approximately a similar number of e-mails.
Stable Tech: This year has been extremely stable from a technical standpoint compared to other years, with the most perplexing issue being an odd dip that occurred in our donations and traffic [2] on December 1st for one hour. This occurred during the quietest period in a day for 2 days but then appeared to stop. Low impact but naturally could be a bigger issue if the problem occurred during peak fundraising hours or was more prolonged, investigations continue.
Major gifts going great: Our major gifts team have been very busy, and have seen double the number of Major gifts donations during this period of the year compared with last year which means this page [3] getting a lot of updates recently.
A brilliant social media team: In short awesome work has been done by them but I will send a separate more detailed update on this :)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_ 1117_en6C_dsk_p1_lg_template&force=1&country=US
[2] - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152122 [3] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
-- Seddon
*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* *Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hey Andreas
A very quick email just noting I don't know the method by which that frdata dump is created (its very old and not maintained) but it would seem that numbers in the frdata dump are only useful as a rough guide.
We are basing our numbers on internal accounting figures which is more representative of the actual cash flow since it is more closely based on actual cleared payments.
Seddon
On 7 Dec 2016 13:36, "Andreas Kolbe" jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
People can follow progress of the fundraiser by loading the spreadsheet files provided here:
At the time of writing, the data in
yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv https://frdata.wikimedia.org/yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv Total amount received per day (not taking into account refunds)
indicate that you have received $15.8 million in donations since the year-end campaign started on November 29. The advertised target of the campaign is $25 million[1] – so after less than nine days, you are already more than 60% there.
Are you planning to end the campaign once the publicised target is reached, or will you go beyond the target as you did in the last two years?
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/11/29/wikimedia- foundation-annual-fundraiser/
On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:05 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello All!
So originally we were going to send an update after the first two weeks
but
with so much going on and following feedback, I'll cover as much as I can in as brief a form as possible and more regularly than planned:
Banners limited: We have already begun limiting the number of times a reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose to not dismiss the banners. For the moment, dismissing a banner or viewing a banner *up to 10 times* will result in the banners being suppressed
for
a period of 1 week.
Big messaging update [1]: We've been playing heavily with the ideas of “fake news” and “facts matter”. In addition for first time since 2013, we have returned to an appeal coming from a specific individual, in this case Jimmy. Much of the inspiration for both came from interviews
Fundraising
did with both Jimmy and Katherine back in October.
Big design update & in-line banners: We've moved away from the dark
navy
blue (seen as black by many people), which was considered by the community to be too mobid and foreboding, to a white background banner with red border. Following extensive testing we also moved to inline banners
over
the weekend replacing the top header banners.
Promising Numbers: Currently we believe that we have raised around $13,000,000 (accounting for payments to be cleared). This has been helped enormously by both gains found in our banner campaigns that is
allowing
us to keep pace with the decline of desktop, as well as a brilliantly performing e-mail campaign.
Awesome E-mail: November 30th 2016 saw our biggest day for email fundraising ~$950,000 (2016) vs ~$550,000 (2015) raised in a 24 hour period with approximately a similar number of e-mails.
Stable Tech: This year has been extremely stable from a technical standpoint compared to other years, with the most perplexing issue being an odd dip that occurred in our donations and traffic [2] on December 1st for one hour. This occurred during the quietest period in a day for 2 days but then appeared to stop. Low impact but naturally could be a bigger
issue
if the problem occurred during peak fundraising hours or was more prolonged, investigations continue.
Major gifts going great: Our major gifts team have been very busy, and have seen double the number of Major gifts donations during this
period
of the year compared with last year which means this page [3] getting a lot of updates recently.
A brilliant social media team: In short awesome work has been done by them but I will send a separate more detailed update on this :)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_ 1117_en6C_dsk_p1_lg_template&force=1&country=US
[2] - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152122 [3] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
-- Seddon
*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* *Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi Seddon,
Okay, but I believe I am correct in saying that you took around $34 million last December, even though the publicised[1] target was $25 million.
I am basing that on the monthly bar chart in the Wikimedia Foundation's 2015–2016 Fundraising Report.[2]*
In 2014, the publicised target was $20 million, and you reported[3] that you surpassed that as well – by more than $10 million, according to the frdata dump.
Given that this year you've taken well over half your target amount in eight days, and are outperforming last year's campaign, I estimate you'll end up with a total of around $40 million if you keep the campaign running until the end of the year, i.e. $15 million more than the communicated target.
