With Sam, I'd like to add my thanks to Lila, and to the fundraising team which has done an extraordinary job of testing, optimizing, and running our fundraising campaigns. And thanks to all of you, for being concerned about and invested in our projects' public image and financial health and future.
Some perspective from my role as a trustee: One section of our recent board meeting was spent discussing the fundraising trends that Lila refers to, and thinking about the longer-term future of fundraising on our projects. These trends include: on-site page views are dramatically down over the past two years in the US & Europe, where the majority of our revenue is raised. At the same time, there are challenges with fundraising in many of the places where readership is growing. Additionally, of course we want and need a strong financial basis for the projects over the long-term -- not only to keep the lights on but also to build better infrastructure (ranging from current contributor-supporting projects -- see the recent product survey -- to making the software easier on new editors).
And, of course, fundraising is only one small supporting piece of the overall picture -- so we discussed how shifting patterns in Wikimedia project consumption, ranging from mobile to Google knowledge graph type products, might affect our mission long-term.
Given all this context, in our meeting the board discussed whether we should try to raise more money now to build our long-term reserves (which I personally think is wise, given current trends). We also discussed and deeply appreciate the delicate balance that fundraising has: yes, we can raise more by running more banners, but at what cost? I should note that the board didn't set new targets in this meeting. But we did express our support and thanks for the fundraising team's efforts, which have been remarkable at making sure that our projects are funded by a world-wide group of independent readers.
One side note about the evolution of fundraising in Wikimedia that I think is worth noting is that the overall length of the fundraiser has shrunk dramatically in the last 7-8 years -- from a month at 100% in 2006 to a targeted 2 weeks (or less) today. Individual readers see many fewer banner impressions now than they used to.
Personally, I think readers should worry about Wikipedia. We are a nonprofit that exists because of the labor of volunteers. Our readers who rely on our work and don't think much about how it gets on their screens should recognize that what we do isn't guaranteed in perpetuity -- it all depends on help, support and work from our global community. If that knowledge motivates people to contribute, fantastic. If contributing means donating 3$, great. And if it means becoming an editor: even better. Let's all work towards that.
-- Phoebe
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 12:53 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Lila - thank you for this thoughtful update. Fundraising trends and data are always welcome, particularly where communities can help improve and test local messages.
I am also deeply thankful for the smooth work of the fundraising team, who have made great progress over the last few years – in storytelling & translation, mobile giving, testing & data analysis. I look forward to seeing what we learn this year.
Sam
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 1:53 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
All -- we will not have a pop-up banner.
I know you want more insight into the trends: we will provide some of those in our upcoming reports and metrics and we will plan to shift to a quarterly cadence of a more specific metrics report that will include fundraising.
Just to cover some basic trends: the last two years have significantly changed our traffic composition. Regionally, we are seeing growth in emerging languages and regions. This is great: people who need the knowledge most, but cannot afford it and often live in countries where free speech is criminalized are learning about Wikipedia. We need to keep supporting that. In Europe, North America, Australia, etc. we see Wikipedia becoming a part of the fabric of the internet itself: embedded in web searches, operating systems, and other online resources. This is great too: people get knowledge wherever they are. Both of those trends however can make it more difficult to raise funds (and sometimes contribute), so we have to make sure we adapt.
We are doing a lot of work around thinking through a diversified fundraising strategy. That said, our main tool today are the site banners. Just to be clear: the pop-up banner had advantages. It tested high with readers, was only shown once to each user and cut the total number of impressions needed by a factor of 7! We did hear your concerns however. The Fundraising team listened and quickly integrated your feedback. While our launch banner will be different from last year’s, it will not be a pop-up, overlay content, or be sticky. As always this starting design will iterate daily and have parallel tests, so you may see variations at any given time.
Megan Hernandez will send another email with more details about the process to-date, and how best to communicate with Fundraising during the coming month.
And in the spirit of the holidays I'd like to thank the fundraising team for all of their hard work and to all of the volunteers who have helped with the campaigns.