With all that being said, everyone overseas does have a way to donate also, I assume? And since I am getting several friends and family involved due to their love for this site (they would go insane if they woke up one day and it was missing from the net), I had to become quite familiar with your many ways of receiving donations and am thankful that you include the choice of mailing a check. One of my relatives is always more comfortable doing things this way- the same as with bills. Others will be sending donations by PayPal and/or credit cards.

Also, I will be directing this question to the right place (donations@wikimedia.org) but hopefully you are also accepting money orders for those without bank account access, and if not, wire transfers were mentioned so therefore I hope this means transfers such as Western Union and Money Grams, etc. From my family who happens to love Wikipedia to each individual member of the real Wikipedia family itself….. THANK YOU FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS, you have our support and you are appreciated! We will be sending our help for the site along with our best of wishes that the organization is able to meet its goal in the amount that it is aiming for this year!

Thank you for such a great site, and thank you for giving so many a chance to show our appreciation for it…..from a daughter/granddaughter AND her family in Kentucky.

Thanks for all the good work…

Hey Jay! I looked at the financials and don’t know how you guys do it! If you totaled up the $3.5 M in Total Salaries & Wages and divided that by 50 employees — you guys make an average of $70,000 a year — in San Francisco? For the 5th most popular site in the world? The site that revolutionized TRANSPARENCY in information? Hmmm — any of you guys want to come work for me at that rate!

7% for FUNDRAISING costs? That’s unheard of in terms of low cost! Should be between 25 – 50% of total funds raised!

If we could get governments, schools and other non-profits to provide the cost effective, wildly successful and totally transparent level of efficiency that the Wikimedia Foundation achieves we’d all be a lot smarter, have more money in our pockets and have more free time to learn and explore on the suite of Wiki sites (since we wouldn’t have to work so hard to pay the mortgage and our taxes!)

You know you’re doing a good job when even my 4 year old says “Dad — Wikipedia, Wikipedia, Wikipedia!” every time I say “Son, I don’t know the answer” — It used to be “Google it” (still is for toys!). The 6 year old Irish Twins just Wikipedia it themselves! — if you don’t know what Irish Twins are, look it up on Wikipedia — that’s how I found out what it is!

As a 40 year old who grew up with the Dewey Decimal system and the library (God Bless the libraries) I cannot thank you enough for changing the world and providing the Wikimedia suite for me, my kids and the world to better ourselves and each other.

Thanks to all of you for everything you do!

C. Douglas Conlan

Our campaign goal is to raise $16 million USD. Although raising over $4 billion might be a wonderful windfall for free knowledge, and establish possibly an eternal legacy for the project, this is not our aim. The operating budget for Wikimedia Foundation is just over $20 million USD for the current fiscal year, a large portion of which will fund the technology operations of our site, supporting infrastructure and meeting the escalating global traffic – hundreds of millions of visitors a month. We do have physical assets, and we’ll have more as we establish our first permanent data center of the next few months, and continue to expand our infrastructure to meet demands around the world.

These questions and more are addressed on our fundraiser FAQ, where you’ll find we openly and transparently share our business operation plans and describe how donations are used.

Jay Walsh, Communications