[Foundation-l] Fundraiser 2010: A memo to the community

[Florence Devouard]

On 11/5/10 1:37 AM, Philippe Beaudette wrote:
> A memo to Wikimedia community, friends, staff, and other stakeholders.
>
> On Monday, November 15, we will launch the 2010 annual fundraising drive for the Wikimedia Foundation. As you know, our funding model relies on the support of our friends and community members. Our average donation is about $25, and we have received more than 500,000 donations in the lifetime of the foundation.  This year, we have to raise $16,000,000. That’s our biggest target yet, but it’s still only a tiny fraction of what the other top-ten websites spend on their operations. It’s critical that we reach our goal to maintain the infrastructure necessary to keep Wikipedia and its sister sites running smoothly.
>
> We are a community that does great things, and does them routinely.  As we begin to bring this year's fundraiser to a close, we will launch our 10th Anniversary year!  It's hard to believe, isn't it?  What would the world be like, if the wiki hadn't launched?  If we hadn't jumped in to grow it?  If we hadn't financially supported it?  The world would be a far different -- and far more sad -- place, I think.  This 10th anniversary year provides an opportunity for reflection and introspection, but it also provides a chance to refocus: to plan, to build, to grow.  We've just completed the strategic planning initiative, and emerged with a cohesive, defined plan for the future growth and development of the Foundation, the projects, and the movement.  Now is the time.
>
> So let's get going.
>
> Since August, a team of dedicated staff members and volunteers has worked to develop the fundraiser for this year.  We committed early to radical and full disclosure of all the data we had, in keeping with the spirit of the transparent nature of the Wikimedia movement.  We quickly identified three major points in the donation process that were "levers" we could pull to optimize the process:  banner messaging, banner design, and landing/donation pages.
>
> Banner messaging:
> Wikimedia fundraising has always been driven by site notices --  banners -- that run at the top of project websites. We’ve known for years that different banner messages drive different numbers of people to click through and donate. Therefore, this year we began the fundraiser by inviting community members to propose new banner messages for us to test.
>
> Almost 900 people were involved in the creation and discussion of potential banner messages  We tested dozens of iterations of banner designs, including both graphical and text, and we will continue to do so.
>
> Many of the new banners did well. Unfortunately, none of them came anywhere near the 3% clickthrough rate of the winning banner from years past: “Please read: a personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.”
>
> But we’re going to keep trying. Our research indicates that banner wins because it is simple and direct with no attempt at marketing or manipulation. So we’re going to test, “A personal appeal from Wikimedia editor _____” and later in this memo, I’m going to invite you to be that editor and write an appeal for us to use in the fundraiser.
>
> Banner design:
> In our testing this year, we also quickly learned that graphical banners perform almost 100% better than text banners with the same message. Because of this, we will obviously be using more graphic heavy banners than we have in past campaigns.
>
> Landing/donation pages:
> Once a user clicks a banner, they land on a page that asks for a donation and provides payment options. We have spent a lot of time and energy optimizing those landing pages. Optimization of donation forms is an art and a science that involves messaging, graphic design, and usability research.
>
> We will have iterated through roughly 40 different designs before landing on the ones that we'll launch with.  We are committed to encouraging people to beat us at our own game: we invite chapters and affiliated groups, organizations, and Wikimedians to create their own landing pages that they believe will work better than the ones we're running.  If we see some that are exciting, we'll test them, and run the ones that perform best!
>
> In countries where there are Wikimedia chapters, the chapter has the option to create their own landing page to test along side the default.


All right. Forgive me to be straigth forward but.... there is something 
I do not understand here.

Practically speaking... when a French person will click on the banner at 
the top of a wikipedia page, he will be directed to a landing page 
currently hosted by Wikimedia Foundation (let's call it landing page).

Then, on this page, the French donor will have the option to click on a 
button "make a donation". When it happens, he will be redirected to the 
chapter donation website when he can follow the donation procedure.

Back to the "landing page" hosted by Wikimedia FOundation. As far as I 
can say, this page is entirely designed by the Wikimedia Foundation. 
Absolutely not by the chapters themselves. Actually not only are they 
not designed by the chapters, but on top of that, chapters have still 
not seen the final design for these pages (final or intermediaries I 
should say).

I am not saying chapters *should* necessarily design those pages, but 
why are you saying that chapters have the option to create their own 
landing page when this is not what is happening ?

You might say that the chapter could try to create a landing page.... 
but how will that happen ? The fundraiser is starting in less than 2 
weeks and we have not been invited to do so, nor seen your proposition.

Are you saying that we should currently be working on such a design to 
submit to you guys ?

Ant