Fundraising committee/2006/Fundraising procedure

This pertains to operational details of online fundraisers only. Offline details-- including fundraising special events-- must be described separately.

Proposed Fundraising Procedure

1. Setting budget and fundraising date
   1. Income and expense forecasted by the Executive Director, WMF Board, and central staff
   2. Budget approved by the board and posted
   3. Example: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Budget/2005
   4. Target date set for the fundraiser based on gap between current money and need
2. Lead donors sought by Board and staff
   1. Donors should be willing to provide a dollar-for-dollar match of all contributions made on one or more days
3. Back-end data acquisition and management procedures developed, tested, finalized
   1. CRM
   2. Integration with other wmf db's?
4. FundCom coordinates with community
   1. Fundraising messages created and translated
      1. Example: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4_planning
   2. Standard fundraising pages updated/improved as needed
   3. Press release created by ComCom
      1. Example: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Year-end_fundraiser_2005
5. Running fundraiser
   1. Fundraiser starts and press release distributed by ComCom
   2. Message on every page on each project website announcing drive
      1. Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Sitenotice&oldid=33355178
   3. Automatic counter and tracking page gives feedback. Examples:
      1. http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/
      2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikidemia/Fundraising
   4. Daily summary reports given
      1. Lists donations by currency and donation method
6. Tracking progress
   1. Donations made via
      1. PayPal (most common method)
      2. Mail/Post (second most common)
      3. Dexia money transfer (third most common)
      4. MoneyBookers
   2. Commissions made through merchandise sale
      1. CafePress shop
   3. Tracking example: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4
7. Drive ends either at pre-set date or when a set amount is raised
8. Post-drive Office activities:
   1. Receipts sent
   2. Thank you notes sent
   3. Ideally most of this can be automated by CRM
9. Budget adjusted if needed
10. Analysis and evaluation of fund drive conducted. Possibilities:
    1. Measure impact of the matching contributions
    2. Measure which appeals led directly to donations (clickthrough tracking)
    3. Measure effect of email vs snail-mail thank-yous.
    4. Differences in impact on editors, general public, previous donors, etc.?