[Foundation-l] Blink tag jokes are now obsolete.

Sat Dec 31 21:21:35 UTC 2011

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 31 December 2011 19:28, Zack Exley <zexley at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> Geni - You're being mean.  On New Years Eve!  Happy New Years!
>
> Neither Geni's meanness or the date are relevant to the point he was
> making. It certainly seems to be the case that the WMF doesn't
> consider reducing expenditure, rather than more aggressive
> fundraising, as a solution to not raising as much as you had hoped.
> What is it that you won't be able to do if you use non-blinking
> banners and therefore don't raise as much money? Is whatever it is
> really worth annoying everyone so much?
>

Thomas, I know you're asking rhetorically about what tactics are worth
it to raise money, and I think a back-and-forth about the boundaries
of what's acceptable in the drive is quite useful -- though it would
be great if everyone could stay polite about it.

I don't love the alternating banners either. But I *am* willing to say
what the hell, let's run them for a few hours and see what happens. If
they are not substantively more productive in terms of donations, then
let's kill them. It's not like running them is a decision that we are
stuck with for the rest of time, or even the rest of today. I feel
confident saying that, even though I haven't talked to *anyone* at
fundraising about it, because I know that the whole team is willing to
be incredibly flexible in the service of seeing what works and staying
tasteful. I suspect that those banners raise a great deal of money,
which means that we will meet a very ambitious goal today and won't
continue the fundraiser into January, which is pretty amazing
considering that just two years ago in 2009 we ran the fundraiser for
*20 days* longer than we are this year[1]. Are more days better than
alternating banners? If the answer is "yes", then let's talk about why
(would more days of banners really be less annoying to the readers??).
But I don't think the *first* answer should be "these banners suck, so
let's give up on the budget that we wrote months ago (and a few
people's jobs with it)" -- the right conversation is probably "what
are the boundaries of keeping the fundraiser in line with Wikimedia
culture and taste, while still raising a whole bunch of donations in a
short time?"

But to take your question seriously, if we don't raise to the proposed
budget for this year, a variety of things will happen -- none of which
are directly under the control of the fundraising team. If the
shortfall is a small amount, we cover it out of reserves, which are
deliberately kept large because the mission and raison d'être of the
WMF requires that we must keep the projects online under any
circumstances, including a failed fundraiser. (And we look to next
year's budget to somehow make up the reserves difference). If there's
a larger gap, we start looking for ways to trim -- this is something
Sue would lead in consultation with the board. We could do a few
things. We could not hire people to work on various initiatives,
cutting back on the staffing plan for next year. We could reduce
grants going to individuals, groups and chapters around the world. We
could drop programs. Over the long term, to recover, we could rethink
our funding strategy and more aggressively go after grants, and/or
lengthen the annual fundraiser, and/or rethink the strategic plan and
what we want to do (can we afford to not try to stem the editor
decline, over the long run? Can we afford to not roll out better
software and a visual editor? Can we afford to not try to support the
community? What are the overall costs of belt-tightening?) [2]

The fundraising team is trying to raise money for the most ambitious
Wikimedia budget yet, with a goal that was handed to them -- and they
have done what I think is a fantastic job this year, really making it
more of a community-focused drive than ever before (banners that
aren't just Jimmy!) and doing it in record time.

And, not rhetorically at all, the question of how much to raise is one
of the important questions to face us strategically. We are incredibly
lucky that we have the ability, through our tremendous readership, to
raise a substantial amount of money. We could raise less, certainly,
and we could probably raise more (and there are lots of evil tactics
to raise more that we won't consider). But every annual planning cycle
(it starts up essentially now and goes through the spring) the WMF
staff and board has to consider exactly that question -- what should
we fund, and is any given new idea worth it, given that it represents
donor dollars and fundraiser time? When are we pushing the outer
limits of what we can raise? I encourage everyone to think and talk
about these questions -- it's not a solved problem, but a complicated
and important one.

But all in all -- I hope everyone in our community celebrates the end
of the fundraiser and feels the achievement that we should all be
feeling. Everyone on this list has spent hundreds and hundreds of
hours working on Wikimedia projects, thinking and discussing and
editing and doing the work of making the whole thing happen --
everyone here has an ownership stake in the success of Wikimedia and
has helped make this movement possible. And, we have succeeded:
together we've kept these crazy projects going for ten years,
exceeding anyone's fantasies about how wide-ranging wikis and
reference works could be, and millions of people use our work and
hundreds of thousands of people think it's cool enough to support
financially. Against all odds, together we run one of the most popular
websites in the world and can fuel it entirely on reader donations --
something that still blows minds when I mention it to outsiders. And
we do it with enough finesse and style that we can sit here and have
serious discussions about the <blink> tag as one of our most pressing
fundraising problems. How cool is that???

Happy New Year, everyone,
Phoebe

1. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics
2. There's even an FAQ about this:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2011-2012_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers#What_will_you_do_if_there_is_a_revenue_shortfall.3F