Fundraising target reached by Wikipedia

Posted by Theresa Milano On Monday, January 2nd 2012 in Technology

All those who use Wikipedia must have noticed the fundraising banners that support messages sent by volunteers who ask you to donate in order to keep the Internet-based community alive. Those banners are now gone because the Foundation managed to reach its target: it managed to gather more than $20 million from one million donors.

The Foundations host Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Its founder, Sue Gardner, posted the last banner in a while as a thank you note. The foundation sent a message this morning with some details regarding the fundraising.

“It is the Wikimedia Foundation’s most successful campaign ever, continuing an unbroken streak in which donations have risen every year since the campaigns began in 2003.Wikimedia websites serve more than 470 million people every month. It is the only major website supported not by advertising, but by donations from readers,” said the message of the Foundation.

“Our model is working fantastically well,” said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “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 foundation also added that: “Since 2008, the number of Wikimedia Foundation donors has increased ten-fold, and the total dollar amount raised in the campaign has risen to over $20 million from $4.5 million.”