[Foundation-l] Raising funds without being quite so annoying to readers

[WereSpielChequers]

Picking up on the comment by Tobias about less intrusive fundraising,
I would make sure we are pursuing the following:

1 Build up a past donors database, communicate with them effectively
and then as long as they donate annually make sure they aren't
irritated by ads for people who haven't donated at all. (I gather
something is now being done here, but I know it wasn't in the past).

2 Get tax deductible/refunded status in as many countries as feasible.
Especially countries like the UK where the tax is refunded to the
charity rather than the donor. (I know the UK chapter is working on
this, and that it isn't easy here, but there are probably other
countries with similar systems where we may not even have started).

3 Ramp up Merchandising. Unlike almost any charity I can think of we
can offer Xmas gifts for every taste, including for dads. Middle aged
men are notoriously difficult to buy presents for, we are one of the
few charities that could market calenders, mugs or mousemats suitable
for fans of milhist, wrestling, NASCAR or indeed flowers, waterfalls
and scientific elements. This is a real opportunity for the
fundraising team to work with the Featured content crowd and the
wikiprojects. It could also make a serious contribution to my annual
Xmas present buying headaches.

4 Use IP location to not put up ads in countries where we are unable
to accept donations in the local currency.

Most of the charities I've worked with in the past have not actually
made money on the first donation they get from a new donor, generally
it costs more to recruit a new donor than they give in the first
donation. The real income stream is from repeat donations in future
years and from merchandising. Wikimedia is in the amazing position
that it can get new donors for less than the cost of recruiting them.
However that is only true because the advertising that we do
internally is treated as free. In reality that advertising brings with
it a big overhead in terms of annoyance to both our volunteers and our
readers. I'm not suggesting that we put a monetary value on that
internal webspace, but I would suggest that we measure that annoyance
better and set some targets to minimise it. Money raised per ads
served would help, as would excluding IPs and users who've already
seen an ad and not responded. We might also consider not serving ads
on pages that are disproportionately viewed by minors

WereSpielChequers

>
> However the main point of mail was to discuss how we're going to raise
> funds without being annoying to readers, and I welcome any input from
> WMF staff, chapters and volunteers :-)
>
> -- Tobias