Banner With The Face Of Jimmy Wales Helped Increase Wikipedia Donations

By Amit Chowdhry ● Nov 21, 2010

People sometimes react positively when the face of the founder of a company is prominently displayed on their website. In this case, it worked well for Wikipedia. In an effort to raise $16 million for keeping Wikipedia ad-free, the company wanted to double the amount they asked for last year.

It turns out that Wikimedia was able to raise in a week what took a month last year. Wikimedia raised a little bit under $3 million in eight days. Last year it took 36 days to make that amount of money.

“I think more and more people everywhere are recognizing the impact Wikipedia has made on their lives– the rapid rise in donations this year is the response,” stated Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson Moka Pantages. “It’s now the go-to place for anything you need to know. These donations are thousands of people all over the world expressing gratitude and supporting the efforts of the Wikipedians who work long and hard to keep this thing alive and growing.”

Another reason for Wikimedia’s growth is because they started using a banner that features the face of Jimmy Wales. In the infographic below, you will notice the number of donations that were provided as a click-through from their different banners.

[Source: ReadWriteWeb]