What the "donors" are saying..., A continuing series.... Options

Week 7 update -- only a fortnight remains on the "official" fund-drive season. I grabbed the stats around 9:30 AM Eastern, as is my Tuesday morning custom, and here are the results:

Week 1 = 8,000 donors, yielding $208,000
Week 2 = 7,350 donors, yielding $206,000
Week 3 = 6,001 donors, yielding $222,726
Week 4 = 4,189 donors, yielding $135,374
Week 5 = 4,360 donors, yielding $142,250
Week 6 = 3,280 donors, yielding $107,925
Week 7 = 2,675 donors, yielding $103,575

Cumulative total after 7 weeks is 35,855 donors, yielding $1,125,850.

Last week, I wondered aloud if we would see less than 2,600 donors this week. Pretty damn close! Imagine if The Register's stories about secret mailing lists and cabal-assisted bias in the encyclopedia had come out in Week 1 or 2, rather than Week 6 and 7!

Five of the last eight days saw donor counts below 400. I wonder if we'll see a day this week that fails to hit even 300 donors.

Sue Gardner sure has her work cut out for her. Can't wait to see who the mythical, mystical "major" corporate donors will be when they're announced.

Anybody else notice how they didn't get any "matching pledge" donors this year? I wonder why that is.

Greg

Still, they're going to be far, far short of $4.6 million.

Yes, but that's the budget for the entire year, even if you believe that it hasn't been padded.

I'm still of the opinion that Sue, at least, never expected to raise $4.6 million in just this one fundraiser. That number was just an unrealistic goal thrown out there so the Wikipediots could whinge on the mailing lists about how everyone needed to work harder.

Just $1 million is way too much. Did you see, Sue just hired a personal assistant for herself. And somehow Jimbo is able to travel from California to Florida to Germany to South Africa to England to Japan to India to Australia to Washington D.C. and all the other places he's been going. I'm not sure if it's Wikia or the the WMF or someone else, but someone's gotta be paying for all that.

This post has been edited by anthony: Tue 11th December 2007, 3:22pm

A lot of their reasons for people to donate are so lame. For X amount of dollars, you can send a student to Wikimania. WHHHAAAAATTTT? I don't want my money wasted on some lazy teen going to see Jimbo live in... concert? And what about these Wikipedia Academies? That won't stop the slaughter in Darfur.

There's a charity called World Vision in which you can donate money to buy a goat for a poor African family. The goat acts as a seed for a family's economic needs. Many have been saved by this charity. If you're going to donate money to WP thinking it is saving or helping people's lives, don't. Donate to a charity like World Vision or the International Red Cross. If you're donating to WP to fight over whether the Soviet Union was ever an Axis Power and take up the whole doggone WWII article talk page to push you're crazed theory, then as you will.

A lot of their reasons for people to donate are so lame. For X amount of dollars, you can send a student to Wikimania. WHHHAAAAATTTT? I don't want my money wasted on some lazy teen going to see Jimbo live in... concert? And what about these Wikipedia Academies? That won't stop the slaughter in Darfur.

There's a charity called World Vision in which you can donate money to buy a goat for a poor African family. The goat acts as a seed for a family's economic needs. Many have been saved by this charity. If you're going to donate money to WP thinking it is saving or helping people's lives, don't. Donate to a charity like World Vision or the International Red Cross. If you're donating to WP to fight over whether the Soviet Union was ever an Axis Power and take up the whole doggone WWII article talk page to push you're crazed theory, then as you will.

Donating to wikipedia academies means teaching people to work for free. Send them to school, buy them a computer. But teach them to edit? Are you nuts?

Still, they're going to be far, far short of $4.6 million.

Yes, but that's the budget for the entire year, even if you believe that it hasn't been padded.

I'm still of the opinion that Sue, at least, never expected to raise $4.6 million in just this one fundraiser. That number was just an unrealistic goal thrown out there so the Wikipediots could whinge on the mailing lists about how everyone needed to work harder.

I don't begrudge them their budget. 4.5 mil is still quite small for what Wikipedia is. It should be 15-20 million, if it were to be managed properly. What goads me is the displacement of crucial personnel such as Godwin and Gardiner. It is ok to be remotely located as a startup. But at this point, to build capacity, they need to be colocated. That's the rub (and why the 1 mil isn't justified). She should have to move to be paid that much sahree. Godwin too. (ok - maybe Godwin can sit in DC and lobby Congress - which is why they really hired him - but Gardiner has no place up in Canada). No way.

Just $1 million is way too much. Did you see, Sue just hired a personal assistant for herself.

Perfectly normal. A PA is the 21st century alternative to a secretary, when we all do our own typing and planning.

