Every now and then I’ll get an email from someone higher up in Wikipedia asking for a donation. I don’t really mind a tenner but I don’t know if it pads the pockets of corporate management or actual contributors. Also, are they really short of money or is this tugging at emotional strings a play at something else? I wish Wikipedia survives but there’s a lot of projects I need to donate to and I have a budget.
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Lucky for you the wikimedia foundation files annual reports https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2022-2023-annual-report/
I think this is the latest one available.
As to whether they need your money or not I’m a bit conflicted. They have raised and spent more and more money every year. They have a lot of money and some have argued they spend it poorly.
On the whole though, besides asking for donations, they have maintained their goal of being ad free. If you’ve ever used a fan wiki for a video game or hobby you have likely experienced how bad a wiki larded down with ads can be.
I think for myself as someone that has worked as a software engineer for my entire life building out massive infrastructure that is on a similar scale to Wikipedia, I don’t really know how they justify such high development spend when the tech isn’t really evolving very much. I’m sure it’s not cheap to host, so that spend is fine by me, but I’m not sure what all they are building. That doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile, I just have a hard time imagining it.
I would encourage you to look at numbers and decide if they make sense to you. Also people have written on the subject, so some googling will likely bring you to more opinionated pieces than my own.
If you’ve ever used a fan wiki for a video game or hobby you have likely experienced how bad a wiki larded down with ads can be.
A bit of an aside, but breezewiki.com is a great open sourced way to get away from this (their internal search doesn’t always work, but a search engine search for fandom name + breezewiki should do it)
I’ve been a funding member of the Wikimedia Foundation for over a decade. I have looked at their finances several times before and during financing them.
As with a lot of similar non-profits, a considerable amount of donations does not go into “running the servers”. You have to judge this by yourself, but they don’t embezzle any money and there is a reasonable bottom line. Wikipedia continuously helps tons of people, and the people who run the operation enable that.
You can download a full dump of Wikipedia any day. Compared to other lying companies, they have been true on their promises for some time.
Of all the $1 I could spend in a year, the one I give to Wikipedia is probably the least wrong invested, and that $1 actually already makes a difference
It definitely makes a difference, and putting money into Wikipedia is a great use of funds. The reason I asked the question is because I’m not well off, but I still like to donate to projects from time to time. This means I have a limited (and strict budget), and was wondering if they need my tenner badly enough to send marketing emails over it. Because I’d like to donate to people who actually really need the money, and Wikipedia will do just fine for some time without my money going to them.
Makes sense. If you’re contributing less than $1000 monthly to anything, you’re not making a difference. If you want dedicated people to be on the receiving end, who also do a great job, every single person will cost thousands each month. Wikimedia is literally spending millions each year.
Honestly, don’t try to hunt for the “best” spot to contribute your exact amount of spare money to, with the hope of having the largest possible impact. It won’t happen. Treat a good friend to some food instead.
If you really feel like you already got some value out of a service in the past, give what you can, without limiting yourself financially in the process. If you feel like you don’t have the $1 to spend for Wikipedia, don’t spend it. Don’t guilt trip yourself into donations ever. Your donation today will not prevent a service from turning into shit tomorrow. Pay for what you got
I fully agree with not limiting themselves financially whether it’s 1,10,100 etc. Their aim is to bring knowledge in all languages to even the poorest parts of the world. If some Lemmy user’s bank account is one of the poorest parts of the world right now, lol…I mean only “you” know how much money you can stand to give while still living comfortably and being entertained in life.
I have to take small disagreement with the money contribution not making a difference though. It’s the flip side of the same coin that tells people it’s find if they don’t vote cause their one vote won’t make a difference. The hole in the argument is that we don’t vote alone, and we don’t donate alone. The specific attitude “my vote won’t make a difference” actually costs millions of votes every year, just like “my $20 won’t make a difference” could cause millions of dollars of losses.
But anyway, separate argument from the situation here as our Lemmiford here sounds like they’re in saving mode till things look up.
I get that, I really do, and I honestly believe you have exactly the right idea.
But on the other hand, you have to realize that not all of the money purely goes to enabling knowledge sharing with Wikimedia. This is not an election, it’s a company, non-profit or for-profit doesn’t really matter. There are still people paying off business expenses from your donations.
I fully understand the necessity of this, but you might just feel better if your $5 literally bought someone a meal or if it paid for a fraction of a business flight to promote Wikimedia.
Totally agree, the right to choose how best to spend your own charitable donations isn’t something I’d ever infringe on.