Seventh Annual Campaign to Support Wikipedia Kicks Off
/Yearly fundraising campaign sets goal of $16 million and invites
readers to become editors /
SAN FRANCISCO, November 15, 2010 --- The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the
non-profit behind Wikipedia, today announced the launch of its annual
fundraising campaign. This year's goal is to raise $16 million so that
Wikipedia and its sister projects can remain freely available to people
around the world. The $16 million raised in this campaign will help fund
the Foundation's total 2010-11 operating budget of $20.4 million. And
for the first time this year, the campaign will also invite readers to
donate time as well as money, by joining the Wikimedia community of
volunteer editors. Once the financial goal has been met, the campaign
will encourage Wikipedia's nearly 400 million monthly readers to become
editors.
"Over the past 10 years, Wikipedia has become a vital public resource
for hundreds of millions of people. We've come to depend on it being
there for us -- free to use, without any bias or interference, and
without advertising," said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. "If you can
afford to make even a small donation, that's important. You're helping
to keep Wikipedia available not just for yourself, but for others
--kids, people in poor countries-- who themselves can't afford to donate."
The 2010 campaign seeks to raise the funds needed to preserve Wikipedia,
the world's fifth-most-popular site, as a space for the free and open
sharing of human knowledge. As Wikipedia continues to grow in size and
readership, it needs to increase spending on servers and bandwidth, and
to invest in supporting the continued health and diversity of the
editing community.
"Wikipedia is the people's encyclopedia: it's written by ordinary
people, and it makes sense that ordinary people would pay to support
it," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director. "Having a broad base of many
donors from everywhere around the world is important to us: it means the
encyclopedia is free to evolve to meet the needs of its readers, rather
than being distorted or thrown off course by special interests. I'm glad
so many people appreciate Wikipedia, and I'm delighted when they choose
to support it financially."
In 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation raised just over $8 million from more
than 240,000 individual donations (up from 139,000 donations during the
2008 campaign). The average donation in 2009 was $33, and donations came
in from over 100 countries.
The 2010 campaign will run through January 2011, with notices at the top
of pages on Wikipedia and its sister sites, asking readers for their
support.
Make a donation now:
*
http://donate.wikimedia.org
Follow us on:
*
http://identi.ca//wikipedia
*
http://identi.ca//wikimedia
*
http://twitter.com/wikimedia
*
http://twitter.com/wikipedia
Follow or share your thoughts with the tag #keepitfree
<http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23keepitfree>
or
Facebook.com:
*
http://www.Facebook.com/Wikipedia
*About the Wikimedia Foundation*
*
http://wikimediafoundation.org
*
http://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive 398 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most
popular web property world-wide (Sept, 2010). Available in more than 270
languages, Wikipedia contains more than 16 million articles contributed
by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in
San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited,
501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
*Contact*:
Moka Pantages
WikimediaFoundation.org <http://WikimediaFoundation.org>
blog.wikimedia.org <http://blog.wikimedia.org>
+1 (415) 839-6885 x 635
moka(a)wikimedia.org
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