2011 Fundraiser/Launch email

This is the draft text for our fundraising launch appeal.

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Jimmy version

From: Wikimedia UK (fundraising@wikimedia.org.uk) Subj: Please help keep Wikipedia free for another year

Dear Friend,

Your donation kept Wikipedia on the web last year. Thank you.

Unlike any other top website, Wikipedia is powered by small donations from its users. That's why the £{contact.custom_7} you gave last year was so important. And it's why I need to ask you if you can donate again this year.

Click here to donate £{contact.custom_24}, or whatever you can afford, right now.

Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 422 million different people every month. We have 400 servers and less than a hundred staff. That's why we need your help today.

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 banners, 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. If everyone reading this donated £{contact.custom_24}, £{contact.custom_25} or maybe even set up a monthly Direct Debit of £{contact.custom_26}, we wouldn't need to fundraise at all. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.

Please click here to donate your £{contact.custom_24} now.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales Wikipedia founder

PS. For the first time this year, if you're a UK taxpayer, Wikimedia UK will be able to reclaim the tax you've paid on your donation. So whatever you can contribute will go 25% further to keeping Wikipedia going during 2012. Thank you.

(standard footer with link to Wikimedia UK website)

Non-Jimmy version

From: Wikimedia UK (fundraising@wikimedia.org.uk) Subj: Please help keep Wikipedia free for another year

Dear Friend,

Your donation kept Wikipedia on the web last year. Thank you.

Unlike any other top website, Wikipedia is powered by small donations from its users. That's why the £{contact.custom_7} you gave last year was so important. And it's why we need to ask you if you can donate again this year.

Click here to donate £{contact.custom_24}, or whatever you can afford, right now.

Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 422 million different people every month. We have 400 servers and less than a hundred staff. That's why we need your help today.

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 Wikipedia started, it could have been a profit-making business that took paid advertising. But that's not what happened. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight.

We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others. If everyone reading this donated £{contact.custom_24}, £{contact.custom_25} or maybe even set up a monthly Direct Debit of £{contact.custom_26}, we wouldn't need to fundraise at all. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.

Please click here to donate your £{contact.custom_24} now.

Thanks,

Roger Bamkin Chair of Wikimedia UK

PS. For the first time this year, if you're a UK taxpayer, Wikimedia UK will be able to reclaim the tax you've paid on your donation. So whatever you can contribute will go 25% further to keeping Wikipedia going during 2012. Thank you.

(standard footer with link to Wikimedia UK website)