Template:2011FR/appeal-jimmy-US-1122

When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different.

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.

If everyone reading this donated $10, we would only have to fundraise for one day a year. Not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year, just enough people decide to give to keep us going.

We’ve worked hard over the years to keep our organization lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.

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 450 million different people every month – with billions of page views.

This year, please consider making a donation of $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales Wikipedia Founder