[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation launches tenth-annual online fundraising campaign to support Wikipedia

[Matthew Roth]

(This press release is also available online here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_announces_tenth_annual_fundraising_campaign

Wikimedia Foundation launches tenth-annual online fundraising campaign to
support Wikipedia and increase access to free knowledge

(San Francisco, California) 3 December 2013 -- The Wikimedia Foundation,
the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects, today
announced the launch of its tenth-annual year-end fundraising campaign. The
online fundraising campaign aims to raise $20 million, while the remainder
of the Wikimedia Foundation's funding will come from individual gifts given
outside the year-end campaign, and from foundation grants. The overwhelming
majority of the Wikimedia Foundation's funding comes from individual
readers giving an average of $15.

The Wikimedia Foundation's online fundraising brings in the resources
needed to keep the Wikimedia projects freely available to everyone around
the world in their own language, and guarantees that Wikipedia will never
have to rely on advertising. Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation
maintain server infrastructure, improve and simplify the software that runs
our projects, support initiatives around the globe to increase the number
of project contributors, and make Wikipedia accessible to billions of
people who are just beginning to access the internet.

"People donate to Wikipedia because they find it useful, and they trust it
because even though it's not perfect, they know it's written for them. We
aim to tell the truth, and we can do that because of the millions of people
who donate what they can each year," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director
of the Wikimedia Foundation. "The average donor is paying for his or her
own use of Wikipedia, plus the costs of hundreds of other people. The
support of so many people keeps us independent and able to deliver the
world's knowledge for free. Exactly as it should be."

Every year, as the number of Wikipedia readers and donors grows, the
Wikimedia Foundation is able to shorten the duration of its end-of-year
campaign. We thank all our donors for their support. We also want to thank
the volunteers who help make our campaign a widely localized and
internationalized endeavor. In 2012, for example, more than 1,000 people
translated the fundraising banners into more than 100 languages, which
prompted donations from nearly every country on the planet.

The 2013 year-end fundraising campaign builds on the success of previous
years and will run through the end of this year. To make a donation, click
the banners at the top of Wikipedia, or go directly to donate.wikimedia.org.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 530 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property worldwide (comScore, October 2013).
Available in 287 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 30 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.

Press Contact
Matthew Roth
Spokesperson, Wikimedia Foundation
+1 415-839-6885 ext 6635 (San Francisco)
mroth at wikimedia.org

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