Is that what you're intending to do, or will you end the campaign when the targeted $25 million are in the bank?
Andreas
* I tried to include the chart for quick reference, but the mail that included seems to have gotten stuck in the system. I guess pipermail doesn't like graphics.
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/12/01/wikimedia-foundati on-annual-campaign/ [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Fundraising_Report [3] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keep ing-knowledge-free-and-accessible/
On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 2:04 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hey Andreas
A very quick email just noting I don't know the method by which that frdata dump is created (its very old and not maintained) but it would seem that numbers in the frdata dump are only useful as a rough guide.
We are basing our numbers on internal accounting figures which is more representative of the actual cash flow since it is more closely based on actual cleared payments.
Seddon
On 7 Dec 2016 13:36, "Andreas Kolbe" jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
People can follow progress of the fundraiser by loading the spreadsheet files provided here:
At the time of writing, the data in
yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv https://frdata.wikimedia.org/yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv Total amount received per day (not taking into account refunds)
indicate that you have received $15.8 million in donations since the year-end campaign started on November 29. The advertised target of the campaign is $25 million[1] – so after less than nine days, you are
already
more than 60% there.
Are you planning to end the campaign once the publicised target is
reached,
or will you go beyond the target as you did in the last two years?
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/11/29/wikimedia- foundation-annual-fundraiser/
On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:05 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello All!
So originally we were going to send an update after the first two weeks
but
with so much going on and following feedback, I'll cover as much as I
can
in as brief a form as possible and more regularly than planned:
Banners limited: We have already begun limiting the number of times
a
reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose to
not
dismiss the banners. For the moment, dismissing a banner or viewing
a
banner *up to 10 times* will result in the banners being suppressed
for
a period of 1 week.
Big messaging update [1]: We've been playing heavily with the ideas
of
“fake news” and “facts matter”. In addition for first time since
2013,
we have returned to an appeal coming from a specific individual, in
this
case Jimmy. Much of the inspiration for both came from interviews
Fundraising
did with both Jimmy and Katherine back in October.
Big design update & in-line banners: We've moved away from the dark
navy
blue (seen as black by many people), which was considered by the community to be too mobid and foreboding, to a white background banner with
red
border. Following extensive testing we also moved to inline banners
over
the weekend replacing the top header banners.
Promising Numbers: Currently we believe that we have raised around $13,000,000 (accounting for payments to be cleared). This has been helped enormously by both gains found in our banner campaigns that is
allowing
us to keep pace with the decline of desktop, as well as a brilliantly performing e-mail campaign.
Awesome E-mail: November 30th 2016 saw our biggest day for email fundraising ~$950,000 (2016) vs ~$550,000 (2015) raised in a 24 hour period with approximately a similar number of e-mails.
Stable Tech: This year has been extremely stable from a technical standpoint compared to other years, with the most perplexing issue being an odd dip that occurred in our donations and traffic [2] on December
1st
for one hour. This occurred during the quietest period in a day for 2
days
but then appeared to stop. Low impact but naturally could be a bigger
issue
if the problem occurred during peak fundraising hours or was more prolonged, investigations continue.
Major gifts going great: Our major gifts team have been very busy,
and
have seen double the number of Major gifts donations during this
period
of the year compared with last year which means this page [3] getting a lot of updates recently.
A brilliant social media team: In short awesome work has been done
by
them but I will send a separate more detailed update on this :)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_ 1117_en6C_dsk_p1_lg_template&force=1&country=US
[2] - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152122 [3] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
-- Seddon
*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* *Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hoi, Do you remember all this talk about an endowment fund? It makes sense to get more money in it because without sufficient funds it is a paper tiger.
PS I prefer to have it funded by out contributors than by a few large donations. (both are welcome). Thanks, GerardM
On 7 December 2016 at 18:03, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Seddon,
Okay, but I believe I am correct in saying that you took around $34 million last December, even though the publicised[1] target was $25 million.
I am basing that on the monthly bar chart in the Wikimedia Foundation's 2015–2016 Fundraising Report.[2]*
In 2014, the publicised target was $20 million, and you reported[3] that you surpassed that as well – by more than $10 million, according to the frdata dump.
Given that this year you've taken well over half your target amount in eight days, and are outperforming last year's campaign, I estimate you'll end up with a total of around $40 million if you keep the campaign running until the end of the year, i.e. $15 million more than the communicated target.
