Fundraising 2011/Test Updates/December/18
A week of new appeals December 18, 2011
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The personal appeal rotation continued throughout this past week.
During our pre-fundraiser summer testing, we wrote an appeal with Wikimedia Foundation staff member, Maryana Pinchuk, describing her motivation for working at the WMF. When Maryana first came to Wikimedia for a summer job, she was "inspired by the passion and curiosity of the people here who don’t want to keep knowledge shelved in a library or a university, but want to put it out there for everybody on the planet to use."
Maryana's message certainly resonated with donors. One reader wrote in, "Her story of commitment and her belief in Wikipedia really moved me." Another wrote, "I think the personal stories are effective. Maryana Pinchuk's story pushed me over the edge and made me answer that little voice inside that said, "You should donate" every time I clicked on Wikipedia."
We moved on later in the week to run an appeal from editor, Basil Soufi, which describes discovering Wikipedia as the greatest "eureka moment" of his life. Here's just one donor's reaction to his appeal, "Basils pitch for funds hit home with me. I didn't realize how often I pick up my iPad and check out a phrase that is unclear to me."
Next up was another appeal we wrote during our pre-fundraiser weekly testing from editor Alan Sohn. Alan is a systems consultant, working with very large-scale financial computer systems. In his appeal, he says, "The information is gladly provided by me and thousands of other editors who are happy to create it. We all know the world is better off because that information is freely available."
This week was also the first time during the fundraiser that we ran an appeal from a donor. Akshaya donated to the 2010 fundraiser and we followed up with her on a comment she sent in about why she supports Wikipedia. Check out a powerful quote from Akshaya's appeal: "Growing up in a small city in India, not all books were available there, and the libraries not always too well equipped. Later, when I was working on a technical degree, it was almost impossible to get all the information I needed from standard textbooks alone. For people everywhere, it’s indispensably useful to have a site like Wikipedia." It was really neat to include a donor in the mix of appeals to show a different perspective during the fundraiser.
Right now, we're running an appeal from editor Aniruddha Kumar. He is a blind editor and his appeal emphasizes the importance of Wikipedia being ad-free to him because he doesn't have to waste his time listening to advertising text on the site. One donor identified with Kumar's story and wrote in, "I am blind and love your website. I use it all the time and it is user friendly. I also appreciate there are no ads that I have to listen through every time. I planned on supporting this website no matter what because I appreciate everything about this website."
Everyone who has helped writing appeals has really contributed a lot of time and energy into making these messages just right. There's no way we would be able to run a fundraiser like this without you, thank you so much.