Wikipedia Surpasses $6 Million Fundraising Goal

by Jarrett Martineau | January 2, 2009 at 09:15 am

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Leave it to Jimmy Wales to make a personal appeal to die-hard wikipedians as well as general web-users to help the online encyclopedia site, Wikipedia, reach its fundraising goal of $6 million in order to contine operating, free from advertising, in 2009.

Wikipedia has met its fundraising goal of $6 million US with a bit to spare just days after founder Jimmy Wales made a personal pitch for donations.
Several slightly different figures appeared on Wikipedia pages late Thursday, but all of them were over the figure the free online encyclopedia said it needs to sustain the operation in 2008.

On Dec. 23, after the organization had been soliciting funds for months, it had slightly less than $4 million.

That day, Wales posted an open letter asking users to help keep the encyclopedia "free to use by anyone for any purpose."

More than 275 million people use the site every month, he said, and Wikipedia wanted to keep ads off its pages.