[Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : The Economic Times : "India joins top 10 Wiki donors club"

[CherianTinu Abraham]

*The Economic Times : "India joins top 10 Wiki donors club"*
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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/india-joins-top-10-wiki-donors-club/articleshow/7731981.cms
http://m.economictimes.com/PDAET/articleshow/7731981.cms

*It is not only the Indian billionaires who have realized the power of
giving, small donors also seem to have caught the "giving" fever. India has
moved up the rank of donors to the Wikimedia Foundation to become the sixth
largest donor in 2010-11 after donors from the US, Canada, Japan, Spain and
the UK. *
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*Nearly 11,000 Indians donated $ 193,657 to the foundation, which raised a
total of $ 14.81 mn through donations from across the world. Donors from the
US contributed over $ 10 mn, the highest among all countries. *
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*In 2007-08, India ranked 18th in the list with merely 583 donors
contributing about $ 12,532. A year later, 2008-09, India was at 15th rank
with 1759 donors contributing $ 38,776. In 2009-10, the country slipped one
place to the 16th rank with 2956 donors contributing $ 52,156. An average
Indian who donated gave $ 18.5 to the foundation this year up from the
previous average of $ 17.6 last year.*
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*So why did they do it? Some say that they can't imagine a life without
Google and Wikipedia. Some say that it feels good to be doing something for
a good cause. The reasons may be many but it will be a very small price to
pay if the foundation goes on to realize its vision to create the "sum total
of all human knowledge." *
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*Says T Gautham Shenoy, a creative director at an advertising agency, "It's
my way of giving something back to Wikipedia for being what it is today.
Perhaps not authoritative, and definitely not without its flaws and errors
but it surely is the first port of call for many of us on a daily basis and
the go-to site for quick references. And can you image the result if it
achieves its dream of being the storehouse of all human knowledge? This is
my contribution to help make that dream come true. As they say, Information
wants to be free. But it takes money to keep it free." *
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*Coimbatore based self-employed professional, who goes by the name
Sodabottle on Wikipedia, donated $ 46 to the foundation. "I was paid for
speaking about Wikipedia at a conference at a college. I donated the amount
to the foundation instead, as I am doing the Wikipedia outreach as a
volunteer," he told ET. Contributing to Wikipedia has made him a better
writer in both Tamil and English, he said. *
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*In November last, the Wikimedia Foundation had set out on its annual fund
raising exercise to keep Wikipedia, the worlds largest online encyclopedia
running for free. They had set a target of raising $ 16 mn from donations
across the world. Lately, the foundation has been active in emerging markets
and had announced its intent to improve its focus in countries such as India
and Brazil. *
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*"Any partial or full commercial ownership of Wikipedia could severely
impact its neutrality with a systemic-bias. At the same time, Jimbo Wales'
focus on developing Wikipedia in Indian languages is supposed to provide a
great opportunity for consolidation of knowledge with indigenous flavors
from Indian sub-continent on this monolith global platform," said Milind
Joshi, another donor who works as a principal business technology consultant
at a top MNC in Bangalore. The rise in the number of donors is also being
attributed to an increase in disposable income. *
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*"We are concentrating on professionals who own credit cards and have high
disposable incomes. There are over 18.2 million credit cards in the country
and individual fundraising on the internet is potentially a very large
source of funds for us," said Anirudh Bhati, Treasurer, Wikimedia India
Chapter.*



Regards
Tinu Cherian
http://wikimedia.in/wiki/In_the_news#March_2011
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