In February 2013 we will launch www.wikimanialondon.org, a specialised website specifically targeting potential sponsors. Brand use has already been cleared with WMF, and they retain control of the root domain.
A primary criticism of London’s 2013 bid for Wikimania was the concern that the sponsorship target was too ambitious. With the expanded scope of this year’s bid to include a public festival, we aim to secure soft sponsorship commitments before the bid deadline in late March. As such, we propose to hold a fundraising event over the February / March period.
One Canada Square - Canary Wharf, London
The event will be held at Level 39, Europe’s largest financial technology incubator located on the 39th floor of One Canada Square. After a brief presentation from Jimmy Wales, senior representatives of the finance and technology industries will interact with the bid committee, WMUK staff and board over drinks and canapés. We are currently exploring the opportunity of having Boris Johnson attend the event to voice his support for the project.
The objective would be to introduce firms with significant marketing budgets to how Wikimania is a credible PR opportunity both for tech firms looking to establish themselves within London’s “Tech City”, and those looking for a more general charity/education/innovation outcome.
Attendees:
Wikimania London bid committee
Select staff members from WMUK and WMUK Board
Existing partners in the Bid (London First, TCIO, City of London Corp etc.)
Senior representatives of the financial services and technology industries
Should London fail to win the bidding process, the relationships formed at the event, built upon the optimism and excitement surrounding Wikimania and the personal involvement of Jimmy, can be carried over by the staff and board of WMUK into other WMUK projects.
Wikimedia 2014 London team are well-equipped to deliver an event that would set the bar in the Wikipedia community and meet the strategic priorities of the Wikimedia Foundation:
Proven ability of corporate fundraising and track record of effectively managing corporate relationships post-fundraising
Knowledge of appropriate sources of information
Understanding of the core legal and tax issues relevant to corporate fundraising
Strategic priorities of the Wikimedia Foundation are:
Increased participation: increase the total number of people served to 1 billion and the number of Wikipedia articles we offer to 50 million
Improved quality : increasing the percentage of material reviewed to be of high or very high quality by 25%
Increased reach: encourage readers to become contributors by increasing the number of total editors who make at least 5 edits per month to 200,000
Increased diversity: support healthy diversity in the editing community by doubling the percentage of female editors to 25% and increase the percentage of Global South editors to 37%
Greater innovation
The fundraising strategy is designed to meet the strategic priorities of the Wikimedia 2014 in the most cost-efficient manner:
Provide an annual forum for the Wikipedia community
Broaden public appeal and increase outreach to a high-quality pool of potential editors
Increase public awareness of Wikipedia
Wikimedia 2014 London Fundraising Strategy: The "How"
The Wikimania 2014 London bid's fundraising strategy was developed with the objective of giving the Wikipedia community the best possible chance of bringing its members together in a high-quality, stimulating environment, whilst creating strong engagement with the public and increasing Wikipedia's outreach.
Importantly, the long-term benefits to Wikimedia Foundation go beyond the Wikimania:
Re-balancing of the revenue streams from pledges to strategic long-term sponsor relationships
Cultivated donor relationships facilitate meeting of the non-economic/long-term strategic objectives of the Foundation
To this end, the fundraising campaign will comprise these eight core components:
Creating a strong editorial control and consistent messaging to potential sponsors:
Focus on the project's educational potential and international scope
Targeted and programmatic approach to speaker selection
Maintaining a balanced event programming: public engagement and internal Wikipedia forum
Identifying roles and responsibilities of the campaign board
Setting the timeline and phasing of the campaign:
Community expectations
Employing appropriate solicitation tactics
Sticking to the budgets and keeping the costs down
Implementing communication and marketing plan
Producing clear corporate sponsorship documentation and compelling/attractive fundraising documentation:
Producing detailed sponsor research and classification by type of funds/contribution that can be generated
Appraising opportunities for long-standing sponsor relationships through involvement with the Wikipedia community
Devising tailored marketing techniques for specific sponsor categories
Closing the campaign:
Converting pledges to donations
Developing post-campaign relationships
Evaluating campaign’s performance
Implementing lessons for the next generation of the Wikimedia organisers and for the Wiki community
Post-closing performance management:
Implementing data analytics to measure the success of the fundraising
Enabling learning from the event for future Wikimedia event planning
Analysing past fundraising performance to inform the future direction of the Wikimedia fundraising activities
Wikimedia 2014 London Fundraising Strategy: The "Who"
The fundraising focuses on three core groups: media/telecom/tech companies, charitable foundations, and financial services companies. The Wikimedia sponsor offering will be tailored specifically to each group in order to maximise sponsorship opportunities for Wikipedia community. London Wikimania team has embarked on the preliminary conversations with the initial investor list. A list of candidates is detailed below.
Media, telecommunications and technology companies, seeking to widen their charitable outreach and address new demographic:
PayPal
eBay
Google
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Mozilla
BT
Orange
Telefonica
JESTA Digital
Silverlake Partners
Megafon
Charitable Foundations, sympathetic to the Wikipedia cause of free knowledge for all:
Wellcome Trust
Edmond J. Safra Philantropic Foundation
Big Society Capital
Financial services companies, seeking to widen their public/charitable outreach:
Morgan Stanley
Credit Suisse
Hoegh Capital Partners
Merifin Capital
Ashmore
St.James Group
Pictet&Cie
Societe Generale
Wikimedia 2014 London Fundraising Strategy: The Team
Anastasia Andrianova: Professional financial background (6 years in Investment Banking, Asset Management and Private Equity, latterly at Lehman Brothers), experience includes institutional fundraising. Successful fundraising track record at a start-up level. Wide network of potential sponsor relationships.
Ed Saperia: Professional financial background (4 years in Investment Banking at Barclays Capital), Investment Programme Manager at TechHub.
James Knight: Finance background (GCA Savvian, Silicon Bank Valley, Westpac Banking Corp, EP Capital), Successfully raised financing for a startup company, Well connected with large technology corporates i.e Google & Cisco
Andrew Tibbitts: Significant sponsorship background from working with London First. London First is a business membership organisation mandated to promote London as a global hub. Coordinated successful bid for 2012 Olympics. 2011 progress report.
In addition to the primary fundraising team we also have several advocates / supporting organisations which have pledged their assistance in raising capital.
Eric Van Der Kleij: Former head of the Tech City Investment Organisation and now Cheif Executive of Level 39, the largest financial tech incubator in Europe.
Elizabeth Varley: CEO and Co-Founder of TechHub, a world leading collaboration space for Technology Entrepreneurs, she is a professional sponsorship raiser and has strong links with government, tech and education industries.
Tech City Investment Organisation (Joanna Sheilds & Ben Southworth): Joanna is former MD of Facebook in Europe and now heads up the Tech City investment organisation, whose mandate is to make London the digital capital of Europe, They have pledged significant support from their staff and are actively recruiting sponsors for the event.
FMCM (Fiona McMorrough): (engaged by AA) UK's leading PR and Communications consultancy, specialising in literature, the arts, cultural events and campaigning. FMCM expertise spans publishing, international festivals, non-governmental organisations and leading charities. FMCM will be assisting with Wikimedia conference programming, speaker engagement and fundraising effort. [1]
Adoreum Partners (Annika Naidoo): (engaged by AA) UK's leading business development consultancy, focusing on enhancing their clients outreach and accelerating their sales process. In the case of Wikimedia, Adoreum Partners will be assisting with development of the sponsor offering, co-running the fundraising campaign and establishing long-standing relationships with brands and corporates. [http://www.adoreumpartners.com/
