I have been mulling-over an idea for fundraising, but I think that, due to the details, it should probably be discussed here first, rather than just get discussed inside the Foundation proper. Yes, this really does mean "input welcome", not "isn't this a wonderful thought, all supplicate afore me". :-) One particularly powerful way in which we can increase funds is to see if we can get "matching donation" - that is for every x units, so-and-so promises to donate y, up to a limit. Although this increases the value of donations to us (by a factor of x/y, obviously), which is really great in and of itself, it actually works much more positively to leverage donations, making people significantly more likely to donate, and more likely to donate /more/. This means that (in the case where x and y are both 1 - i.e., a direct matching donation) we wouldn't just get twice as much (which would be fantastic), but thrice or even more so (I've somewhat run out of superlatives). There is a catch, however - this second effect only occurs if the people donating are aware of it. The awareness cannot be achieved through a press notice; it has to be displayed alongside the donation request, and the display has to be rather prominent to have the best effect. I am aware that this may get derided as advertising, but I really don't think it's true - this is merely an extended press release, as it were. I think that a line (in the site notice), saying something like "Foo have pledged to match up to US$200,000 in our [[current fund-raising drive]]" instead of the current text ("Your [[continued donations]] keep Wikipedia running!") would be appropriate and understated (believe me, I'm British, "understated" is what we /do/). I think actual advert-style copy would be a bad idea (and would rupture the community, which is a no-no), and a logo (for example) would be going too far, and be too flashy; it would distract readers, suggest a stronger influence than many would be happy with, and on a terribly practical level, companies might not be happy if we required their logo to squish into a 30 by 100 pixel block, or whatever - and are we sure that we'd have the strength of character not to allow a 20% increase in the sponsor logo box when they're offering so much dosh? In the end, we could allow only matching personal donations (from the rich, obviously, but still), if people thought that corporate matched giving was too far - but do recall that we already accept donations from many companies, including really very large ones, so it might not be that significant a step. However, for a non-profit, the image of neutrality is king, and we would want to be careful not to do anything to sully ours. Obviously, we would carefully vet proposed individuals and organisations for suitability, both on legal but perhaps more importantly vision/moral grounds - it would be difficult were the so very conspicuous supporter to have a significantly different view of the purpose of copyright, or the goal of the Foundation and the projects. The exact wordsmithery for the text of the hook-line would have to be hammered out (ho-ho), too. But these are a procedural issues, not a philosophical ones, and I trust us all to stick, at least at first, to the more pressing demand before getting diverted into the less critical matters. So... what do you all think? Worth considering? And, if it is, what boundaries should we (we the Foundation, that is) set? *Please note* that I post this in no official capacity whatsoever, merely as a guy with an idea who cares about the Foundation and our projects, like the rest of you. :-) Yours, -- James D. Forrester james(a)wikimedia.org | james(a)jdforrester.org | jdforrester(a)gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]