Wikimedia Fundraiser Concludes with Record Breaking Donations

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Our annual fundraising campaign reached a successful conclusion today having raised a record-breaking USD 20 million from more than one million donors in nearly every country in the world. It is our most successful campaign ever, continuing an unbroken streak in which donations have risen every year since the campaigns began in 2003.
Wikimedia Foundation websites serve more than 470 million people every month. It is the only major website supported not by advertising, but by donations from readers.
From Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation,

Our model is working fantastically well.
Ordinary people use Wikipedia and they like it, so they chip in some cash so it will continue to thrive. That maintains our independence and lets us focus solely on providing a useful public service. I am so grateful to our donors for making that possible. I promise them we will use their money carefully and well.

The number of Wikimedia Foundation donors has increased ten-fold since 2008 and the total dollar amount raised in the campaign has risen to over $20 million from $4.5 million.
Funds raised in this campaign will be used to buy and install servers and other hardware, to develop new site functionality, expand mobile services, provide legal defense for the projects, and support the large global community of Wikimedia volunteers. The Wikimedia Foundation’s total 2011-12 planned spending is 28.3 million USD. The bulk of that is raised during the annual campaign and the remainder comes throughout the year in the form of grants from institutions (such as the Sloan Foundation) and many other small donations year round.
This year’s campaign highlighted staff and volunteers who help to create Wikipedia. It featured testimonials from volunteer editors in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, India, Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United States ranging in age from 18 to 76, explaining why they edit Wikipedia and why they think readers should support the Wikimedia Foundation. More than 100 volunteers translated the banners and appeals into dozens of languages, reaching hundreds of millions of people.
A special thanks goes to all the contributors who work on the fundraiser year-round, the editors who helped tell their story, the translators who helped spread the message of the fundraiser, Wikimedia foundation employees, and to the readers of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects for their support.
With over 20 million articles in 282 languages, Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia in human history. Over 100,000 volunteers work on Wikipedia and its 10 sister projects (including projects like Wikimedia Commons, Wikibooks, and Wiktionary), furthering the Wikimedia Foundation’s mission to freely share the sum of all human knowledge. On January 15, 2012, Wikipedia will celebrate its 11th anniversary.
Jay Walsh, Communications
 

Archive notice: This is an archived post from blog.wikimedia.org, which operated under different editorial and content guidelines than Diff.

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[…] Foundation-l ein sehr positives Fazit der diesjährigen Spendenkampagne gezogen hatte, wurde heute im Blog der Foundation deren Ergebnis bekanntgegeben: Insgesamt wurden weltweit gut 20 Milliionen US-Dollar eingenommen. […]

[…] Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they’ve raised $20 million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once […]

[…] The Wikimedia Foundation annual fundraising campaign has raised $20 million from more than one million donors in nearly every country in the world, said the foundation. […]

[…] Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they’ve raised million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once again. […]

[…] Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they’ve raised $20 million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once […]

[…] Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they’ve raised $20 million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once […]

[…] Wikimedia blog Tagged: Tech News, Wikibooks, Wikimedia, Wikimedia Commons, wikimedia foundation, Wikinews, […]

[…] Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they’ve raised $ 20 million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once […]

[…] sin fines de lucro -cuyo fundador Jimmy Wales pone carita de pena cada año para la campaña- recaudó la no menospreciable suma de US$20 millones gracias al aporte de más de un millón de donantes. La suma recolectada superó en US$4 millones […]

[…] 2011 fue un buen año de recaudacion para Wikimedia, ya que alcanzo la pequeña cifra de 20 millones de dolares gracias al aporte de poco mas de 1 millon de donantes.Con lo cual a logrado superar por 4 millones […]

[…] 维基百科在网站上宣布现在它每月有4.7亿的独立访客,网站共有支持282种语言的2000万篇文章,再过两周就是它成立11周年的日子。 […]

[…] annual fundraising campaigns have been steadily growing in donations since 2003. According to the Wikimedia blog, this year’s fundraiser was strikingly successful when compared to 2008′s total of $4.5 […]

