Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fundraising - Social Media Update

Seddon, Katherine, I am sure the fundraising team has done excellent work. And the public have been very generous – the Wikimedia Foundation's annual revenue has hit a new record every year throughout its existence, rising from humble beginnings in 2003/2004 to $15 million by 2009/2010 and to $82 million in 2015/2016.[1] This said, I note that according to the data posted at https://frdata.wikimedia.org/ the Wikimedia Foundation has now taken $29.5 million in donations since the beginning of the current year-end campaign. The campaign's publicised target is $25 million.[2] By tonight, this will have been exceeded by a full $5 million, according to the publicly posted donations totals. The data also shows that over the past five days, the Wikimedia Foundation has taken over $1.5 million in donations daily, on average. There are 16 days left in the month. We can all do the maths – if the campaign continues to the end of the month, as past campaigns have done, you will vastly exceed your fundraising goal. Banners used in this and previous years' campaigns have been telling the public, "If everyone reading this right now gave £2, our fundraiser would be done in an hour." The other day, volunteers expressed concerns about the fact that despite this messaging, recent year-end campaigns have always continued well past the point where the targeted amount has been reached. In reply, Jimmy Wales assured volunteers:[3] "We would still stop the fundraiser if enough money were raised in shorter than the planned time. So I don't see what your concern is about." The current fundraiser has been so successful that the publicised target has indeed been raised in shorter than the planned time. So, will the Wikimedia Foundation give the reading public a banner-free Wikipedia for Christmas? Best, Andreas [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports [2] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/11/29/wikimedia-foundation-annual-fundraise… [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_215#Once_upon_a… On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 9:57 AM, Joseph Seddon <jseddon(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: