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From Wikipedia author Susan Hewitt Ever wonder how Wikipedia can cover so many topics so well? Ever since I was a girl, I’ve been a total nerd about seashells and snails. I’d bring home all sorts of creatures. My mother wasn’t too thrilled. I’ve contributed to hundreds of articles about gastropods. Now multiply that by 100,000 editors. That's how we got to 15 million articles. For this to keep working, we volunteers need a stable infrastructure on which to work: servers, tech staff, a legal team to protect our independence and more. Wikipedia is the #5 website in the world, but its infrastructure is maintained by a small non-profit -- all paid for by donations, just individuals giving $5, $20 or $50. Please pitch in. Wikipedia works because there’s this unspoken light inside all of us that comes from the desire to help educate, to help share knowledge. And that’s what makes Wikipedia so magical. If you stop and think for even a second, you’ll realize how fabulous it is to get this information without a paywall, and to not have to read ads. It’s like a voice of sanity in a crazy, consumerist world. If you benefit from Wikipedia, please consider kicking in at least a small amount of cash to support it if you can. Thanks, Susan Hewitt Wikipedia Author

Select your gift amount: $10 $20 $25 $35 $50 $100 $250 Other: Why your donation is needed: Wikipedia is non-profit, but it's the #5 website in the world -- serving 470 million people every month with billions of page views. We work hard to keep our operation lean. Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 679 servers and 95 staff. We will never run ads. Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. If everyone reading this made a small donation, we would only have to fundraise for a few hours. Not everyone can or will donate, but each year just enough people decide to give. We only raise what we need. When we've raised our budget, we stop fundraising for the year. This year, please consider making a donation of $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

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