And somehow Jimbo is able to travel from California to Florida to Germany to South Africa to England to Japan to India to Australia to Washington D.C. and all the other places he's been going. I'm not sure if it's Wikia or the the WMF or someone else, but someone's gotta be paying for all that.

Well, he's the boss (not according to the IRS, but anyways.......).

That kind of travel is normal, and if he didn't do it, .....

.......... hey, waitaminute. Gardiner should be doing it. I give up. I know nothing.

Flying Jimbo around the planet X times isn't the problem. The problem is allowing him management leverage as is done. He needs to be fully "emeritized" and disempowered. Then he can fly round and cheerlead and fundraise and take Wikia's interests on as a side point, and it would really, really be fine.

As it stands, he's ruining Wikipedia, as he's using it as a dog and pony show-piece. That's the bummer.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey: Tue 11th December 2007, 9:52pm

Week 8 update -- we thought that we were in the home stretch, with one week of fundraising to go. But, alas, the Wikipediots changed the rules on us, and they extended the drive into January. Imagine that!

We're flexible, too. I can keep posting the weekly results here -- and demonstrate the attrition that I seem to understand, but the Foundation does not seem to understand. This past week, we saw (surprise) record-low donor numbers and dollars:

Week 1 = 8,000 donors, yielding $208,000
Week 2 = 7,350 donors, yielding $206,000
Week 3 = 6,001 donors, yielding $222,726
Week 4 = 4,189 donors, yielding $135,374
Week 5 = 4,360 donors, yielding $142,250
Week 6 = 3,280 donors, yielding $107,925
Week 7 = 2,675 donors, yielding $103,575
Week 8 = 2,315 donors, yielding $ 85,285

Cumulative total after 7 weeks is 38,170 donors, yielding $1,211,135.

Last week, I wondered if we would see a day in the upcoming week that failed to hit even 300 donors. Guess what? We saw TWO such days!

Now, Sue Gardner has hired a foreign worker to be her "Deputy Director" -- a post that wasn't advertised, and apparently wasn't offered to any Americans, or minorities, or people with disabilities. That should put at ease the mythical, mystical "major" corporate donors that Sue has promised us.

I can't wait to see the forthcoming Associated Press article about all of the recent Foundation Fiascos™ because that will surely inspire a lot more donors to donate.

Greg

Now, Sue Gardner has hired a foreign worker to be her "Deputy Director" -- a post that wasn't advertised, and apparently wasn't offered to any Americans, or minorities, or people with disabilities. That should put at ease the mythical, mystical "major" corporate donors that Sue has promised us.

Good point, Greg.

Now, Sue Gardner has hired a foreign worker to be her "Deputy Director" -- a post that wasn't advertised, and apparently wasn't offered to any Americans, or minorities, or people with disabilities. That should put at ease the mythical, mystical "major" corporate donors that Sue has promised us.

Good point, Greg.

Don't credit me. Credit Kelly Martin and her wonderful blog post.

Also, be sure to see the insightful comment in her blog that points out:

JWSchmidt said...
I guess this now makes sense

5 approval (Jimmy, Jan-Bart, Frieda, Anthere, Kat). 1 missing (Michael). 1 recuse (Erik)

It looks like Erik could not vote to make Sue the Executive Director because she had already told him that she would make him Deputy Director.

Hey, at least he recused himself. Jimbo wouldn't even understand the need to do so!

Greg

Week 9 update. I missed my usual Tuesday morning summary, thanks to our Savior's birth, but I can back-fill the data.

This past week, we saw a blip up on Christmas Eve, with more donors (316 for the day) feeling a bit more generous ($42 average contribution that day), but despite that day of wonder, the trend still very much reflects a decrease in growth:

Week 1 = 8,000 donors, yielding $208,000
Week 2 = 7,350 donors, yielding $206,000
Week 3 = 6,001 donors, yielding $222,726
Week 4 = 4,189 donors, yielding $135,374
Week 5 = 4,360 donors, yielding $142,250
Week 6 = 3,280 donors, yielding $107,925
Week 7 = 2,675 donors, yielding $103,575
Week 8 = 2,315 donors, yielding $ 85,285
Week 9 = 1,955 donors, yielding $ 81,290

Cumulative total after 9 weeks is 40,125 donors, yielding $1,292,425.

Five out of the seven most recent days were under 300 donors.

Carolyn Doran's story has now reached hundreds of thousands of eyeballs that previously had no idea the Wikimedia Foundation was managed so sloppily. Sue Gardner's promised "big" corporate donations have still not hit the presses. Maybe the checks were torn up or reduced, in light of the "we didn't background check our COO" scandal?

