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Fundraising 2011/Jimmy Letter 004/en

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This is it.

Just a few days left.
Just a few hours left.

We’re at the time of year when people all over the world come together to sustain and protect Wikipedia.

If everyone reading this donated $10, we could end the fundraiser today. Not everyone can or will donate. And that’s fine, because each year just enough people support Wikipedia with a small donation. Please make a donation of $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can to help us reach our goal before the end of the year.

Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 679 servers and 95 staff.

Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 470 million different people every month – with billions of page views.

Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.

When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.

This year, please consider making a donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder