[Wikimedia-l] deliberately lowered fundraising growth rate (was: Fundraising updates?)

[Samuel Klein]

Hello James,

On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:00 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com> wrote:


> > Are you suggesting the Board has a duty to raise as
> > much money as possible?
>
> No. When actual fundraising far exceeded expectations, it was scaled
> back to meet expectations based on the nonquantative predictions of
> the Chief Revenue Officer.


This assumption is incorrect.

Fundraising targets have been set to match our projected needs for the
year, for the past few years.  We have committed to ending the active
banner-driven fundraising once we meet our targets.

I'm a strong proponent of an endowment; but to fundraise for one you
message for one: you define what long-term support the endowment will
guarantee for the coming century, and you solicit contributions directly
towards that.

As Matt notes, there are many countervailing reasons for us to be moderate
in our requests of readers and donors, to ask only for what we need, and to
describe precisely each year what we plan to do with donor's help.  There
are similar reasons related to our own communities to be moderate in how
fast we grow staff compared to how fast we grow our global active community.

As to your specific concerns, I encourage fleshing them out as part of a
discussion of next year's budget.  You may find a helpful counterpoint to
your own anxiety in the discussion there, driven by people who feel that
our current budget is both too high and not directed at our bottlenecks.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Budget
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_budget#2012-13

SJ