Is that what you're intending to do, or will you end the campaign when the targeted $25 million are in the bank?
Andreas
- I tried to include the chart for quick reference, but the mail that
included seems to have gotten stuck in the system. I guess pipermail doesn't like graphics.
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/12/01/wikimedia-foundati on-annual-campaign/ [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Fundraising_Report [3] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keep ing-knowledge-free-and-accessible/
On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 2:04 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hey Andreas
A very quick email just noting I don't know the method by which that
frdata
dump is created (its very old and not maintained) but it would seem that numbers in the frdata dump are only useful as a rough guide.
We are basing our numbers on internal accounting figures which is more representative of the actual cash flow since it is more closely based on actual cleared payments.
Seddon
On 7 Dec 2016 13:36, "Andreas Kolbe" jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
People can follow progress of the fundraiser by loading the spreadsheet files provided here:
At the time of writing, the data in
yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv https://frdata.wikimedia.org/yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv Total amount received per day (not taking into account refunds)
indicate that you have received $15.8 million in donations since the year-end campaign started on November 29. The advertised target of the campaign is $25 million[1] – so after less than nine days, you are
already
more than 60% there.
Are you planning to end the campaign once the publicised target is
reached,
or will you go beyond the target as you did in the last two years?
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/11/29/wikimedia- foundation-annual-fundraiser/
On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:05 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello All!
So originally we were going to send an update after the first two
weeks
but
with so much going on and following feedback, I'll cover as much as I
can
in as brief a form as possible and more regularly than planned:
Banners limited: We have already begun limiting the number of
times
a
reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose to
not
dismiss the banners. For the moment, dismissing a banner or
viewing
a
banner *up to 10 times* will result in the banners being
suppressed
for
a period of 1 week.
Big messaging update [1]: We've been playing heavily with the
ideas
of
“fake news” and “facts matter”. In addition for first time since
2013,
we have returned to an appeal coming from a specific individual, in
this
case Jimmy. Much of the inspiration for both came from interviews
Fundraising
did with both Jimmy and Katherine back in October.
Big design update & in-line banners: We've moved away from the
dark
navy
blue (seen as black by many people), which was considered by the community to be too mobid and foreboding, to a white background banner with
red
border. Following extensive testing we also moved to inline
banners
over
the weekend replacing the top header banners.
Promising Numbers: Currently we believe that we have raised around $13,000,000 (accounting for payments to be cleared). This has been helped enormously by both gains found in our banner campaigns that is
allowing
us to keep pace with the decline of desktop, as well as a brilliantly performing e-mail campaign.
Awesome E-mail: November 30th 2016 saw our biggest day for email fundraising ~$950,000 (2016) vs ~$550,000 (2015) raised in a 24
hour
period with approximately a similar number of e-mails.
Stable Tech: This year has been extremely stable from a technical standpoint compared to other years, with the most perplexing issue being an odd dip that occurred in our donations and traffic [2] on December
1st
for one hour. This occurred during the quietest period in a day for 2
days
but then appeared to stop. Low impact but naturally could be a bigger
issue
if the problem occurred during peak fundraising hours or was more prolonged, investigations continue.
Major gifts going great: Our major gifts team have been very busy,
and
have seen double the number of Major gifts donations during this
period
of the year compared with last year which means this page [3]
getting a
lot of updates recently.
A brilliant social media team: In short awesome work has been done
by
them but I will send a separate more detailed update on this :)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_ 1117_en6C_dsk_p1_lg_template&force=1&country=US
[2] - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152122 [3] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
-- Seddon
*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* *Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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I am of two opinions on this:
1) When we raise money we call upon the goodwill people have for the work we do. We should raise sufficient funds to do the important work we do. We need to save some for a rainy day, but we should never collect money just for the sake of it. When we set appropriate fundraising goals and meet them we should thank all involved and save people's remaining goodwill for the future.
2) People do want to engage with us. Donating is often an easier commitment than becoming an editor or volunteer programmer. We have 260 proposals, most of which are excellent, for a community tech team with 6 members. This is obviously more work than they can take on. More funds for this sort of work is not a bad problem to have.
With a clear movement strategy I think these will be easier issues to address. With Katherine at the helm I am confidence that we will soon have such a strategy. Additionally our financial future looks solid. Many of those entering the professional world have relied heavily on our work for their education and as such they in a way view us as an alma mater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_mater.
