Fundraising

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki
This is a general information page on Wikimedia fundraising. If you wish to make a donation, please visit https://donate.wikimedia.org

Who are we?

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 $15.

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. The fundraising team is responsible for raising the Wikimedia Foundation's budget through online campaigns.

These campaigns have the additional goal to educate all readers about Wikipedia and how our movement works. We are grateful for all the readers, contributors, and donors who make Wikipedia and our other projects a global home for knowledge and discovery.

To continue thriving we must constantly innovate, adapting to the changing needs of our readers and new advances in the technology that powers the Wikimedia universe. For additional information, please see the 2022–2023 Fundraising Report.

Our Goals

A Global Project

Readers around the world show their support for Wikimedia each year. The Wikimedia Foundation receives donations from nearly every country in the world in over 80 currencies, 20 payment methods, and 50 languages. We strive to provide readers worldwide with the best localized donation experience possible by offering preferred local payment methods and high quality messages in local languages.

Testing and Optimization

The online fundraiser is based on constant testing and optimization of different themes, messages, designs and user flows. We aim to educate all Wikipedia readers about our movement, provide a convenient donation process, and minimize the disruption of fundraiser banners on the reader experience. Only a tiny portion of readers donate -- therefore, we must always be improving our methods.

Educating Readers

2012 Editor Video

Another goal of the fundraiser is to educate Wikipedia readers about the Wikimedia movement. We do this through the messages displayed in banners as well as through creative content featuring the Wikimedia community. Over the years, we've run personal appeal messages from community members, featured videos introducing Wikimedia volunteers, and invited readers to join in editing.

Current fundraising activities

Global[edit]

Operated by Wikimedia Foundation

For the Financial Year 23/24 Q3 and Q4 campaigns Please note that all banner examples can now be found on the respective community collaboration pages

  • Japan fundraising campaign (Email 2nd to 21st of May, Banners 28th of May to 25th of June - changed). Here are some examples of the Japanese Emails: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3
  • Latin America fundraising campaigns (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay) (Email 6th - 23rd of March. Banners: 19th of March - 13th of April for Brazil, 2nd of April - 28th of May for Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay (please note that banners are running at a 75% impression rate. This means that 75% of readers will be seeing a banner for 10x). Here are some examples of the Emails for Brazil: Email 1, Email. 2, Email 3. Here are some example emails for Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay.
  • Italy email fundraising campaign 2nd - 30th of April. Here are some examples of the Italy emails: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3
  • Belgium fundraising campaign (Email 4th - 22nd of March, Banners 2nd of March to 28th of May (please note that banners are running at a 75% impression rate. This means that 75% of readers will be seeing a banner for 10x). Here are some example emails: Dutch, English, French
  • Austria (Emails: 13th of February to 2nd of March. Banners: 2nd of March to 28th of May (please note that banners are running at a 75% impression rate. This means that 75% of readers will be seeing a banner for 10x). Here are some example emails: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3
  • Norway (Emails: 13th of February to 2nd of March. Banners: 2nd of March to 28th of May (please note that banners are running at a 75% impression rate. This means that 75% of readers will be seeing a banner for 10x). Here are some example emails: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3
  • Luxembourg (Emails 13th of February to 2nd of March. Banners 2nd of March to 28th of May (please note that banners are running at a 75% impression rate. This means that 75% of readers will be seeing a banner for 10x). Here are some example emails: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3
  • Hungary email fundraising campaign 13th of February to 2nd of March. Here are some example emails: Email 1, Email 2, Emails 3
  • Slovakia email fundraising campaign 13th of February to 2nd of March. Here are some example emails: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3
  • Romania email fundraising campaign 13th of February to 2nd of March. Here are some example emails: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3
  • Latvia email fundraising campaign 13th of February to 2nd of March. Here are some example emails: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3
  • Denmark (Emails 3rd o 23rd of June, Banners 2nd of March to 28th of May (please note that banners are running at a 75% impression rate. This means that 75% of readers will be seeing a banner for 10x)
  • Czech Republic (Emails 18th - 29th of March, Banners 28th of May to 25th of June)
  • Italy Emails 1st - 26th of April
  • English email campaign 1st to the 26th of April
  • Sweden (Emails 1st to 24th of May, Banners 28th of May to 25th of June). Here are some example emails: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3
  • Portugal (Emails 13th to 31st of May, Banners 28th of May to 25th of June)
  • Spain (Emails 13th to 31st of May, Banners 28th of May to 25th of June)
  • Greece (Banners 28th of May to 25th of June)
  • Malaysia (Emails 13th of February to 2nd of March, Banners 28th of May to 25th of June). Here are some example emails: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3
  • South Africa (Emails 1st to the 24th of May, Banners 28th of May to the 25th of June)


Community collaboration pages around WMF's fundraising campaigns 2022/23[edit]

