[Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

Matthew Walker mwalker at wikimedia.org
Wed Aug 14 19:20:14 UTC 2013


>>Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in the
>>team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must* pay
>>to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.

>This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these
>documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great to
>start a page. :-)

In the past days there's been discussion internal to the fundraising team
-- it appears that the 'fundraising principles' I thought we held are not
uniformly held by others. In this particular instance it seems that gift
premiums are not entirely off the table. I've been told that the reason we
have not done them in the past is mostly due to technical limitations. The
current view is that we should keep our options open to future
experimentation if the situation allows.

<personal hat>
At this I'll take off my foundation hat and state that I remain firmly
opposed to gift premiums being used as a donation incitement. I hope that
if we do, at some point, press forward and experiment with premiums that,
before this happens, ...
- We show reasonable evidence that the gain in monetary income will fully
offset the new cost in managing gifts.
- We either have some method to ship worldwide without subsidy; or we
communicate beforehand that we will not be able to do this in some regions
*and* that we understand and have a plan for the fallout that will probably
cause.
- We have premiums that actually mean something to the movement; e.g. you
do not donate $100 and get a t-shirt.
- We show reasonable evidence that if the experiment doesn't work that we
will not have hurt our future donation prospects. (E.g. will people always
expect premiums if we offer them once?)
- That we have a solid communications plan in place to immediately offset
any possible suggestion that you are 'buying' a piece of the foundation
with your donation.

Just my two cents.
</personal hat>

~Matt Walker
Wikimedia Foundation
Fundraising Technology Team


On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 11:50 AM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:

> Matthew Walker wrote:
> >Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in the
> >team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must* pay
> >to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.
>
> Hi Matt.
>
> This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these
> documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great to
> start a page. :-)
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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