Given the increasing costs of hardware in Mav's report, it seems as if we have to begin taking drastic measures to keep up to speed withour growth. One possibility is that we begin compiling a snail mail list of potential donors, to whom we begin sending out solicitations. Donation requests would be small ($5-$50), but this might provide some income over the coming months. Of course, printing and postage would be costly, but this would be an initial investment with hoped-for returns. Costs would include printing of a letter, postage, and a postage-paid return envelope and form.
While I am not enthralled with this idea, it does work with other charities. What do other people think?
Danny
daniwo59-
Given the increasing costs of hardware in Mav's report, it seems as if we have to begin taking drastic measures to keep up to speed withour growth. One possibility is that we begin compiling a snail mail list of potential donors, to whom we begin sending out solicitations.
I don't think this is the best approach. We're an online project and we should do our fundraising online. One key factor in raising money is making it as simple as possible so the amount of inhibition people have to overcome is minimal. The other factor is keeping people updated about the progress of the fundraising and giving them credit. We're an international project and we want to reach the maximum number of people on the planet. Finally, we want to encourage random acts of kindness. The Internet allows all this.
What I think we should do is have a fundraiser twice a year, with a dynamically updated progress bar (we can get this developed now by putting a bounty on it), a list of recent donors and a list of top donors. During the time of the fundraising (a week or so every year), this progress bar would occupy the top 10-20% of screen space on all Wikimedia projects. It should be possible to directly make a donation from any Wikimedia page during the fundraising - just a single click. We would specify the goal beforehand and link to the detailed budget.
We have more traffic than Slashdot. I think reaching our goals will not be as difficult as some people appear to think. It's just a matter of exposure.
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
... What I think we should do is have a fundraiser twice a year, with a dynamically updated progress bar (we can get this developed now by putting a bounty on it), a list of recent donors and a list of top donors. During the time of the fundraising (a week or so every year), this progress bar would occupy the top 10-20% of screen space on all Wikimedia projects. It should be possible to directly make a donation from any Wikimedia page during the fundraising - just a single click. We would specify the goal beforehand and link to the detailed budget.
This is all a great idea, but I would have such a fund drive every quarter since projecting our budgetary needs out half a year involves a bit of hand waving since our growth is neither linear nor that predictable.
We have more traffic than Slashdot. I think reaching our goals will not be as difficult as some people appear to think. It's just a matter of exposure.
Actually we are *way* ahead of Slashdot and now even occasionally pass up FoxNews.com on a daily basis (CNN.com is still out of reach). Not to mention the fact that we have left NPR.org, Reuters.com, AP.org, MSNBC.com, Salon.com, WSJ.com and other multi-million dollar media outlets who have a very important web presense in the dust.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia.org_is_more_popular_than...#News_an...
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Erik Moeller wrote:
We have more traffic than Slashdot. I think reaching our goals will not be as difficult as some people appear to think. It's just a matter of exposure.
One thing to remember is that people won't give unless we let them know of our needs. Today we are doing that, because we expect to be slashdotted later today.
--Jimbo
--- daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Given the increasing costs of hardware in Mav's report, it seems as if we have to begin taking drastic measures to keep up to speed withour growth.
Yep - we seem to have started to enter the vertical part of J curve growth. Notice the jump from 4900K hits/day in May to 12100K hits/day in June. Did we have any extraordinary media attention in June to explain that?
One possibility is that we begin compiling a snail mail list of potential donors, to whom we begin sending out solicitations. Donation requests would be small ($5-$50), but this might provide some income over the coming months. Of course, printing and postage would be costly, but this would be an initial investment with hoped-for returns. Costs would include printing of a letter, postage, and a postage-paid return envelope and form.
Ick! I throw out at least a few of those every week. Opt-in email lists would be a better place to start, IMO. We could spend out a quarterly newsletter to past donors who agree to receive such a document and also make a donation pitch in the same email. An opt-in checkbox to receive such a newsletter for each new user account on any Wikimedia wiki might also be a good idea.
IIRC, Jimbo mentioned having advertisements in that type of thing not-unlike National Geographic. Heck, we could also include quarterly WikiReader selections in such a newsletter and make it *become* a lot like National Geographic.
In addition, we need to set-up a membership fee structure so that recurring donations can be collected.
Once all that is in place and is successful we can think about also printing hardcopies and sending them to recurring donors who give at least a certain set amount of money. Everybody else would receive a pdf.
