Wikipedia Donors Most Likely To Be From India, Study Says

We've all seen it: the appeal for donations from Jimmy Wales at the top of a Wikipedia page. So just who exactly contributes to the online editable encyclopedia?

Wikipedia, supported by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation -- which is dependent on donations -- recently conducted a study with its readers regarding the who and why behind its contributions. The site's annual fundraising campaign earned $20 million, according to the Associated Press.

The study emphasized it didn't use actual donor information:

"While we don’t directly collect demographic or other information from our donors, we used our readers survey as a means of understanding who our donors are, and what motivates them to donate to Wikipedia. Please note that these results are from a sample of our reader population, not drawn from actual donor data."

The survey of 250 participants each in 16 countries revealed that about one-fourth of the 4,000 people surveyed would be willing to give to Wikipedia. India proved to have the most charitable readers, with 42 percent of people saying they'd donate.

In the U.S., 33 percent of people surveyed said they would consider donating.

Respondents from France were the least willing, with just 11 percent stating they would donated.

The survey also stated that on average, 47 percent of Wikipedia readers did not know the site was supported by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which is dedicated to providing free content to the world.

As Wikipedia becomes more pervasive, Wikimedia's management has worried about whether the online encyclopedia will be able keep up with the technology necessary to remain relevant, according to the Associated Press.

Comments

[Nihiltres]

10:34 AM on 02/08/2012

Ugh, the title here—"Wikipedia Donors Most Likely To Be From India, Study Says"—is wildly inaccurate. Rather, it should read more like "Indians Most Likely To Donate To Wikimedia, Study Says".

The title suggests (when read critically) that of the population of users who have donated to the Wikimedia Foundation, Indians make up the greatest proportion. This is demonstrably false: the majority of the Wikimedia Foundation's received donations come from the United States.

The study is saying that, of a group of users who may or may not have donated, Indians were the group who expressed the most interest in donating. This is true, but it doesn't imply that those Indians have, will, or would necessarily donate, no matter their reasons.

[akhanna]

02:10 PM on 02/15/2012

Thank you for pointing this out, I hope the alert reader catches this distinction.

The exact question we asked readers was: "Knowing that Wikipedia is run by a charity, does not use advertisements, and exists to make free knowledge available worldwide, do you plan to donate to Wikipedia in the future?"

Ayush Khanna
Data Analyst
Wikimedia Foundation.

[Tenjikuronin]

12:14 AM on 02/08/2012

Not surprised. Indians are quite generous.

[theveggiedude]

09:48 PM on 02/07/2012

Nameste!