2012 Fundraiser

Wikimedia UK will be participating in the 2012 fundraiser. Our draft objectives are:

1. Raise £1.4 million (including claimable Gift Aid) - 40% increase (subject to confirmation)
   • Better optimised campaign with 10 tests before launch day
   • Greater use of donor insight in producing the campaign
   • Greater use of British editors as part of an international set of messages
   • Review messaging to ensure ASA compliance
   • Better use (and testing) of email communications
   • Review results of experimental activity from 2012 (Direct Debits, text message giving, direct mail)
   • Improve integration of other forms of giving (e.g. payroll, SMS, legacy) with the online fundraiser
   • Improve stewardship of donors (including at at higher value levels)
2. Move all processes over to UK servers, with native technical support, in line with Foundation requirements
   • Develop revised forms which will support further testing by July 2012
   • Fundraising data process to be revised & updated prior to audit
   • Need to set up our own OTRS installation (or an alternative ticket system) for responding to donor queries
   • Review arrangement with SmartDebit and decide whether or not to move to our own Service User Number for potential benefits including cost savings and ability to offer annual Direct Debits, set against additional staff costs to process DDs. If we do, implementation should be by September 31
   • Review feasibility of adopting our own credit card payment gateway (rather than using PayPal).
3. Begin communicate donors into Wikimedia UK’s other work
   • Gather permissions for, and begin to implement, more frequent communications with donors who are interested in hearing from us about outreach and membership work

Queries

Could we offer annual direct debits? Are there other donation mechanisms we could offer? (Not sure who this was? RB? Was added to the page by MP, but sparked by a question on the mailing list)

Jon and Richard need to look at the cost-benefit analysis of bringing our Direct Debits in-house, which will include whether we can deliver annual DDs. We should also look into other payment methods. The Land (talk) 18:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not a £1.5M target? (MP)

Of course we don't know whether the "organic" growth of the fundraiser will result in 40% or 50% growth. Ideally we would take a view on this when we see the Foundation's expectations for growth in the US and other mature markets. We would also need to take account of the actual performance of Direct Debits and the Gift Aid claim, it's still a bit too early to say on each of those. So whatever figure (£1.4M, £1.5M or something else entirely) is necessarily subject to quite a lot of revision. The Land (talk) 18:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I think we can manage £1.5M. We should be able to get a significantly higher gift aid take up (I believe changes to the form made near the end of the fundraiser increased it significantly, and we'll have that improved form from the start). If we can get a better direct debit form (there is a lot of room for improvement there) we should be able to increase those. We'll have all the direct debits from last year still coming in (not quite sure how we should count those, but we didn't count them in last year's total so I guess the plan is to count them in the year they are made rather than the year the direct debit mandate is created). Handling credit cards ourselves should increase donations since it will allow us to streamline the process (we should be able to manage one fewer page for people to work through, which always helps). Having a full-time fundraising specialist will allow a lot more testing and incremental improvements in banners and forms, as well as being a source of new ideas. Put it all together, and I think 50% growth is very much achievable (it may even be conservative). --Tango (talk) 18:58, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions

In 2012 we lowered our total in order to maximise our direct debits and ensure continued funding. Are there other priorities? It could be “retaining editors”. I think we could work out ways that maximised our impact on our existing editors. RB

I think we should make using the fundraiser for outreach/membership/etc a priority - but there are ways of doing this, and we need to make sure we don't accidentally do anything that stops us raising money. So a conditional yes ;-) The Land (talk) 18:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)