[Wikimedia-l] Fundraiser launch update

[Philippe Beaudette]

I'd actually like to clarify something about the way fundraisers work,
because it may not be readily apparent to everyone.... remember that the
date that the goal is "hit" is always fuzzy, because we actually don't know
it until it's viewed in retrospect.  There's money that comes in on a date
that isn't actually posted until later (for instance, check transactions,
which aren't posted the day they're received or transactions from payment
processors that may report on a 24 hour delay - I don't know if there are
any of these right now, but there used to be - or something similar).

So you actually don't know what date you "hit" the mark until you're quite
a bit farther down the line.  Systems are markedly better this year than
ever before, but I remember the year that I worked the fundraiser, we were
a week or more behind on posting checks.  That's just a manpower issue.

So while it's easy to talk about the "date" as though there's a magic total
board, there's not.  It's mostly good guesswork by Zack, his team, and the
payment processing chapters in approximating when it happens.

pb

___________________
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

415-839-6885, x 6643

philippe at wikimedia.org



On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 1:21 AM, K. Peachey <p858snake at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 5:40 PM, Zack Exley <zexley at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> > Thanks for the encouragement!  We're really sorry that this decision came
> > so close to the fundraiser. But I think it's necessary and is going to
> make
> > things so much better. I'm hoping that we can get the fundraiser down to
> > something like 30 days this year (from 46 last year)
>
> Is that 46 day figure when the goal was reached and exceeded or when
> they were turned off, Since last year (and a few others if i'm not
> mistaken) those were two different dates.
>
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