Congrats to Lisa and her team for another amazing year of fundraising :-) James
On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 11:06 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Do you remember all this talk about an endowment fund? It makes sense to get more money in it because without sufficient funds it is a paper tiger.
PS I prefer to have it funded by out contributors than by a few large donations. (both are welcome). Thanks, GerardM
On 7 December 2016 at 18:03, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Seddon,
Okay, but I believe I am correct in saying that you took around $34
million
last December, even though the publicised[1] target was $25 million.
I am basing that on the monthly bar chart in the Wikimedia Foundation's 2015–2016 Fundraising Report.[2]*
In 2014, the publicised target was $20 million, and you reported[3] that you surpassed that as well – by more than $10 million, according to the frdata dump.
Given that this year you've taken well over half your target amount in eight days, and are outperforming last year's campaign, I estimate you'll end up with a total of around $40 million if you keep the campaign
running
until the end of the year, i.e. $15 million more than the communicated target.
Is that what you're intending to do, or will you end the campaign when
the
targeted $25 million are in the bank?
Andreas
- I tried to include the chart for quick reference, but the mail that
included seems to have gotten stuck in the system. I guess pipermail doesn't like graphics.
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/12/01/wikimedia-foundati on-annual-campaign/ [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Fundraising_Report [3] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keep ing-knowledge-free-and-accessible/
On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 2:04 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hey Andreas
A very quick email just noting I don't know the method by which that
frdata
dump is created (its very old and not maintained) but it would seem
that
numbers in the frdata dump are only useful as a rough guide.
We are basing our numbers on internal accounting figures which is more representative of the actual cash flow since it is more closely based
on
actual cleared payments.
Seddon
On 7 Dec 2016 13:36, "Andreas Kolbe" jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
People can follow progress of the fundraiser by loading the
spreadsheet
files provided here:
At the time of writing, the data in
yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv https://frdata.wikimedia.org/yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv Total amount received per day (not taking into account refunds)
indicate that you have received $15.8 million in donations since the year-end campaign started on November 29. The advertised target of
the
campaign is $25 million[1] – so after less than nine days, you are
already
more than 60% there.
Are you planning to end the campaign once the publicised target is
reached,
or will you go beyond the target as you did in the last two years?
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/11/29/wikimedia- foundation-annual-fundraiser/
On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:05 PM, Joseph Seddon <
jseddon@wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hello All!
So originally we were going to send an update after the first two
weeks
but
with so much going on and following feedback, I'll cover as much
as I
can
in as brief a form as possible and more regularly than planned:
Banners limited: We have already begun limiting the number of
times
a
reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose
to
not
dismiss the banners. For the moment, dismissing a banner or
viewing
a
banner *up to 10 times* will result in the banners being
suppressed
for
a period of 1 week.
Big messaging update [1]: We've been playing heavily with the
ideas
of
“fake news” and “facts matter”. In addition for first time since
2013,
we have returned to an appeal coming from a specific individual, in
this
case Jimmy. Much of the inspiration for both came from interviews
Fundraising
did with both Jimmy and Katherine back in October.
Big design update & in-line banners: We've moved away from the
dark
navy
blue (seen as black by many people), which was considered by the community to be too mobid and foreboding, to a white background banner
with
red
border. Following extensive testing we also moved to inline
banners
over
the weekend replacing the top header banners.
Promising Numbers: Currently we believe that we have raised
around
$13,000,000 (accounting for payments to be cleared). This has
been
helped enormously by both gains found in our banner campaigns that is
allowing
us to keep pace with the decline of desktop, as well as a
brilliantly
performing e-mail campaign.
Awesome E-mail: November 30th 2016 saw our biggest day for email fundraising ~$950,000 (2016) vs ~$550,000 (2015) raised in a 24
hour
period with approximately a similar number of e-mails.
Stable Tech: This year has been extremely stable from a
technical
standpoint compared to other years, with the most perplexing
issue
being an odd dip that occurred in our donations and traffic [2] on
December
1st
for one hour. This occurred during the quietest period in a day for
2
days
but then appeared to stop. Low impact but naturally could be a
bigger
issue
if the problem occurred during peak fundraising hours or was more prolonged, investigations continue.
Major gifts going great: Our major gifts team have been very
busy,
and
have seen double the number of Major gifts donations during this
period
of the year compared with last year which means this page [3]
getting a
lot of updates recently.
