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The Wikimedia Foundation, which controls Wikipedia and other popular MediaWiki projects, has met its "December sprint" fundraising target:
This week the Wikimedia Foundation smashed through the $25m target it had set for its "December sprint" – with a full 15 days of the month left. On December 3, Wiki's globetrotting figurehead Jimmy Wales promised that as soon as the Wikimedia Foundation met the target it had set for its traditional year-end fundraising drive, it would cease making the intrusive appeals. "We would still stop the fundraiser if enough money were raised in shorter than the planned time," Jimmy Wales promised on December 2. But there's no sign of the Foundation doing that, yet.
The WMF has now raised $25,530,943.01 in December, and $51,182,044.37 this year. That means it's on course to smash 2015's fundraising record of $53,756,012.58. [...] "It's important here to remember that the Wikimedia Foundation has nothing to do with writing or checking the content of Wikipedia. All that is done by unpaid volunteers," writes former Wikipedia Signpost co-editor Andreas Kolbe in a detailed analysis of the WMF finances.
Although the fundraising appeal states alarmingly that your cash is urgently required to "keep Wikipedia online", this is not the full picture. (As a WMF staff member admitted in 2014: "The urgency and alarm of the copy is not commensurate with my [admittedly limited] understanding of our financial situation".) Each year, the Foundation raises far more than it costs to operate the site, estimated at $3m a year. The clue comes in the full quote from the WMF, that cash is needed to "keep Wikipedia online and growing". The Foundation's own reports reveal what exactly it is that's growing.
That is one rich beggar.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @10:04PM
> They already have enough money to fund operations for years to come without any additional funding.
That's bullshit. Their operational costs are upwards of $65M/yr. [wikipedia.org]
Yeah, I know, you don't think its spent wisely. Easy to say for someone with no actual responsibilities.
Go ahead, keep your money, but don't pretend you are doing it out of any sort of principled objection. Its just the same old internet ignorance and nihilism. Wikipedia is one of the internet's greatest successes, bitching that its flawed is to forget that nothing of any significant value is even close to flawless.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday December 17 2016, @10:40PM
This is from a few years ago, but if they were lying about needing money then, why should I believe them now?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/20/cash_rich_wikipedia_chugging/ [theregister.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @11:06PM
"Lying" lol.
Ok, clearly you've made up your mind independent of unbiased analysis.
A bitch piece by the register is pretty hollow justification, but whatever you need to hang your hat on so you can feel sanctimonious.
Enjoy your facebook, snapchat, g+ and all the other data silos that sell your privacy without permission in exchange for you having a place to post scraps.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Sunday December 18 2016, @01:47AM
As the other AC pointed out, I'm dead on here. That's an obscene amount of money for a nonprofit to have on hand. There's just no excuse for them to be engaged in the heavy handed fundraising when they aren't having any budget or income problems.
Save it for a time when they have less than a year's worth of funding squirreled away.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @11:14PM
Just look at their financial statements: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/4/43/Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Report_-_FY15-16.pdf [wikimedia.org]
They have over $90 million in net assets and $81 million in revenue, with $77 million being donations. Their expenses are $66 million, with $11 million being "awards and grants" and $32 million being salaries and wages broken down as following.
Programs administrative Fund-raising Total
24,189,343 4,917,307 2,607,311 31,713,961
Worth noting, if you do the math, the average salary is around $150,000. I could get more specific, but the 990 is unavailable. The biggest growth, year-over-year, is in the salaries of employees however.
(Score: 1) by snmygos on Sunday December 18 2016, @01:20PM
$32 000 000 for salaries is a big amount for a site that is entirely maintained by benevolants. Some guys here must be very rich.