Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-03-18/Op-ed

The publication of the Wikimedia survey findings on fundraising questions, compiled by Lake Research Partners (see last week's special report in the Signpost), came three months after significant concerns were voiced on the Wikimedia mailing list and on meta:Talk:Fundraising_principles about the design and wording of the December 2014 fundraising banners and e-mails. The fundraising team promised to post feedback analysis on March 1. To the extent that this survey may be viewed as a response to community concerns, does it address them?

Let us revisit the debate that took place three months ago. I will focus here on concerns expressed about the banner and e-mail wordings, rather than complaints about the size and design of the banners.

Fundraising banner wording
Slide 16 of the survey findings document displays a sample fundraising banner. For reference, it reads as follows:

'DEAR WIKIPEDIA READERS,'' We'll get right to it: This week we ask our readers to help us. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We survive on donations averaging about $15. Only a tiny portion of our readers give. If everyone reading this right now gave $3, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. That's right, the price of a cup of coffee is all we need. We're a small non-profit with costs of a top website: servers, staff and programs. Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park where we can all go to learn. If Wikipedia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online and ad-free. ''Thank you. '

This is one of several, all very similar wordings that were used. For a longer example, see the image above right.

Community concerns
A number of longstanding community members felt that the messages on the fundraising banners were misleading, given the Wikimedia Foundation's unprecedented wealth. Below are excerpts from posts made by community members on the public Wikimedia-l mailing list. Emphases are mine.

wrote on November 27, 2014:

Wikimedia developer Ori Livneh wrote on November 30, 2014:

Ryan Lane, the creator of Wikimedia Labs, wrote on December 2, 2014:

Administrator wrote on December 3, 2014:

Former Arbitration Committee member wrote on December 4, 2014, in response to Lila Tretikov:

wrote on December 18, 2014:

, another former Arbitrator, replied to MZMcBride minutes later: Does the survey address or invalidate these concerns?

Survey findings
Some of the main findings of the survey are:


 * 1) Ignorance and misconceptions about the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia are common. For example, slide 3 states that "Although a majority of Wikipedia users correctly identify the organization that supports it as a non-profit, many are misinformed or uncertain."
 * 2) The most common reason for donating is, "I use Wikipedia often and want to support it", refined after additional questions to "I use Wikipedia and would like to see it remain a source of information" (slides 9–10).
 * 3) Most users find the fundraising messages "convincing" (slide 23).

In aggregate, these findings—that people are generally not well informed about even the most basic organisational aspects of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, that they would like Wikipedia to remain available to them, and that they find a banner message calling for donations so that Wikipedia can stay "online and ad-free for another year" convincing—are not particularly surprising. This is precisely what the criticism on the mailing list was based on.

Most importantly, I found no evidence in the Lake Research Partners document that what John Vandenberg and Ori Livneh asked for in the posts quoted above—i.e. that survey respondents be given detailed information about current financials, strategies and cost breakdowns, and then asked to re-assess the fundraising messages—was done as part of this survey.

Receiving such information is certainly capable of drastically changing some donors' minds, as illustrated by the following comments posted on Twitter:

That the survey findings remain silent on this topic is unfortunate.

Fundraiser performance
The Wikimedia Foundation's revenue has increased every year of its existence, and by about 1,000% over the past six years or so. (See Wikimedia Foundation.) In addition, the Foundation has tended to overachieve its revenue targets and underspend in recent years, leading to substantial increases in its reserve. The December 2014 fundraiser apparently was the most successful ever. According to WMF fundraising data, more than $30 million was raised from December 2 through December 31—over $10 million more than the fundraising target mentioned in the January 2015 Wikimedia Foundation blog post, "Thank you for keeping knowledge free and accessible". The combined total for November and December 2014 was close to $40 million, around two-thirds of the planned total for the 2014/2015 financial year.

The automated thank-you e-mail for donors reportedly read (my emphasis),

Is it true that each year, "just enough" people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge online and available for everyone? No. Looking at the figures, each year just enough people have donated for the Wikimedia Foundation to have been able to


 * accumulate close to $28 million in cash or cash equivalents and over $23 million in investments as of 30 June 2014 (i.e. before the December 2014 fundraiser),
 * increase their annual spending by more than 1,000% since 2008,
 * increase the number of paid Wikimedia Foundation staff positions from 11 in 2007 to around 250 today, with dozens more paid staff in various Wikimedia chapters.

According to the Wikimedia Foundation's most recent financial statement, less than 5 cents of each revenue dollar (a little over $2.5 million) went to Internet hosting.

The single biggest expense item was Wikimedia Foundation salaries and wages (nearly $20 million). Most of that goes to the software engineering department, whose work in recent years has often been controversial in the community; witness recent debates about VisualEditor, the Media Viewer, Superprotect and mobile user profiles.

Times have changed
From a historical perspective, it's interesting to contrast the current state of affairs with what Jimmy Wales told a TED audience in 2005 (time code 4:35, emphasis mine):

A fundraising message focused on keeping Wikipedia "online and ad-free" was entirely appropriate at a time when that was indeed the project's main cost. But those times are long past.

The influx of hundreds of millions of dollars—a reflection of the goodwill Wikipedia's volunteer-created content generates around the world—is bringing about a major structural change in the Wikimedia movement, creating hundreds of paid jobs at the Wikimedia Foundation and in Wikimedia chapters around the world, in particular to move software engineering tasks from volunteers to paid staff (with mixed results to date). It's where the lion's share of donors' money is going.

The survey leaves me with little confidence that readers and donors are aware of these facts, and it tells us nothing about how they would feel if they learnt them.

Future fundraising
If the uppermost value involved in Wikimedia fundraising is to generate as much money as possible, then the findings of this survey can be used to argue that there is no problem. According to the survey results, people don't mind the fundraising banners all that much; they find them compelling—and donate money as a result. The most recent campaign was outstandingly successful in financial terms. This is what fundraising campaigns are for, right?

Critics like those quoted above might counter that the Wikimedia movement's aspirations are about providing full and accurate information to the public, and that transparency and honesty should take precedence over self-interest.

In a little over eight months' time, there will be another December fundraiser. I look forward to seeing which of these arguments will prevail, and whether the 2015 banners will once more ask people to donate tens of millions of dollars in order to keep Wikipedia "online and ad-free".

Andreas Kolbe has been a Wikipedia contributor since 2006 and is a longstanding contributor to the Signpost'''s "In the media" section. The views expressed in this editorial are his alone and do not reflect any official opinions of this publication. Responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section.''