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Movement Strategy/Recommendations/Iteration 1/Revenue Streams/Nutshell

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Assumptions for the recommendations

In 2019, the Wikimedia movement is facing external challenges to its current revenue model, which primarily relies on a large number of donors giving small amounts through banners on Wikipedia. Simultaneously, the ambitious strategic direction for 2030 is calling for an increase in revenue for the movement beyond incremental growth. The convergence of these events requires us to look into revenue opportunities across the movement, and learn from different models that have been explored by Wikimedia organizations.

  • Revenue Streams has more externalities than possibly other areas or working groups.
  • The current funding is not enough now to achieve our vision. The working group is assuming we will need significantly more revenue for 2030.
  • The necessary increase in revenue requires an expansion and diversification of revenue streams, and associated safeguards are needed to ensure the novel revenue streams are aligned with Wikimedia principles.
  • Not prescribing a structure of roles but describe the features necessary for revenue generation
  • The recommendations are areas for further in-depth research

Movement wide principles for Revenue Streams

Recommendation

  • Independence from influence
  • No advertising on website
  • Source of funds consistent with vision and values
  • Clear separation between website content and donation source
  • Principles used by WMF (not all applicable)
  • Transparency (divulge rev sources)
  • Relationships that might endanger future revenue (e.g. donations / partnerships with controversial companies)

Turn the Wikimedia API into a revenue source

Recommendation

The APIs of Wikipedia and Wikidata are among the most widely used on the planet.

While keeping the APIs free for everyone, we can offer “tiered” premium service for large users of our API such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others. The tiered may cost between thousands of dollars to millions of dollars, depending on usage amount, and will enable the Movement to provide dedicated development time for the APIs, as well as services like dedicated API gateways or better provisioning of API regions, if those are requested by clients.

Inspiration for this can be the GNIP / Twitter service, which has tiered support - the basic API is free for everyone, but access to the Twitter “firehose” (tweets generated in real-time) costs up to $100,000 / month.

Recommendation

The Movement can create professional and consultancy services around technologies (e.g. MediaWiki and Wikibase) aimed at organizations seeking to implement those internally.

Monetize merchandise

Recommendation

Research merchandising and leveraging the Wikimedia brand as a new revenue opportunity. (license trademark, partner with other companies, etc. Research examples such as NationalGeographic and NASA).

Expand global fundraising

Recommendation

Most of the Movement work with charitable foundations and individual major donors is focused in the United States. There is a large opportunity to develop fundraising worldwide in major gifts, foundations, legacy giving, corporate giving, and events. The Movement will need to develop the skills to fundraise effectively in different countries and cultures while always remaining consistent with the Wikimedia values and brand.

Develop non-fundraising revenue streams for affiliates

Recommendation

Affiliates should develop in-kind donations and partnerships, EU and government grants, and earned income (consulting services e.g. with GLAMs)

Set a goal of financial independence for all movement actors

Recommendation

All movement actors should strive to be financially self-sustaining given the methods at their disposal, and to fuel the rest of the movement to the extent of their capacity

Diversification of revenue channel

Recommendation

Expand payment methods available to users worldwide and continually update methods with changing technologies to provide an optimized, localized, and convenient donation experience. (Examples: mobile payment methods, cash, local country methods.)

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