-- mav
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Danny wrote:
One possibility is that we begin compiling a snail mail list of potential donors, to whom we begin sending out solicitations.
I've created a page at meta for comments, and also for suggestions of potential donors if people think this is the right approach. Please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Potential_donors_to_Wikimedia
Eloquence wrote:
I don't think this is the best approach. We're an online project and we
should do our fundraising online.
I don't see a need to limit ourselves to this. If we can reach people through alternative, offline means, such as direct solicitations, or Wikimedia fairs (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_auf_Messen), then I think this could be a good way of attracting funds from people who wouldn't otherwise see the site, and also raises our profile outside of the existing pool of donors.
What I think we should do is have a fundraiser twice a year...
I was thinking quarterly, or would that be too often?
Daniel Mayer wrote:
An opt-in checkbox to receive such a newsletter for each new user account on any Wikimedia wiki might also be a good idea.
I agree. This could be checked the same time as people check the box to say they want to become Wikimedia members. How about having checkboxes in user preferences: *Become a Volunteer Active Member [ ] *Receive Wikimedia emails [ ] *Become a Contributing Active Member [ ] (leads to a form where you can pay dues)
Links should be given on that part of the user preferences page to terms and conditions, the bylaws, the privacy policy etc.
Angela.
--- Angela_ beesley@gmail.com wrote:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
An opt-in checkbox to receive such a newsletter for each new user account
on any Wikimedia wiki might also be a good idea.
I agree. This could be checked the same time as people check the box to say they want to become Wikimedia members. How about having checkboxes in user preferences: *Become a Volunteer Active Member [ ] *Receive Wikimedia emails [ ] *Become a Contributing Active Member [ ] (leads to a form where you can pay dues)
Links should be given on that part of the user preferences page to terms and conditions, the bylaws, the privacy policy etc.
All good ideas. A page on meta to synthesize this might be a good idea. I especially like the idea of a quarterly newsletter.
-- mav
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Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Angela_ beesley@gmail.com wrote:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
An opt-in checkbox to receive such a newsletter for each new user account
on any Wikimedia wiki might also be a good idea.
I agree. This could be checked the same time as people check the box to say they want to become Wikimedia members. How about having checkboxes in user preferences: *Become a Volunteer Active Member [ ] *Receive Wikimedia emails [ ] *Become a Contributing Active Member [ ] (leads to a form where you can pay dues)
Links should be given on that part of the user preferences page to terms and conditions, the bylaws, the privacy policy etc.
All good ideas. A page on meta to synthesize this might be a good idea. I especially like the idea of a quarterly newsletter.
I second this idea - and for German wikipedia we've already found someone who is willing to write the monthly newsletter. The change for the newsletter seems the smallest to me (membership requires a little bit more data) and for the beginning we could mention in the first e-mail a user receives (with a short introduction and general help to wikipedia) that there is also a foundation to contribute to.
Could we realize this feature soon?
greetings, elian
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Given the increasing costs of hardware in Mav's report, it seems as if we have to begin taking drastic measures to keep up to speed withour growth. One possibility is that we begin compiling a snail mail list of potential donors, to whom we begin sending out solicitations. Donation requests would be small ($5-$50), but this might provide some income over the coming months. Of course, printing and postage would be costly, but this would be an initial investment with hoped-for returns. Costs would include printing of a letter, postage, and a postage-paid return envelope and form.
While I am not enthralled with this idea, it does work with other charities. What do other people think?
Danny
Why not a neat online request ? Such as an email ? It would certainly lower the costs and allow to contact people from several countries.
Just as a point of reference, I do keep a list like this of every paper check that I have received, and the additional data is available from paypal on everyone else.
It is my intention at year end to send a professional thank-you letter to everyone who has donated in the past, telling them what we did with the money, and include a self-addressed envelope to the Foundation in case they are happy enough to donate again.
--Jimbo
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Given the increasing costs of hardware in Mav's report, it seems as if we have to begin taking drastic measures to keep up to speed withour growth. One possibility is that we begin compiling a snail mail list of potential donors, to whom we begin sending out solicitations. Donation requests would be small ($5-$50), but this might provide some income over the coming months. Of course, printing and postage would be costly, but this would be an initial investment with hoped-for returns. Costs would include printing of a letter, postage, and a postage-paid return envelope and form.
While I am not enthralled with this idea, it does work with other charities. What do other people think?
Danny
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org