# Wikipedia reaches $6 million target

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/01/06/wikipedia-reaches-6-million-target/
- Published: 2009-01-06T12:00:07+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia of user-contributed articles, has reached its
2008 fundraising target of $6 million six months ahead of schedule.**

[Over 125,000 people donated $4 million](http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikipedia_fundraiser_surpasses_$6million_USD_January_2009),
with a further $2 million coming from major donors and grant-making foundations.
[An appeal on the site](http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Letter/en) on
23 December 2008 from the site’s founder, Jimmy Wales, elicited $2 million in gifts
from 50,000 supporters in eight days.

Founded in 2001, Wikipedia has increased its fundraising income considerably. It
raised $1.3 million in 2006 and $2.2 million in 2007.

## Advertisement

[Wales thanked supporters in an online message](http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/ThankYou/en),
saying: “This campaign has proven that Wikipedia matters to its users, and that 
our users strongly support our mission: to bring free knowledge to the planet, free
of charge and free of advertising. We deeply appreciate the generosity of our supporters.”

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home

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## Comments

### By: pennystephens

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/01/06/wikipedia-reaches-6-million-target/#comment-3461
- Published: 2009-02-03T13:28:00+00:00

Wikimedia closed the appeal early because it had reached its target so early.

Wiki’s Head of Community Giving, Rand Montoya, puts its success down to the fact
that this is the first year the organisation has used professional fundraisers –
in the past fundraising was mostly volunteer driven.

“This year they hired me and a major gifts person in July,” he said, “a Foundations
person in August and a Development Assistant in October.”

As for what they did differently – “an amazing amount of the basics: thanking people,
clear messaging and making it easy to give” were Montoya’s prime aims. “We want 
our donors to give in any way thei feel comfortable – in their own currency. There
are many countries that don’t like credit cards. Some countries prefer bank transfers.
Many still send checks.”

Wiki is also determined to be as transparent as it possibly can be, and as part 
of this it publishes its contribution and donor statistics on its blog ([http://wikimediafoundationorg/wiki/Special:ContributionStatistics](http://wikimediafoundationorg/wiki/Special:ContributionStatistics))
which is accessible to anyone, and on which anyone can leave comments.

As a truly international organisation Wiki tried different banner ads to see which
worked best and the results have also been posted on the blog ([http://blog/wikimedia.org/2008/11/25/wikimedias-fundraiser-which-banners-click/](http://blog/wikimedia.org/2008/11/25/wikimedias-fundraiser-which-banners-click/)).

As well as being transparent itself, Wiki is happy for other organisations to use
the learning it has acquired through its fundraising.