Greg

Let's compare how the Wikimedia Foundation is doing versus U.S.-based public radio campaigns.

For public radio, roughly ten percent of listeners become members of their local radio station, pledging funds typically in the $35 - $240 US range. In the aggregate that’s roughly three million members out of an estimated public radio audience of 32 million listeners weekly.

What if the WMF could cajole even half that ratio (5%) of its users to contribute even half the average current donation ($15)? They say that Wikipedia sites garner about 50,000,000 unique visitors per month. If 5% of them donated an average of $15, that would equal an annual fund of $37,500,000. Yet, the WMF is showing donations of only $1,300,000.

Apparently, public radio is at least 28 times more successful than the WMF at getting money for distributing "free knowledge" to its consumer base.

Greg

Let's compare how the Wikimedia Foundation is doing versus U.S.-based public radio campaigns.

For public radio, roughly ten percent of listeners become members of their local radio station, pledging funds typically in the $35 - $240 US range. In the aggregate that’s roughly three million members out of an estimated public radio audience of 32 million listeners weekly.

What if the WMF could cajole even half that ratio (5%) of its users to contribute even half the average current donation ($15)? They say that Wikipedia sites garner about 50,000,000 unique visitors per month. If 5% of them donated an average of $15, that would equal an annual fund of $37,500,000. Yet, the WMF is showing donations of only $1,300,000.

Apparently, public radio is at least 28 times more successful than the WMF at getting money for distributing "free knowledge" to its consumer base.

Greg

Hmm, that's pretty interesting, I had no idea public radio could pull in so much in listener donations. Well I think the Foundation knows the logical thing to do now!

As a compendium of popular culture, Terry Gross does it a whole lot better than Wikipedia.

Week 10 update. Remember, folks, we're in "overtime" now, since this fund-drive was originally intended to end last week. Once the Foundation saw how little money they were actually making, they extended it for another few weeks.

This past week, we saw a very noticeable jump in donations, likely driven by a number of people re-gifting cash presents they received for the holidays, and those wishing to make an end-of-year tax-deductible donation to something -- anything -- that can serve as a legitimate write-off. The average donation also jumped considerably this past week.

Week 1 = 8,000 donors, yielding $208,000
Week 2 = 7,350 donors, yielding $206,000
Week 3 = 6,001 donors, yielding $222,726
Week 4 = 4,189 donors, yielding $135,374
Week 5 = 4,360 donors, yielding $142,250
Week 6 = 3,280 donors, yielding $107,925
Week 7 = 2,675 donors, yielding $103,575
Week 8 = 2,315 donors, yielding $ 85,285
Week 9 = 1,955 donors, yielding $ 81,290
Week 10 = 2,260 donors, yielding $127,895

Cumulative total after 10 weeks is 42,385 donors, yielding $1,420,320.

What may be the most important thing to point out is what is showing up on today's (January 1) Wikipedia:

Today, up to US$ 50,000 will be matched by an anonymous donor.

One could look at this as a glass half-full or a glass half-empty. Nice that they have such a generous matching donor. Too bad it comes on a day where they might not even get $50,000 from other donors. If they had planned ahead and arranged this offer back in early November when the fund-drive was young and pre-tainted by Durova and Doran, Inc., they would have pocketed the full $50K. Today, not so certain. Another "half-empty" way of looking at this is that the donor asked to remain anonymous. Why? Didn't want the ticker-tape parade of praise from the blogosphere; or, more likely, worried that now may not be the best available time to be associated with the world's most irresponsible encyclopedia? One last "half-empty" note would be that $50,000 or even $100,000 doesn't go a long way toward making up a budget shortfall of three million dollars, which is going to send FloFlo running to the advertisers in short time.

Greg

It's kinda funny. Even with the random extention of the fundraiser, they'll be lucky to get halfway to their goal...

Is this thing still going on? I've gotten so used to that banner at the top, I no longer read it.

Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic!

So the fundraiser finally ended. They managed about 45,000 people donating out of the 100,000 they wanted, and I'm sure they didn't make nearly enough money.

So the fundraiser finally ended. They managed about 45,000 people donating out of the 100,000 they wanted, and I'm sure they didn't make nearly enough money.

I wonder how long they'll keep this nice little message on the top of every page:

Thanks to everyone who donated in the Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser! You can still make a contribution, or buy Wikimedia merchandise.

Regarding the failed fund-drive (no better than last year), they better get used to this sound in San Francisco.

Regarding the failed fund-drive (no better than last year), they better get used to this sound in San Francisco.

You're having fun with that sound.