[Foundation-l] Regarding the Fundraising Banner

[Florence Devouard]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I would appreciate it if you could copy & translate this message to
> your relevant communities; I'll also post it to a couple of the
> mailing lists.
> 
> First: Does Wikimedia have a funding crisis, does it need to ask
> people for money?
> 
> The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization, and the vast
> majority of its funding comes from fundraising and grants. It operates
> more than 300 servers which keep Wikipedia alive, the associated
> hosting and bandwidth, and the staff needed to support it. Its annual
> expenses for the current fiscal year amount to approximately $6
> million. We have already raised $2 million of that, which leaves us
> with a gap of $4 million which we need to raise through donations
> small and large.
> 
> If we fail to meet our budgeted revenue goals during and past this
> fundraiser, we will eventually have to lay off staff and reduce our
> capacity planning for servers and bandwidth, both of which will
> directly affect your experience of Wikipedia. If you feel, for
> example, that developers are often slow to respond to requests, well,
> imagine how much worse it will be if we have to lay off some of them.
> If you feel that editing is often slow, imagine how much worse it will
> be if we cannot pay for additional servers or needed software
> improvements.
> 
> As you know, the world is in economic crisis. At this point in time,
> we do not know what the impact of this economic crisis will be on the
> Wikimedia Foundation. We need to meet our targets to continue to
> operate Wikipedia.
> 
> I realize that having a banner on the site you read and/or edit every
> day is not convenient. We plan to create a smaller (plaintext) version
> of the banner for signed in users. But we do not plan to reduce the
> banner size of the standard banner, at least not until we have a
> better idea of what the online fundraiser revenue will be for this
> year. We are doing some systematic A/B testing of different banners
> with different messages, and as we learn more, we will iterate the
> banners further.
> 
> We do need to raise the funds to operate Wikipedia, so that you can
> continue to use it, both as a reader and a contributor. Rather than
> invite antagonism, I want to invite your collaboration in refining and
> developing the banners. We are open to community suggestions here --
> please feel free to post mock-ups on Meta Wiki at this page:
> 
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2008/design_drafts
> 
> However, if we feel (or measure) that a banner will significantly
> reduce the number of donations received, we will not use it. So if
> your primary goal is to make the banner smaller or less "obtrusive",
> rather than making it more effective or at least retaining its current
> level of effectiveness, I don't think we'll come up with something
> that can replace the current banners.
> 
> Please let's remember that the Wikimedia Foundation exists to support
> this project's continued existence, and the Wikimedia movement
> internationally. This means we need to create awareness for the fact
> that we need to raise money, just like any other charity. This
> fundraising drive will run until January 15. Until then, I ask for
> your patience and cooperation in making it work.
> 
> Please feel free to contact me: erik(at)wikimedia(dot)org. Thanks,
> Erik Möller 22:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
> 



Talking about the banner and currencies, I am not quite sure why some 
languages are in dollars and others are in euros. It might make sense in 
Deutsch (mostly Deutsch people will donate and of course, they will 
donate in euros preferably), but not really in French (canadian, french, 
swiss, algerian etc... all use different currencies). I expect the 
Foundation receive quite a lot from canadians... who will find odd to 
find an american organization propose a donation in euros.

But beyond this, I noted an oddity.
The banner is currently suggesting donating 30 dollars, 75 dollars or 
100 dollars per default. Thank god, people can choose to give other 
values and in particular less. Given that the average donation in the 
past was 30 dollars, suggesting 30 dollars as minimal value is... bold.

But other languages, such as german, also propose 30/75/100, but not in 
dollars... in euros. Unfortunately, a 30 dollars today is below 20 euros 
today. So, a minimal gift of 30 euros is more about 40-45 dollars.
I do not think it is a good idea to suggest different values according 
to languages. Somehow, it strikes me as "unequal". I think we should 
stick to dollars in any cases. Imho.

(I am not going to scream about this, I just find it is not a good idea).

Ant