I’m delighted to report that the Wikimedia Foundation can ring in the New Year with the close of our seventh annual fundraiser, having exceeded our goal of $16 million. More than half a million people pitched in an average of around $22 each to support Wikipedia and its sister projects, in our shortest (and most successful) fundraiser to date.

Our community of volunteers is deeply honored that, in only 50 days, 500,000 people from 140 countries came together to support the only non-profit, user supported top-10 website in the world.  In addition to this humbling support for the Wikimedia Foundation, our chapters around the world have raised millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of donors of their own.

We want to thank every one of our donors for making this year a success, and on behalf of the fundraising team, I personally wish to thank the one-thousand community members who helped us create and test messages, who wrote appeals, and translated banners and letters into over 80 languages.

In 15 days, Wikipedia will turn 10 years old. Since the beginning, Wikipedia’s community of readers and editors have remained dedicated to keeping the site ad-free, and free for use for its 400 million monthly visitors.  This year’s success demonstrates a continued commitment to those principles.

With the close of our annual fundraiser, we are transitioning into the contribution phase of the campaign. We will be running banners for the next few days to thank everyone who came together in the spirit of creating and “effectively disseminating the sum of human knowledge available for all.”  We will also begin to celebrate Wikipedia’s tenth birthday, with banner ads encouraging readers to join us in a local celebration.

We want to invite every one of the readers of Wikipedia and its sister sites to make their  first edit, or upload their first photograph, and join our community of volunteer contributors to continue the growth of Wikipedia for the next 10 years.

Thank you again, and happy New Year! Here’s to 2011, and to the next 10 years!

Regards,

Philippe Beaudette
Head of Reader Relations

This page contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous.

Wikimedia’s contribution campaign for 2010 is a serious endeavor. As Philippe told you yesterday, in a relatively short time period we need to raise the funds that keep Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects available for free to everyone.

Millions of people use Wikipedia every day. It’s clear that more than a few of our readers have noticed yesterday’s launch. Nearly all of the responses we find are constructive for thinking about how to keep Wikipedia free. Some of them are simply hilarious. Too hilarious not to share, in fact.

Here’s our list of the best, or rather the most amusing, tidbits about this year’s fundraiser. We’re glad we’re not the only folks with a healthy sense of humor. We consider this post to be in the tradition of Wikipedia humor, of which a favorite example is Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense.

• Thanks to a link from O’Reilly Radar, Information is Beautiful created a rather stunning infographic about our appeals. Not to be outdone, Flowing Data has their own take.
• The Huffington Post also has a smart rundown on our banner testing strategy, and includes a poll where you can choose which of two banners you prefer.
• Time.com’s Techland blog declared Jimmy’s expression “Don Draper-esque.” We’re unofficially declaring that a win for Wikipedia’s cool factor.
• A blogger from Indiana wrote a satire which expresses another strong but nevertheless funny reaction to the banners.
• New York Magazine’s Daily Intel blog has a short but sweet post that reminds readers of the somewhat surprising list of Wikipedia’s most popular articles.
• The community at social news site Reddit has several hysterical threads about the campaign, including Photoshop jokes and unfortunate coincidences. The same Reddit posts often have practical advice for how to help us improve the donation system.

Of course, Twitter is awash with 140 character analysis of the campaign so far. There’s really too much to link to, but choice examples include:

• Jeff Atwood of stackoverflow.com fame feeling a tad uncomfortable
• Insight into Chuck Norris-related vandalism
• Commentary on the reliability of Wikipedia
• And a gentleman who apparently feels a little guilty about the size of his donation. Hopefully he knows that our average gift isn’t over $30 USD, as you can see at our public donation statistics page.

If you’d like to keep up on similar unofficial news from our contribution campaign, please follow the #keepitfree hashtag on Twitter. For a more official take, follow @Wikipedia and @Wikimedia. Visit donate.wikimedia.org to do your part to sustain the free encyclopedia anyone can edit.

Steven Walling, on behalf of Wikimedia’s Community Department

Today, I’m pleased to announce the launch of our 2010 annual fundraising drive, which we are referring to as a ”contribution campaign”. This year marks a major milestone for Wikipedia.  Ten years of revolutionizing access to knowledge.  Ten years of our joint commitment to deliver the sum of human knowledge to every human being on the planet.  For free.

Wikipedia and its sister sites champion a mission of effectively disseminating knowledge, free for use, free of copyright, and free of external advertising. Since its founding in 2001, the site has grown to 17 million articles in over 270 languages, and for many of those languages, Wikipedia is the only encyclopedia ever written. Wikipedia, and all the Wikimedia projects, are always there when we need them; for students, educators, professionals and curious minds worldwide, these projects are simply the most convenient and readily accessible sources of information.

This year’s fundraising goal is an ambitious one – $16 million over two months. Wikimedia sites are the 5^th most visited web properties worldwide (visited by about 400 million people each month), and Wikimedia is the only non-profit organization in the top 10. Since 2007 our readership has doubled, with this past September seeing our highest traffic yet.  With this incredible feat comes an enormous duty: to maintain the infrastructure necessary to keep these sites free, stable, and running smoothly, while also continually improving the systems and architecture behind them.

For more information about where your donations go, see this year’s annual plan.

Since the beginning, our fundraising model has been based on the support of our community of readers and editors – we have received more than 500,000 donations in the lifetime of the Foundation, averaging about $33 each.  Will you join us today by making a donation to financially underwrite Wikipedia and its sister sites?

We have worked with almost a thousand community volunteers to develop this year’s fundraiser as a community driven contribution campaign. These exceptional volunteers have helped to develop messaging, design banners, write appeals, and conduct tests of our ideas.

Since August we have been testing these messages and tweaking our campaign to reflect the data and feedback from our community. Due to the introduction of new technology, we now have the ability to target particular banners and donation pages based upon geographic location, and to optimize the pages donors see.

In addition to new technology, we’re introducing a new perspective;  this year’s contribution campaign is designed to invite not only financial contributions, but to also encourage people to contribute their expertise and knowledge to the projects. We want readers to make their first edit, upload their first photograph to Wikimedia Commons, write their first article, and through this, to become more deeply affiliated with the projects.

For updates throughout the fundraiser continue to check our blog, and follow us on identi.ca and Twitter (as @Wikipedia, or the community-run contribution handle @WikiContribute).  After you’ve made a contribution, please tell the world using the hashtag #keepitfree!

This year marks a significant milestone for us, so I hope you will join me – and the diverse community of volunteers that make up the Wikimedia projects – in celebrating and supporting the mission that has brought us all together.

Stay curious!

Philippe Beaudette,
Community Department