An advance look at the WMF's fundraising survey
The Wikimedia Foundation gave the Signpost an advance copy of the results of a survey of English Wikipedia readers regarding Wikimedia fundraising, due for official release today, and shared details that do not appear in the final report. The survey, conducted by Lake Research Partners in February, asked a number of questions about readers' attitudes towards the WMF's fundraising to gauge the awareness and effectiveness of those efforts.
This is not the first WMF fundraising survey. After contributing to Wikipedia, donors are able to complete a survey if they wish; more than 250,000 of them did so in December 2014. Professional surveys are also done, such as the 2011 readership survey, which included questions about fundraising—but Lisa Gruwell, the Foundation's chief revenue officer, told the Signpost that "this is the first professional, randomized survey of Wikipedia fundraising to include donors and non-donors."