Wikipedia Asks For Users Help To Keep It Ad-Free: Fundraiser

If you've visited Wikipedia.org any time today you will have met up with a plea from the website. In order for the company to stay ad-free they have appealed to their users for donations.

"DEAR WIKIPEDIA READERS: This week we ask our readers to help us. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We survive on donations averaging about $15. Now is the time we ask. If everyone reading this right now gave $3, our fundraiser would be done within an hour.

Yep, that's about the price of buying a programmer a coffee. We're a small non-profit with costs of a top website: servers, staff and programs.

Wikipedia is something special.

It is like a library or a public park where we can all go to think and learn. If Wikipedia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online and ad-free another year.Thank you."

Wikipedia is operated by The Wikipedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that manages the database and the staff. According to Wikipedia, the money that is donated will pay for staff salaries and technology.

According to their page that is around 239 staff members. The financial layout has been provided by the company so those who are skeptical about donating can see exactly where their money will be going.