In early 2011, a donation round already exceeded 10 million dollars, thanks to more than 500,000 donors. ( Tweakers )
“Our costs continue to rise, but fortunately so do the donations,” Gelauff said that year. ( MT )
“The organization runs on donations from readers. That amounts to around 70 million euros worldwide each year. Last year, a profit of 21 million was booked. This is used as a reserve in case of major expenses.” ( AD , early 2016)
“The annual collection campaign with banners at the top of Wikipedia articles may suggest otherwise, but Wikipedia is certainly not doing badly. In the past fiscal year, parent company Wikimedia received 75.8 million dollars in donations worldwide, the only source of income. Expenditures meanwhile amounted to 52.6 million dollars.” ( RTL , mid-2016)
Credibility and sympathy
“A large building requires more maintenance than an attic room.” Yes, a columnist was completely right with his Wikipedia metaphors in a contribution to Frankwatching at the beginning of 2014. At the end of that year, however, there was also criticism , with the (not even metaphorical) question whether ' golden chairs ' are also necessary. And with that, whether that annual frequency is undeniably a necessity. Or whether the pretended seriousness of the situation is not so bad and that a year can be skipped?
Pushiness
In that established question mark lies perhaps a greater danger than the misapplication of social proof: the loss of credibility and sympathy. Banners suggest that Wikipedia needs money to stay out of trouble, while at the same time there are those profits and reserves. And then there is the pushiness of the banners. Pushiness that is somewhat reminiscent of… right, advertisements .
“Yet only a very small portion of our readers donate.”
From changes to improvements
“We are not perfect and we are constantly working on improvements,” (then) Executive Director Lila Tretikov responded to that criticism. “This year we made only minor changes to the text on malaysia phone number list the banner. Next year we will try different texts, and the team is open to your suggestions.”
Small changes came, other texts not so much. The gist has been the same for years: if everyone would…, but almost no one . You don't have to change complete texts, but that gist can certainly be better.
Testing improvements: data and psychology
Judging by Tretikov's statements, I suspect that Wikipedia is already doing some A/B testing (hopefully according to the ROAR method ), otherwise this is the time. Just make sure that they are not random A/B tests. Go for subtle text changes with a prominent share of psychology. Digital data and persuasion psychology have to do it together in all possible meanings. Then the frequency and the pushiness can perhaps be reduced in steps. How nice would it be: more donors, less (often) banners. More sympathy, more credibility and fewer question marks.
View content and context per case
This may mean that we need to look at other influencing techniques than social proof. Communicating very correctly that the desired behavior is often displayed does not necessarily have to have a positive effect in this specific case: the emotional seriousness of the situation may disappear (why would you donate if everyone is already donating?).