[Foundation-l] Monthly Recurring Giving

[Philippe Beaudette]

One member of the fundraising team had it on her Christmas list.  Another literally begged for it.  So today, I feel quite a sense of accomplishment in announcing that the Wikimedia Foundation is now able to accept recurring monthly contributions as a giving option for our donors.  Recurring giving has been in the works for a long time - literally years.

We launched a limited test run of recurring donations last Thursday, and have already received several thousand dollars worth of commitments using this new method.
 
Over the course of the past several years, we’ve received hundreds of requests from donors that we offer automatic monthly giving. Donors want the ease of monthly giving, and, as many have noted, it's far more convenient to give $5 a month than $60 all at once. In addition, it gives the Foundation a certain amount of security to know that a base amount of money will be coming every month, year round.

With monthly recurring giving, a donor selects the amount they wish to give, and the payment is made automatically each month, for 12 months.
 
Our recurring monthly donations are processed by Paypal, so unfortunately we still are unable to accept the currencies they don’t support.  However - as with any PayPal transaction, you can use either your PayPal account, or a credit card.

Our recurring giving options will primarily be targeted as "post-donation" options.  Testing showed that including the option on the initial giving form actually resulted in fewer transactions, but many past donors feel strongly about the introduction of this system.  We will likely be announcing it to past donors as a method to continue their generous support, sometime this week.  Anyone is welcome to use it - we just won't be advertising it on the initial donation.  

You can sign up for recurring giving at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Monthly_donations/en
 
With this, we gleefully delete the “sorry, we don’t have a recurring donation option” template from our email response systems.

Best wishes,
Philippe


_______________________
Philippe Beaudette
Head of Reader Relations
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

ofc: +1 415 839 6885 x6643 
mobile: +1 918 200 WIKI (9454)

pbeaudette at wikimedia.org

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