A brilliant social media team: In short awesome work has been
done
by
them but I will send a separate more detailed update on this :)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_ 1117_en6C_dsk_p1_lg_template&force=1&country=US
[2] - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152122 [3] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
-- Seddon
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wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
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Agreed. What could be done is to allow the fundraiser to continue after reaching the original goals with acknowledgement that the original goals have been met, and specifying what extended goals income could be used for. This happens all the time on kickstarter. It is open and ethically acceptable as everyone knows what is happening and can choose accordingly. Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of James Heilman Sent: Thursday, 08 December 2016 8:56 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Early Update - Fundraising
I am of two opinions on this:
1) When we raise money we call upon the goodwill people have for the work we do. We should raise sufficient funds to do the important work we do. We need to save some for a rainy day, but we should never collect money just for the sake of it. When we set appropriate fundraising goals and meet them we should thank all involved and save people's remaining goodwill for the future.
2) People do want to engage with us. Donating is often an easier commitment than becoming an editor or volunteer programmer. We have 260 proposals, most of which are excellent, for a community tech team with 6 members. This is obviously more work than they can take on. More funds for this sort of work is not a bad problem to have.
With a clear movement strategy I think these will be easier issues to address. With Katherine at the helm I am confidence that we will soon have such a strategy. Additionally our financial future looks solid. Many of those entering the professional world have relied heavily on our work for their education and as such they in a way view us as an alma mater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_mater.
Congrats to Lisa and her team for another amazing year of fundraising :-) James
On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 11:06 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Do you remember all this talk about an endowment fund? It makes sense to get more money in it because without sufficient funds it is a paper tiger.
PS I prefer to have it funded by out contributors than by a few large donations. (both are welcome). Thanks, GerardM
On 7 December 2016 at 18:03, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Seddon,
Okay, but I believe I am correct in saying that you took around $34
million
last December, even though the publicised[1] target was $25 million.
I am basing that on the monthly bar chart in the Wikimedia Foundation's 2015–2016 Fundraising Report.[2]*
In 2014, the publicised target was $20 million, and you reported[3] that you surpassed that as well – by more than $10 million, according to the frdata dump.
Given that this year you've taken well over half your target amount in eight days, and are outperforming last year's campaign, I estimate you'll end up with a total of around $40 million if you keep the campaign
running
until the end of the year, i.e. $15 million more than the communicated target.
Is that what you're intending to do, or will you end the campaign when
the
targeted $25 million are in the bank?
Andreas
- I tried to include the chart for quick reference, but the mail
that included seems to have gotten stuck in the system. I guess pipermail doesn't like graphics.
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/12/01/wikimedia-foundati on-annual-campaign/ [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Fundraising_Report [3] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keep ing-knowledge-free-and-accessible/
On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 2:04 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hey Andreas
A very quick email just noting I don't know the method by which that
frdata
dump is created (its very old and not maintained) but it would seem
that
numbers in the frdata dump are only useful as a rough guide.
We are basing our numbers on internal accounting figures which is more representative of the actual cash flow since it is more closely based
on
actual cleared payments.
Seddon
On 7 Dec 2016 13:36, "Andreas Kolbe" jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
People can follow progress of the fundraiser by loading the
spreadsheet
files provided here:
At the time of writing, the data in
yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv https://frdata.wikimedia.org/yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv Total amount received per day (not taking into account refunds)
indicate that you have received $15.8 million in donations since the year-end campaign started on November 29. The advertised target of
the
campaign is $25 million[1] – so after less than nine days, you are
already
more than 60% there.
Are you planning to end the campaign once the publicised target is
reached,
or will you go beyond the target as you did in the last two years?
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/11/29/wikimedia- foundation-annual-fundraiser/
On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:05 PM, Joseph Seddon <
jseddon@wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hello All!
So originally we were going to send an update after the first two
weeks
but
with so much going on and following feedback, I'll cover as much
as I
can
in as brief a form as possible and more regularly than planned:
Banners limited: We have already begun limiting the number of
times
a
reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose
to
not
dismiss the banners. For the moment, dismissing a banner or
viewing
a
banner *up to 10 times* will result in the banners being
suppressed
for
a period of 1 week.
Big messaging update [1]: We've been playing heavily with the
ideas
of
“fake news” and “facts matter”. In addition for first time since
2013,
we have returned to an appeal coming from a specific individual, in
this
case Jimmy. Much of the inspiration for both came from interviews
Fundraising
did with both Jimmy and Katherine back in October.
