Fundraising 2011/Jimmy Mail/en

Dear [name],

Here's how the Wikipedia fundraiser works: Every year we raise just the funds that we need, and then we stop. Because you and so many other Wikipedia readers donated over the past weeks, we are very close to raising our goal for this year by December 31 – but we're not quite there yet.

You've already done your part this year. Thank you so much. But you can help us again by forwarding this email to a friend who you know relies on Wikipedia and asking that person to help us reach our goal today by clicking here and making a donation. If everyone reading this email forwarded it to just one friend, we think that would be enough to let us end the fundraiser today.

Of course, we wouldn't turn you down if you wanted to make a second donation, which you can do right here:

[url]

Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 679 servers and 95 staff.

Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 470 million different people every month – with billions of page views.

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, 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.

This year, please consider making a donation to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder