The Wikimedia Foundation has kicked off its tenth-annual year-end fundraising campaign with donation banners visible at the top of Wikipedia.
Online fundraising brings in the resources needed to keep the Wikimedia projects freely available to everyone around the world in their own language, and guarantees that Wikipedia will never have to rely on advertising. Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation maintain server infrastructure, improve and simplify the software that runs our projects, support initiatives around the globe to increase the number of project contributors, and make Wikipedia accessible to billions of people who are just beginning to access the internet.
“People donate to Wikipedia because they find it useful, and they trust it because even though it’s not perfect, they know it’s written for them. We aim to tell the truth, and we can do that because of the millions of people who donate what they can each year,” said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “The average donor is paying for his or her own use of Wikipedia, plus the costs of hundreds of other people. The support of so many people keeps us independent and able to deliver the world’s knowledge for free. Exactly as it should be.”
The online fundraising campaign aims to raise $20 million, while the remainder of the Wikimedia Foundation’s funding will come from individuals gifts given outside the year-end campaign, and from foundation grants. The overwhelming majority of the Foundation’s funding comes from individual readers giving an average of $15.
Every year, as the number of Wikipedia readers and donors grows, the Wikimedia Foundation is able to shorten the duration of the end-of-year campaign. “We thank all our donors for their support,” said Megan Hernandez, Director of Online Fundraising at the Wikimedia Foundation. “We also want to thank the volunteers who help make our campaign a widely localized and internationalized effort.”
Hernandez noted that in the 2012-2013 fundraising cycle, more than 1,000 people translated the fundraising banners into more than 100 languages, which prompted donations from nearly every country on the planet. She expected similar volunteer support and localization throughout the 2013-14 cycle.
The 2013 year-end fundraising campaign builds on the success of previous years and will run through the end of this year, or until the target is met. To make a donation, click the banners at the top of Wikipedia, or go directly to donate.wikimedia.org.
Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager, Wikimedia Foundation
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