Today, I am asking you to make a donation to
support Wikipedia.
I started Wikipedia
in 2001, and over the past eight years, I've been amazed and
humbled to see hundreds of thousands of volunteers join with me to
build the largest encyclopedia in human history.
Wikipedia isn't a commercial website. It's a community creation,
entirely written and funded by people like you. More than 340
million people use Wikipedia every month - almost a third of the
Internet-connected world. You are part of our community.
I believe in us. I believe that Wikipedia keeps getting better.
That's the whole idea. One person writes something, somebody
improves it a little, and it keeps getting better, over time. If
you find it useful today, imagine how much we can achieve together
in 5, 10, 20 years.
Wikipedia is about the power of people like us to do
extraordinary things. People like us write Wikipedia, one word at a
time. People like us fund it. It's proof of our collective
potential to change the world.
We need to protect the space where this important work happens.
We need to protect Wikipedia. We want to keep it free of charge and
free of advertising. We want to keep it open – you can use the
information in Wikipedia any way you want. We want to keep it
growing – spreading knowledge everywhere, and inviting
participation from everyone.
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization I
created in 2003 to operate, grow, nurture, and protect Wikipedia.
For ten million US dollars a year and with a staff of fewer than 35
people, it runs the fifth most-read website in the entire world.
I'm asking for your help so we can continue our work.
Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet
has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s where
we’re headed. And with your help, we will get there.
Thank you for using
Wikipedia. You're part of this story: please make a donation
today.
Jimmy Wales
Founder, Wikipedia