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Wikipedia reaches fundraising goal, creepy Jimmy Wales face to disappear soon
Wikimedia, the parent company of the online encyclopedia, says it has met its goal of 16 million dollars raised to keep the site commercial free. And it accomplished that goal in the shortest fundraising drive in Wikipedia history, launching it November 14th. Impressive numbers: 500,000 individual donations (more than double last year's 230,000) from 140 different countries. Average donation was $22. The story in their fundraising this year, of course, was the faces. Instead of the old "fill in the thermometer" approach they used to take, this year they showed faces like founder Jimmy Wales, volunteer editors, humans associated with the project. Turns out people like looking at other people instead of thermometers and they raked in the cash in record time.
I wonder when the news media will figure out that the Wikimedia Foundation spends on program services only 41 cents of every dollar they scam from donors, which earns them ONE STAR (out of four!) from Charity Navigator in organizational efficiency. In fact, their KPMG audit discovered that it only takes about $2.5 million to keep the servers running, provide ample bandwidth, and staff a team of code developers to keep things running smoothly. Why, then, is the ask for $20 million?
I also wonder why the news media never thought to cover the 2009 story of how the Wikimedia Foundation needed extra office space, and as if by magic, they hand-picked Jimmy Wales' for-profit corporation to be their landlord, THEN obtained competitive bids, THEN asked Wales' for-profit company to match the average of the competitive bids.
I too wonder why the media don't seem to care that the 2010 market research study of past Wikimedia Foundation donors was awarded to the former employer of the WMF staffer running the project, without any competitive bidding whatsoever. And when the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation was asked how much the project cost, the guy asking the question was banned from the online discussion.
