Template:2011FR/appeal-brandon-3/en

I used to work on classified projects with the U.S. government and I couldn’t say a word about it.

Working at the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that supports Wikipedia, I can talk about anything I want; in fact I’m expected to talk about everything.

We make information free, in every sense of the word. Every article, every picture, every piece of code -- everything that we produce -- is free. This wealth of information is accessible to anyone who wants to use it. The technology we share helps power thousands of other websites around the world. No other organization of our scope would dream of being this open.

The cost of supporting this openness is relatively small, but essential. We don’t run ads, but we rely on support from our readers to keep the servers running and pay a tiny tech staff.

Will you donate $5, $10, $20, or whatever you can afford to sustain Wikipedia? Your contribution will guarantee we continue to improve the technology that makes this project possible.

Other top-ten Internet companies have tens of thousands of employees and billions in operating revenue. At the Wikimedia Foundation, we have fewer than 100 employees and we operate with a fraction of the budget of the Facebooks, Googles and Microsofts.

It’s amazing when you think about it: we are the 5th largest website in the world, published in 271 languages, visited by nearly half a billion people every month, all of it accomplished through collaboration and sharing.

There is still so much more work to be done. We want to add server capacity to better serve people all over the world, from Asia to South America to Africa. We want to increase our speed and reliability for users anywhere they log on. We want every human being on this planet to have access to this free and open resource.

We need your help to get there.

Thank you,

Brandon Harris Programmer, Wikimedia Foundation