Big design update & in-line banners: We've moved away from the
dark
navy
blue (seen as black by many people), which was considered by the community to be too mobid and foreboding, to a white background banner
with
red
border. Following extensive testing we also moved to inline
banners
over
the weekend replacing the top header banners.
Promising Numbers: Currently we believe that we have raised
around
$13,000,000 (accounting for payments to be cleared). This has
been
helped enormously by both gains found in our banner campaigns that is
allowing
us to keep pace with the decline of desktop, as well as a
brilliantly
performing e-mail campaign.
Awesome E-mail: November 30th 2016 saw our biggest day for email fundraising ~$950,000 (2016) vs ~$550,000 (2015) raised in a 24
hour
period with approximately a similar number of e-mails.
Stable Tech: This year has been extremely stable from a
technical
standpoint compared to other years, with the most perplexing
issue
being an odd dip that occurred in our donations and traffic [2] on
December
1st
for one hour. This occurred during the quietest period in a day for
2
days
but then appeared to stop. Low impact but naturally could be a
bigger
issue
if the problem occurred during peak fundraising hours or was more prolonged, investigations continue.
Major gifts going great: Our major gifts team have been very
busy,
and
have seen double the number of Major gifts donations during this
period
of the year compared with last year which means this page [3]
getting a
lot of updates recently.
A brilliant social media team: In short awesome work has been
done
by
them but I will send a separate more detailed update on this :)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_ 1117_en6C_dsk_p1_lg_template&force=1&country=US
[2] - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152122 [3] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
-- Seddon
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wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
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There is naturally some flexibility as to when we stop and that's a decision that will be looked at over the coming days and weeks. It's always useful to give ourselves some breathing space for our Q3 and Q4 campaigns. We also don't include major gifts donations in the total for our online campaigns. This is one factor that increases the difference between the December totals and the December goal for online fundraising. Last year we also decided to use the online fundraiser to help seed the endowment which added $5million to our to our fundraising for the December fundraiser.
Regards Seddon
On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 5:03 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Seddon,
Okay, but I believe I am correct in saying that you took around $34 million last December, even though the publicised[1] target was $25 million.
I am basing that on the monthly bar chart in the Wikimedia Foundation's 2015–2016 Fundraising Report.[2]*
In 2014, the publicised target was $20 million, and you reported[3] that you surpassed that as well – by more than $10 million, according to the frdata dump.
Given that this year you've taken well over half your target amount in eight days, and are outperforming last year's campaign, I estimate you'll end up with a total of around $40 million if you keep the campaign running until the end of the year, i.e. $15 million more than the communicated target.
Is that what you're intending to do, or will you end the campaign when the targeted $25 million are in the bank?
Andreas
- I tried to include the chart for quick reference, but the mail that
included seems to have gotten stuck in the system. I guess pipermail doesn't like graphics.
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/12/01/wikimedia-foundati on-annual-campaign/ [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Fundraising_Report [3] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keep ing-knowledge-free-and-accessible/
On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 2:04 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hey Andreas
A very quick email just noting I don't know the method by which that
frdata
dump is created (its very old and not maintained) but it would seem that numbers in the frdata dump are only useful as a rough guide.
We are basing our numbers on internal accounting figures which is more representative of the actual cash flow since it is more closely based on actual cleared payments.
Seddon
On 7 Dec 2016 13:36, "Andreas Kolbe" jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
People can follow progress of the fundraiser by loading the spreadsheet files provided here:
At the time of writing, the data in
yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv https://frdata.wikimedia.org/yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv Total amount received per day (not taking into account refunds)
indicate that you have received $15.8 million in donations since the year-end campaign started on November 29. The advertised target of the campaign is $25 million[1] – so after less than nine days, you are
already
more than 60% there.
Are you planning to end the campaign once the publicised target is
reached,
or will you go beyond the target as you did in the last two years?
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/11/29/wikimedia- foundation-annual-fundraiser/
On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:05 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello All!
So originally we were going to send an update after the first two
weeks
but
with so much going on and following feedback, I'll cover as much as I
can
in as brief a form as possible and more regularly than planned:
Banners limited: We have already begun limiting the number of
times
a
reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose to
not
dismiss the banners. For the moment, dismissing a banner or
viewing
a
banner *up to 10 times* will result in the banners being
suppressed
for
a period of 1 week.
Big messaging update [1]: We've been playing heavily with the
ideas
of
“fake news” and “facts matter”. In addition for first time since
2013,
we have returned to an appeal coming from a specific individual, in
this
case Jimmy. Much of the inspiration for both came from interviews
Fundraising
did with both Jimmy and Katherine back in October.
