Fundraising

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 2020–2021 Fundraising Report.

The Teams

Central

Working across teams and with the Partnerships team

• 
  Lisa Seitz-Gruwell
  Chief Advancement Officer
• 
  Megan Hernandez
  Vice President of Advancement
• 
  Julia Brungs
  Senior Community Relations Specialist
• 
  Guillaume Paumier
  Principal Program Manager

Online Fundraising

• 
  Pats Pena
  Sr. Director, Online Fundraising
• 
  Sam Patton
  Senior Manager, Fundraising Growth and Innovation
• 
  Evelyn Martin
  Principal Payments Officer
• 
  Mariana Suijkerbuijk
  Lead Global Audience Strategist
• 
  Rakhi Kumar
  Payments Specialist
• 
  Katie Haggard
  Campaign Specialist
• 
  Moska Shaver
  Senior Email Campaign Specialist
• 
  Samuel Buissereth
  Campaigns Associate
• 
  Peter Coombe
  Lead Developer
• 
  Emma Hughes
  Senior Frontend Developer
• 
  Sadok Cervantes
  UX Design Contractor
• 
  Thea Skaff
  Senior Manager, Global Fundraising Campaigns
• 
  Haley Nordeen
  Banner Production Associate
• 
  Camille de Nes
  Lead Global Campaigns Strategist
• 
  Noah Israel
  Senior Email Campaign Specialist

Foundations & Major Gifts

• 
  Caitlin Virtue
  Senior Director of Development
• 
  Jerry Kim
  Senior Events Projects Manager
• 
  Jonathan Curiel
  Senior Development Comms Manager
• 
  Nora Nichols
  Development Data Associate
• 
  Rosie Lewis
  Development Analyst
• 
  Enloe Wilson
  Principal Major Gifts Development Manager
• 
  Jayme Simmons
  Development Associate

Fundraising Operations

• 
  Jessica Robell
  Director of Fundraising Operations
• 
  Kristie Robinson
  Donor Relations Manager
• 
  Michael Beattie
  Senior Donor Relations Specialist
• 
  Sandra Hust
  Senior Donor Relations Specialist
• 
  Leanne Schreibstein
  Fundraising Operations Specialist
• 
  Kristine Hancock
  Donor Relations Specialist
• 
  Amber Johnson
  Donor Relations Specialist
• 
  Lefki Papadimitriou
  Donor Relations Specialist
• 
  Tomasz Gorski
  Donor Relations Specialist
• 
  Yamini Lavappa
  Donor Relations Specialist
• 
  Runjini Murthy
  Fundraising Analyst

Endowment

• 
  Amy Parker
  Endowment Director
• 
  Jason Adams
  Planned Giving Specialist
• 
  Jessica James-Hill
  Senior Endowment Development Officer

See also: Fundraising Technology

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

Operated by Wikimedia Foundation

For 2021/22 (Q3 and Q4)

• Italy emails 2nd - 22nd of February
• Italy banners 8th - 31st of March. Here are some examples of banners we will be running. Please note that you will be seeing different variations of the text as we constantly test new language: Desktop banner large, Desktop banner small, Mobile banner large, Mobile banner small
• Sweden emails 3rd of March - 8th of April. Here are some examples of emails that have been sent during the campaign: Email 1, Email 2, Email 3, and Email X.
• Sweden banners 12th of April - 1st of May. Here are some examples of banners we will be running. Please note that you will be seeing different variations of the text as we constantly test new language: Desktop large, Desktop small, Mobile large, Mobile small.
• South Africa banners 23rd of May - 20th of June. Here are some examples of banners we will be running. Please note that you will be seeing different variations of the text as we constantly test new language: Desktop large, Desktop small, Mobile large, Mobile small
• India emails 23rd of May - 20th of June. Here are some examples of emails that will be sent during the campaign: Email 1, Email 2, and Email 3
• India banners 31st of May - 28th of June. Here are some examples of banners we will be running. Please note that you will be seeing different variations of the text as we constantly test new language: Desktop large, Desktop small, Mobile large, Mobile small
• Latin America (AR, BR, CL, CO, MX, PE, UY) emails 23rd of May - 20th of June. Here are some examples of emails that will be sent during the campaign: Email example pt, Email example es.
• Latin America (AR, BR, CL, CO, MX, PE, UY) banners 31st of May - 28th of June. Here are some examples of banners we will be running. Please note that you will be seeing different variations of the text as we constantly test new language: Desktop large pt, Desktop small pt, Mobile large pt, Mobile small pt and Desktop large es, Desktop small es, Mobile large es, Mobile small es

Germany

Operated by Wikimedia Deutschland

• Fundraising testing:
• Fundraising Banners:

Switzerland

Operated by Wikimedia Switzerland

• Fundraising Banner Testing:
• Fundraising Banner Fundraising:

Contact Us

• 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-fundraising^connect (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

See the full archive

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

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 Q4 Update

We wrapped up the last fiscal year successfully and are thankful for everyone’s contribution and engagement. You will find more information on how the year went in our forthcoming fundraising report.

During Q4 we ran banner fundraising campaigns in a wide range of countries and created community collaboration pages for each of the campaigns. You can find all  the collaboration pages above. Additionally we hosted community calls and engaged with our communities on talk pages to hear their feedback and work with them on banner messaging.

Spotlight Japan:

We worked with the Japanese community on refining our banner message in Japan and were able to adopt a new message which was based on community conversations.

We also used Q4 to prepare for our new financial year starting in July. We launched collaboration with the Indian communities around the upcoming India campaign and engaged with community members on the talk page. We also kicked off our collaboration with the English community around our English fundraising campaign. With pre-tests that started from mid-July, we want to collaborate now to ensure feedback and suggestions are heard and to improve the campaign this year.

2023/24 Q3 Update

In Q3 we worked with a range of communities to prepare for fundraising campaigns starting in Q4. We created community collaboration pages with affiliates, engaged communities on wiki, and in community calls.

We had plenty of email campaigns during Q3, which included the Thank You email campaign (for donors from the English campaign in Q2), an email sent to Austria, Norway, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malaysia, and Belgium, an email sent to Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay, as well as and email sent to some of our English campaign donors about the Endowment.

We also started our campaign in Brazil at the end of Q3.

Some highlights from the Brazil campaign:

Brazil payments improvements: Last year we worked on reintegrating DLocal, our LATAM payment processor. Modernizing our payments integration had a significant impact on the Brazil campaign leading to a 32% increase in payments conversion rate and an increase in recurring giving! This newer integration is having a lasting impact. Donors are also sharing their appreciation for Pix as a payment option (see donor quote below!). Pix is the most popular way donors like to contribute from Brazil!

Finally, I'm thrilled to share that Brazilian donors are incredibly grateful for the Pix payment option, allowing those eager to donate to finally contribute!

In Q4 we are launching banner campaigns across many countries and we will also start preparing for the next English campaign by engaging the English Wikipedia communities from Q1 on, with the start of our pre-tests.

See also

• Erik Moeller and Domas Mituzas on fundraising since 2010