[…] campaigns  of wikimedia have been steadily growing in donations since 2003. According to the Wikimedia blog, this year’s fundraiser was strikingly successful when compared to 2008′s total of $4.5 […]

[…] campaigns  of wikimedia have been steadily growing in donations since 2003. According to the Wikimedia blog, this year’s fundraiser was strikingly successful when compared to 2008′s total of $4.5 […]

[…] per Wikimedia. La società a cui fa capo il progetto Wikipedia ha pubblicato sul proprio blog un articolo in cui vengono messi in evidenza alcuni aspetti molto interessanti: ad esempio, il numero di […]

Great news! I have a quick question: do you have information on which countries donated what figures? Will you make them public?

[…] sin fines de lucro -cuyo fundador Jimmy Wales pone carita de pena cada año para la campaña- recaudó la no menospreciable suma de US$20 millones gracias al aporte de más de un millón de donantes. La suma recolectada superó en US$4 millones […]

[…] Mitteilung der Wikimedia Foundation […]

[…] detalles: http://diff.wikimedia.org/2012/01/02/wikimedia-fundraiser-concludes-with-record-breaking-donations/ Be Sociable, Share! TweetTemas relacionados:enero 3, 2012 — Beckham no irá al […]

[…] 15 января Википедия будет праздновать своё 11-летие.via Wikimedia blog VK.Widgets.Like("vk_like", {type: "button"}); Викимедиа Википедия […]

gratitude runs deep for one and all who directly or indirectly support this cause of spreading knowledge 🙂
humbly thank the team for an immediate response & action to the sentiments / suggestions i made
made a minuscule contribution requesting a friend to club it with his own …but am still proud that i am part of the project
THANKS & REGARDS to one and all who are a part of this project
sumit

Wikipedia is one of the best websites in the whole world wide web. The amount of help that Wikipedia is doing to students and researchers cant be mentioned. Keep up the work and keep on spreading good work. Love Wikipedia!

[…] campaign recently wrapped up as they met their fundraising goal of $20M.  This has been described in the past few days as a success, in part because we can now return to […]

wiki is my favourite site and i have no idea how much time i have spent on wiki reading through a variety of information. So whatever little i could contribute was just a way of showing my gratitude…long live wiki!!

[…] Wikimedia savo oficialiame tinklaraštyje pranešė, jog sausio 1-ąją pasibaigė kasmetinis aukų rinkimas jos elektroninei enciklopedijai […]

[…] [Méta] La levée de fond a été un beau succès [graphique] avec 20 millions de dollars récoltés cette année [blog officiel] […]

Thanks to all those who participated in the campaign! Thanks to Isaac Kosgei from Kenya for being part of them. Your other contributions to Wikimedia is evident also! Thanks you’ve made Kenya and the whole of Africa proud.

[…] maggiori informazioni sulla raccolta fondi: Wikimedia Fundraiser Concludes with Record Breaking Donations sul blog ufficiale della WMF. LD_AddCustomAttr("AdOpt", "1"); LD_AddCustomAttr("Origin", […]

[…] “Наша онлайнова кампанія з пошуку грошей сьогодні успішно завершилася після того, як ми досягли рекордної суми пожертв у 20 млн доларів від більше ніж 1 млн донорів майже з кожної країни світу”, пише Джей Волш (Jay Walsh) у блозі Wikimedia Foundation blog. […]

[…] Foundation, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other sites, this morning announced that they’ve raised $20 million from more than a million donors, shattering a record once […]

[…] 02 janvier, la fondation Wikimedia a annoncé […]

[…] 维基百科在网站上宣布现在它每月有4.7亿的独立访客,网站共有支持282种语言的2000万篇文章,再过两周就是它成立11周年的日子。 […]

[…] : Wikimedia Deutschland (3,8 millions d’euros récoltés et 160 000 donateurs), Wikimedia Foundation (15,6 millions d’euros et 1 million de donateurs), Wikimedia United Kingdom (1,3 millions […]

Gratitude is kind of running dry right now with the blackout, to get a 2012 donation out of me wiki will have to do something really special to reearn my respect.

[…] Zdroj: Wikimedia Foundation Fundraiser Blog […]