Big design update & in-line banners: We've moved away from the
dark
navy
blue (seen as black by many people), which was considered by the community to be too mobid and foreboding, to a white background banner with
red
border. Following extensive testing we also moved to inline
banners
over
the weekend replacing the top header banners.
Promising Numbers: Currently we believe that we have raised around $13,000,000 (accounting for payments to be cleared). This has been helped enormously by both gains found in our banner campaigns that is
allowing
us to keep pace with the decline of desktop, as well as a brilliantly performing e-mail campaign.
Awesome E-mail: November 30th 2016 saw our biggest day for email fundraising ~$950,000 (2016) vs ~$550,000 (2015) raised in a 24
hour
period with approximately a similar number of e-mails.
Stable Tech: This year has been extremely stable from a technical standpoint compared to other years, with the most perplexing issue being an odd dip that occurred in our donations and traffic [2] on December
1st
for one hour. This occurred during the quietest period in a day for 2
days
but then appeared to stop. Low impact but naturally could be a bigger
issue
if the problem occurred during peak fundraising hours or was more prolonged, investigations continue.
Major gifts going great: Our major gifts team have been very busy,
and
have seen double the number of Major gifts donations during this
period
of the year compared with last year which means this page [3]
getting a
lot of updates recently.
A brilliant social media team: In short awesome work has been done
by
them but I will send a separate more detailed update on this :)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_ 1117_en6C_dsk_p1_lg_template&force=1&country=US
[2] - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152122 [3] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
-- Seddon
*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* *Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
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Thanks, Seddon.
Jimmy Wales, in his inimitable style, was a little more definite on this idea of stopping the fundraiser when the targeted amount of money is in the bank.
Rich Farmbrough had asked,[1]
<startquotes>
Once upon a time, unless I imagined it, we used to run the annual fund-raiser until we had reached the target then stop. We no longer do this.
Why then, does a banner come up saying "If we all donated £2 the fund-raiser would be over in an hour?" [...]
[...] we want to see the Foundation properly funded. That desire cannot be the reason, or the excuse, that every year we have morally dubious fund-raising messages.
All the best: *Rich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rich_Farmbrough Farmbrough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough*, 20:25, 1 December 2016 (UTC). We would still stop the fundraiser if enough money were raised in shorter than the planned time. So I don't see what your concern is about.--Jimbo Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales (talk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#top) 10:09, 2 December 2016 (UTC) <endquotes>
Jimmy has good instincts when it comes to saying the right thing to defuse criticism. But you have to *do* the right thing, too, to have any credibility.
On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 8:22 AM, Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
What could be done is to allow the fundraiser to continue after reaching the original goals with acknowledgement that the original goals have been met, and specifying what extended goals income could be used for. This happens all the time on kickstarter. It is open and ethically acceptable as everyone knows what is happening and can choose accordingly.
I agree with Peter. This sounds like an excellent idea.
On the matter of last year's endowment: I thought that is why the target was increased from $20 million (2014) to $25 million (2015). (The fiscal plan specifically referred to $5 million for the endowment.[2]) Yet as we've seen, the latter target was also substantially exceeded, by far more than the 20% "stretch goal" mentioned in the fiscal plan. That looks exactly like the approach Rich was criticising.
On the reliability of the frdata dumps: I take your point that the totals on the frdata page are lower than the actual amounts taken. I'd assumed this was because the frdata page only included small donations made through the Wikimedia websites, and did not include major donations made directly to WMF, such as the $1 million received from Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. At any rate, the page is a good page to have (transparency in action), and worth maintaining.
Regards, Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_215#Once_upon_a_... [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Annual_Plan#Summary_of_the_fi...
On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 2:38 AM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
There is naturally some flexibility as to when we stop and that's a decision that will be looked at over the coming days and weeks. It's always useful to give ourselves some breathing space for our Q3 and Q4 campaigns. We also don't include major gifts donations in the total for our online campaigns. This is one factor that increases the difference between the December totals and the December goal for online fundraising. Last year we also decided to use the online fundraiser to help seed the endowment which added $5million to our to our fundraising for the December fundraiser.
Regards Seddon
On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 5:03 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Seddon,
Okay, but I believe I am correct in saying that you took around $34
million
last December, even though the publicised[1] target was $25 million.
