Donation strategy: how do you allocate your donations?

graphito@beehaw.org to Free and Open Source Software@beehaw.org – 199 points –

I noticed that transfer companies usually charge fixed amount for each transaction, so donating $1 can easily incur 30%+ fee.
So I would like to find a rule of thumb to minimize the fees yet cover all projects I like

Any tips?

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Do you have a source to back this? Not to say I don't believe you but I am legitimately curious

I disagree with the use of the term "profitable" because it's a non-profit and so donations aren't going to investors or anything. Wikimedia is very transparent and efficient with donations according to Charity Navigator. That said, they do take in more in donations every year than they pay in expenses. See the financial reports they make public.

I think it's healthy for them to accrue a decent amount in case donations go away for one reason or another. I looked through that report you linked and I don't know how to make sense of whether or not it's a reasonable amount they've got sitting in the bank, to be honest.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/02/wikipedia-has-a-ton-of-money-so-why-is-it-begging-you-to-donate-yours/

That is a 8 year old article, plus they are a democratic organisation where the board of director is elected by the editors, If they think they need the money to be the best wikipedia they can be i will take their word instead of some website owned by Jeff Bezos (And if i am reading wikipedia articles and learning, I am not wasting money and resources on amazon).

Go to wikimedia foundation's page, the 'about' menu has a link to the financials.

Mid 2022 they had $239M in assets, up from $231M the year before.

If you're german, i can link you a german video which explains it quite well