Fundraising
Who are we?
[edit]The Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising team cultivates the resources that propel our movement. We engage millions of people from countries across the globe to support Wikipedia and its sister projects. The overwhelming majority of the Foundation's funding comes from individual readers from all over the world giving an average of $11.
Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation maintain server infrastructure, improve the software that supports our projects, and make Wikipedia and its sister projects accessible globally to millions of people. For additional information, please see the 2023–2024 Fundraising Report. The next Fundraising Report (2024–2025) is tentatively scheduled for publication by late February 2026.
Current fundraising activities
[edit]Operated by Wikimedia Foundation
For the Financial Year 25/26
Q3 and Q4 FY25/26 campaigns:
- Italy campaign. Email: February 3-February 24, Banners: March 3-March 31. Here are some email examples: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3, Email 4
- Czech Republic campaign. Email: February 23-March 20, Banners: March 31-April 28. Here is an Email example: Power Email
- Sweden campaign. Email: April 6-May 1, Banners: April 6-May 4
- Portugal campaign. Email: June 8-June 12, Banners: April 6-May 4
- Belgium campaign. Email: February 16-March 13, Banners: May 5-June 2 Here are some Email examples: Email 1 English Email 2 English Email 3 English Email 4 English Email 1 Dutch Email 2 Dutch Email 3 Dutch Email 4 Dutch Email 1 FrenchEmail 2 French Email 3 French Email 4 French
- Latvia campaign. Email: March 3-March 24, Banners: May 5-June 2
- Luxembourg campaign. Email: March 3-March 24, Banners: May 5-June 2
- Poland campaign. Email: March 3-March 24, Banners: May 5-June 2
- Romania campaign. Email: March 3-March 24, Banners: May 5-June 2
- Slovakia campaign. Email: March 3-March 24, Banners: May 5-June 2
- Spain campaign. Email: March 9-April 3, Banners: May 5-June 2
- Japan campaign. Email: May 4-May 29, Banners: June 2-June 30
- Austria campaign. Email: March 17-April 7, Banners: June 2-June 30
- Denmark campaign. Email: June 1-June 26, Banners: June 2-June 30
- Greece campaign. Email: May 18-May 22, Banners: June 2-June 30
- Malaysia campaign. Email: March 3-March 24, Banners: June 2-June 30
- South Africa campaign. Email: June 1-June 26, Banners: June 2-June 30
- Norway campaign. Email: March 3-March 24, Banners: June 2-June 30
- English campaign. Email: March 30-April 17
- Hungary campaign. Email: June 1-June 26
| Community collaboration pages around WMF's fundraising campaigns 2022/23 |
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| Community collaboration pages around WMF's fundraising campaigns 2025/26 |
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Contact Us
[edit]- We have an FAQ for donors and one for community members.
- Please stay in contact with us on the fundraising talk page.
- IRC channel: #wikimedia-fundraisingconnect (publicly logged)
- To report technical software bugs in Phabricator, follow mw:How to report a bug and use the #wikimedia-fundraising project tag.
- For a breakdown of how fundraising tech uses Phabricator, check out this wikitech page.
- For a calendar of all central-notice banners, including fundraising, see CentralNotice/Calendar.
Fundraising updates
[edit]See the full archive
Documents, Reports, Articles, Videos and more
[edit]Articles:
How does the Wikimedia Foundation use donations to Wikipedia?
Building a secure financial future for Wikipedia by Lisa Seitz Gruwell
Foundation 360 Building the relationships and resources we need to thrive Interview with Megan Hernandez, Advancement Department
The finances of free knowledge Lessons in transparency and impact by Jaime Villagomez
7 reasons you should donate to Wikipedia by Lisa Seitz Gruwell
Reports and Documents:
Fundraising Content Strategy Overview
2025/26 Q2 Update
[edit]During Q2 the fundraising team focused mainly on the Big English fundraising campaign in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the US as well as the yearly fundraising campaign in France.
The fundraising team engaged the English Wikipedia community from July onwards on the community collaboration page and shared test ideas, product experimentations, and gave everyone space to contribute. Additionally, the fundraising programme was presented in a workshop at Wikimania.
In France the fundraising team hosted a community collaboration page and a community call giving the French community a chance to share their thoughts and feedback. Several suggestions from community members were implemented.
2025/26 Q1 Update
[edit]We started the financial year 2025/26 with fundraising campaigns in the Netherlands, LatAm (this is a scheduling change, our LatAm campaign has moved from Q3/4 to Q1/2 as of this year) and France (email, banners will follow in Q2). You can find all the relevant community collaboration pages above. We engaged our local communities beforehand, via the community collaboration pages and community calls.
We also launched the English banner fundraising campaign community collaboration page where we engage with volunteers until the end of the year. Parallel to this, we have been running our pre-testing programme for the English campaign as well as the kick-off of our email campaign.
Some love from our donors:
The reason for my contribution is simple: purchasing my iPad was primarily intended to have access to at any time of the day the encyclopedia Wikipedia. Especially now that my limited mobility hinders visits to the library. Wikipedia literally means knowledge of the world at my feet! I wish the W.F. much success in further developing what I consider to be the best invention of the past decades. Donor from the Netherlands
See also
[edit]- Erik Moeller and Domas Mituzas on fundraising since 2010