Revenue generation for the Movement
Increasing the Sustainability of Our Movement requires diversifying the sources of funds by seeking more revenue generation for the Movement. This initiative specifically names two sources of money that can be further explored: 1. Providing professional services in MediaWiki technologies, and 2. Leveraging the Wikimedia Brand (e.g. in printed shirts and other items).
- Providing professional and consultancy services concerning MediaWiki technologies.
- Creating merchandising and making use of the Wikimedia brand.
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Hi, we have prepared a report summarizing strategic data and activities related to the recommendation Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, focusing on projects led by the Wikimedia Foundation. It includes a section about this initiative that I’m copying here for convenience and automatic translations.
Implementing this initiative requires exploring new sources of revenue, for instance, through software consultancy services or selling merchandising.
Currently, the Foundation is not planning to offer professional consultancy on MediaWiki, as we do not believe it to be a significant enough source of potential revenue for the Foundation to merit investment. The market of third-party MediaWiki users is small and already served by a group of consultancy companies in dialog with the Foundation and the larger movement. These companies offer MediaWiki support as part of a wider portfolio. If the Foundation decides to offer consultancy services, significant investment and reprioritization would be required first to build this new capacity and to activate this market. The risk of not obtaining worthwhile revenue at the Foundation while negatively disrupting the current business of the small consultancies was deemed too high.
The Wikimedia Foundation has made small investments in the Wikipedia Store, which has increased its revenue from $116,320 USD in FY2020-21 to $134,358 in FY2021-22, and the predicted revenue for FY2022-23 is $147,793. Most customers are donors based in the United States and Canada and come around fundraising campaigns. The sales in other countries are significantly lower, connected with global distribution’s logistical difficulties and costs. The Foundation believes that there is an opportunity for affiliates to increase their revenue by selling merchandise that includes local languages and themes sourced and distributed locally at a better cost.