I am basing that on the monthly bar chart in the Wikimedia Foundation's 2015–2016 Fundraising Report.[2]*
In 2014, the publicised target was $20 million, and you reported[3] that you surpassed that as well – by more than $10 million, according to the frdata dump.
Given that this year you've taken well over half your target amount in eight days, and are outperforming last year's campaign, I estimate you'll end up with a total of around $40 million if you keep the campaign
running
until the end of the year, i.e. $15 million more than the communicated target.
Is that what you're intending to do, or will you end the campaign when
the
targeted $25 million are in the bank?
Andreas
- I tried to include the chart for quick reference, but the mail that
included seems to have gotten stuck in the system. I guess pipermail doesn't like graphics.
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/12/01/wikimedia-foundati on-annual-campaign/ [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Fundraising_Report [3] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/01/05/thank-you-for-keep ing-knowledge-free-and-accessible/
On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 2:04 PM, Joseph Seddon jseddon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hey Andreas
A very quick email just noting I don't know the method by which that
frdata
dump is created (its very old and not maintained) but it would seem
that
numbers in the frdata dump are only useful as a rough guide.
We are basing our numbers on internal accounting figures which is more representative of the actual cash flow since it is more closely based
on
actual cleared payments.
Seddon
On 7 Dec 2016 13:36, "Andreas Kolbe" jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
People can follow progress of the fundraiser by loading the
spreadsheet
files provided here:
At the time of writing, the data in
yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv https://frdata.wikimedia.org/yeardata-day-vs-sum.csv Total amount received per day (not taking into account refunds)
indicate that you have received $15.8 million in donations since the year-end campaign started on November 29. The advertised target of
the
campaign is $25 million[1] – so after less than nine days, you are
already
more than 60% there.
Are you planning to end the campaign once the publicised target is
reached,
or will you go beyond the target as you did in the last two years?
[1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/11/29/wikimedia- foundation-annual-fundraiser/
On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:05 PM, Joseph Seddon <
jseddon@wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hello All!
So originally we were going to send an update after the first two
weeks
but
with so much going on and following feedback, I'll cover as much
as I
can
in as brief a form as possible and more regularly than planned:
Banners limited: We have already begun limiting the number of
times
a
reader will see a banner within a single browser if they choose
to
not
dismiss the banners. For the moment, dismissing a banner or
viewing
a
banner *up to 10 times* will result in the banners being
suppressed
for
a period of 1 week.
Big messaging update [1]: We've been playing heavily with the
ideas
of
“fake news” and “facts matter”. In addition for first time since
2013,
we have returned to an appeal coming from a specific individual, in
this
case Jimmy. Much of the inspiration for both came from interviews
Fundraising
did with both Jimmy and Katherine back in October.
Big design update & in-line banners: We've moved away from the
dark
navy
blue (seen as black by many people), which was considered by the community to be too mobid and foreboding, to a white background banner
with
red
border. Following extensive testing we also moved to inline
banners
over
the weekend replacing the top header banners.
Promising Numbers: Currently we believe that we have raised
around
$13,000,000 (accounting for payments to be cleared). This has
been
helped enormously by both gains found in our banner campaigns that is
allowing
us to keep pace with the decline of desktop, as well as a
brilliantly
performing e-mail campaign.
Awesome E-mail: November 30th 2016 saw our biggest day for email fundraising ~$950,000 (2016) vs ~$550,000 (2015) raised in a 24
hour
period with approximately a similar number of e-mails.
Stable Tech: This year has been extremely stable from a
technical
standpoint compared to other years, with the most perplexing
issue
being an odd dip that occurred in our donations and traffic [2] on
December
1st
for one hour. This occurred during the quietest period in a day for
2
days
but then appeared to stop. Low impact but naturally could be a
bigger
issue
if the problem occurred during peak fundraising hours or was more prolonged, investigations continue.
Major gifts going great: Our major gifts team have been very
busy,
and
have seen double the number of Major gifts donations during this
period
of the year compared with last year which means this page [3]
getting a
lot of updates recently.
A brilliant social media team: In short awesome work has been
done
by
them but I will send a separate more detailed update on this :)
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein?banner=B1617_ 1117_en6C_dsk_p1_lg_template&force=1&country=US
[2] - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T152122 [3] - https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Benefactors
-- Seddon
*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* *Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/
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-- Seddon
*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)* *Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Good article on Wikimedia fundraising:
http://associationsnow.com/2016/12/lessons-wikipedias-annual-donation-strate...
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