[Wikipedia-l] Header donation solicitation is a good idea forfundraising drive

Mon Oct 6 17:13:34 UTC 2003

From: "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149 at yahoo.com>
...
> ...Also, a little annoyance
> works wonders in encouraging people to donate; The donation text in small
> font below "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" (or corresponding other
> language/project message) is a great way to subtly nudge those with the
means
> to help us keep going.

The only worry I have is that practically every state in the US has charity
registration rules about soliciting donations and as far as I know Wikimedia
is only registered in Florida to "solicit" donations. There has been debate
in the online charity law community about this issue and it is not really
resolved
or settled.  As you know I feel an ounce of prevention is worth more than
a pound of potential litigation.  That is why I stated on the donations page
that the donation page is not a solicitation for donations. Posting a Donate
Now
link on every page however seems to be a solicitation.

> When the drive is over the header text should be removed but the new
"Donate"
> link in the side bar should remain. The cache, however, needs to be
updated
> before the month long drive starts (it will start as soon as the press
> release is distributed). Therefore I propose this, or a similar, message
be
> displayed:

Can it say "donations" or "donation info." rather than Donate (a bit of a
command)?

>    Help us buy a new database server. [Donate today!].
>
> [Donate today!] would be a link to
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising/

Learn about helping support [Wikipedia] (with the link to the fundraising
page).
Or "Learn about [donating] to support Wikipedia. "
Or "Learn about helping Wikimedia buy a new database server."
Or: Information about [donations] and helping to keep Wikipedia free,"

Something that just puts the initiative and choice on the person reading the
text (a very low key, soft sell approach).

"Donate today!" is more of a solicitation. I just worry that the Attorney
General's
of many states may decide that Wikipedia is reaching into their state. The
other option is a footnote  (i.e." &dagger; This is not a solicitation to
make a
donation.") But that kind of clutters up the page and I know people don't
like having a lot of legal boilerplate floating around.

Alex756