View source for Fundraising/Chapters/WMDE 2014 Report

=== Minimizing donation obstacles ===
How much do I value a project that I use very often but that is essentially free of charge? This is not a very easy question for donors to answer. With the help of suggested amounts on the donation form and in the text, we attempt to give donors some pointers on how much they might like to donate. We know that the €5 donation is by far the most common. Most people only wish to contribute a small amount. Our message should therefore indicate that any amount is welcome, no matter how small. We do this in a variety of ways. 
 
We offer a choice of seven donation amounts on the form (including an empty field for donors to enter an amount of their choice). Tests from the last years have shown that this is most effective number of amounts and that these specific amounts are the most effective. It is crucial that the suggested amounts are not that high. Therefore, 5, 15 and 25 Euro are among the seven suggested amounts.People also recognize that €5 is a perfectly acceptable amount to give. Showing readers that the average donation is €20 is a second reference point. Then the third pointer – the magic words, which tests revealed to be the most convincing of all of our fundraising appeals: “If every reader gave just a small amount, our fundraiser would be over in an hour.” This effective fundraising slogan was previously displayed alone in the banner, but it is now imbedded in the facts banner. The power of this statement is its simplicity and plausibility. Everyone only has to contribute a small amount; we’re not talking about a lot of money – it just needs everyone, or at least very many people, to contribute. These three donation pointers convey the idea that everyone can give something back to Wikipedia at very little effort and cost. The obstacle to donating is thus very low.  

[[File:Top 10 donation amounts overall.PNG|thumb|550px|left|This table shows the Top 10 donation amounts among Wikimedia Deutschland donors. Almost one out of two donations are 5 Euro.]]
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One way of minimizing donation obstacles is to accommodate donors’ data protection needs. For several years it has been possible to donate without entering address information (with the exception of SEPA direct debit donations). We simply require the donor’s name in order to clearly identify the donation. Data protection is becoming an ever more important issue for our donors at a time when many people, especially in Germany, are skeptical about entering their personal information on the Internet. The table below shows that the proportion of the total donations that come from “anonymous” donors has increased significantly.

Proportion of “anonymous” donations in the last three fundraising campaigns

{|class="wikitable" style="border-width:3px;"
|-style="background:rgb(0,102,153); border-right-width:5px; color: white; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top; cellpadding='4'"
|Campaign
|Total No. of <br />donations
|No. of anonymous <br />donations
|Anonymous donations <br />as a percentage
|-
|2012
|184.919
|25.382
|13,72 %
|-
|2013
|244.652
|43.303
|17,69 %
|-
|2014
|289.023
|86.809
|30,03 %
|-
|}