Swedish fundraising campaign community engagement page

Czech fundraising campaign community engagement page

Mexico fundraising campaign community engagement page

Brazil fundraising campaign community engagement page

Community collaboration pages around WMF's fundraising campaigns 2023/24[edit]

French fundraising campaign community collaboration page

India fundraising campaign community engagement page

Dutch fundraising campaign community collaboration page

Italian fundraising campaign community collaboration page

English fundraising banner community collaboration page

Japanese fundraising campaign community collaboration page

Danish fundraising campaign community collaboration page

Austrian fundraising campaign community collaboration page

Belgian fundraising campaign community collaboration page - Dutch

Belgian fundraising campaign community collaboration page - French

Norwegian fundraising campaign community collaboration page

LatAm Spanish fundraising campaign community collaboration page

Czech fundraising campaign community collaboration page

Swedish fundraising campaign community collaboration page

Greek fundraising campaign community collaboration page

South African fundraising campaign community collaboration page

Portugal fundraising campaign community collaboration page

Brazil fundraising campaign community collaboration page


Germany[edit]

Operated by Wikimedia Deutschland

Fundraising by WMDE
  • Fundraising testing:
  • Fundraising Banners:

Switzerland[edit]

Operated by Wikimedia Switzerland

  • Fundraising Banner Testing:
  • Fundraising Banner Fundraising:

Contact Us

Fundraising updates

See the full archive


Articles, videos etc. (here you find relevant articles about Wikimedia fundraising and finance)[edit]

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

Annual Plan Conversations - Advancement and Finance and Administration Departments watch Lisa Seitz Gruwell and Jaime Villagomez take questions around the 2021/22 annual plan.

Five reasons Wikipedia needs your support (post supporting the 2021 English banner fundraising campaign) by Pats Pena

7 reasons you should donate to Wikipedia by Lisa Seitz Gruwell

2021/2022 Fundraising Report

2023/24 Q2 Update[edit]

During Q2 we ran two major fundraising campaigns. Our annual English fundraising campaign in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the US had both emails sent to previous donors as well as banners on English Wikipedia for non logged in readers. From Q1 onwards, when the pre-tests for our biggest campaign started, we collaborated with the community on English Wikipedia through a dedicated community collaboration page. A few highlights of the collaborative results we achieved together, are:

  • We introduced language around the role of Wikipedia in relation to AI to our banners
  • We worked around the concept of time sensitivity to encourage readers to donate now rather than later
  • We increased clarity that the messages come from WMF by adding our organizational logo to all banners.
  • We made it easier for readers to stop seeing banners for example increasing the duration for which a reader could dismiss banners for
  • We made improvements to our payment methods and options, including tests to simplify the Venmo checkout flow, and a major milestone of releasing in-app Apple Pay transactions with the Wikipedia Apps team.
  • Donors also saw an invitation to start editing on the Thank You page, after they donated. This led to 4,398 new account creations, and 441 of those accounts went on to constructively edit within 24 hours (a constructive edit means the edit wasn’t subsequently reverted within 48 hours).

The English banner campaign reached the revenue target and our progress towards the annual goal is looking good. We are currently at around 75% to our annual goal and still have campaigns in both Q3 and Q4 coming up that will help us reach the goal by the end of the financial year.  We’ll carry learnings from the English campaign forward as we collaborate with local communities on the upcoming campaigns.  

We also ran our annual fundraising banner campaign in Italy during October. For this we collaborated with the community on Italian Wikipedia and hosted a community call.

Looking ahead, we are engaging and collaborating with the communities across the globe (you can find the list of all collaboration pages that are currently live, on meta) to ensure that our fundraising campaigns are received well locally and that our communities have the input they would like to have.

2023/24 Q1 Update[edit]

The last quarter was all about collaboration between the fundraising team and the English Wikipedia community! In mid-July we launched the English Wikipedia fundraising banner community collaboration page and have been working with interested volunteers there since then. Collaboration so far has been fruitful and we tested new themes suggested by volunteers (e.g. disinformation and AI), we harmonized our style, and improved on suggested messaging. Fundraising staff also attended Wikimania where they hosted  a working session on banner messaging. The session was attended by ca. 15 people, who shared their ideas and opinions on the banners. We will continue to engage with volunteers until the end of December but really would like volunteers who are interested to come along now as now is the time that we can accommodate more discussion and experiments around messaging before the very busy campaign management phase starts.

Next to the English campaign, we run fundraising campaigns (both email and banner) in France, India, and the Netherlands. We engaged both communities through a collaboration page (France, Netherlands, and India) and offered community calls.

Going into Q2 we are looking forward to further engaging with our communities.

You can find updates from the Endowment on the Endowment meta page and in its latest Diff post The Next Chapter for the Wikimedia Endowment.


See also