[Foundation-l] Fundraising idea

[James Forrester]

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 at wikimedia.org | james at jdforrester.org | jdforrester at gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]