Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser nets $20 million

More than a million donors respond to Wikipedia banner campaign

Wikipedia's parent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation, today announced that its annual fundraising campaign ended on Sunday having netted $20 million from more than a million donors - a record haul.

From a blog post announcing the accomplishment:

Wikimedia websites serve more than 470 million people every month. It is the only major website supported not by advertising, but by donations from readers.

"Our model is working fantastically well," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "Ordinary people use Wikipedia and they like it, so they chip in some cash so it will continue to thrive. That maintains our independence and lets us focus solely on providing a useful public service."

You don't have to read too deeply between the lines there to see that it's unlikely Wikipedia will be accepting advertising any time soon.

Among the expenditures scheduled to be funded by the new proceeds are more servers, additional site functionality and mobile services.

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