Why Wikipedia has started to prompt up a message, asking for Donations in India?

 Wikipedia is one of the most popular website but recently in India it has started to openly display the message, asking it's users for donations whenever a user visit their website. But does it really need donations to stay afloat?

As per now there is no such rival of Wikipedia giving cutting edge competition to it. Hardly any user refers to some other website instead of  Wikipedia whenever they want to get reliable information hence it is a full stop for most people who are looking for some information. Wikipedia generates revenues through T-Shirts, pencils etc that are sold under it's brand name but basically it relies on writers, engineers, editors, donators globally, who voluntarily work and contribute their services towards the organization and this is how Wikipedia has managed to survive in the industry so far.

Recently Pat Pena, Director of Payment and Operations for Wikimedia Foundation (the parent company of Wikipedia) wrote "To meet the needs of readers in India and around the world, we operate an international technology infrastructure comparable to the world’s largest commercial websites." 

For an instance last year Amazon donated $1 Million Dollar. But still, the cost to keep the website data secure, along with the huge costs of keeping the servers running so that the users shouldn't face any problems can add up to hefty expenditure. Wikipedia claims that only 2% of it's user base only donates to the website. The website is managed by nearly about 250 employees whose salary also has to be ensured and  it also requires funds to organises various events.

Another Wikimedia spokesperson said "As a website that hundreds of millions of people have come to rely on, we have a duty to ensure Wikipedia remains accessible, up to date and relevant for its readers. We hope the public in India, and in other countries, will consider making a contribution to Wikipedia with the same goal, and with an eye towards the future; it's also the reason why our messages are written in that spirit"

According to Pena’s blog post, readers in India flock to Wikipedia more than 750 million times a month, the fifth highest number of views the site receives from any country. Given the readership garnered in India, it is rather surprising that Wikipedia launched its first full fledged fundraising drive in India only this year. The Coronavirus pandemic has affected millions of people globally and this has effected every sector of the industry, many organizations are running low in funds & resources which has led to mass level unemployment.

In the previous financial year, it garnered about $21,619,373 but for any Not for profit organization it is necessary that they should maintain additional cash reserves even if they have sufficient funds left with them because these NPO's has to rely majorly on donations and if these payments stops due to the adverse market conditions, at that time they can use those cash reserves. The fact cannot be denied that the website doesn't show ads to its users & the company has to prepare itself for adverse times like the Coronavirus pandemic where the donation reduces significantly, for such time period those additional cash reserves can become handy for the organization to prevent it from getting dry in the cash reserves.

Wikipedia has got a massive reader base and in reality it requires a lot of resources to keep such kind of organization running smoothly. This year itself Wikipedia was not able to organize & execute various fundraiser programs across the globe & this was the time those additional cash reserves which Wikipedia collected through their prompt up messages for donations became handy. This was the reason why Wikipedia has openly started to prompt up a message asking for donations in India.

Indian companies is becoming a great topic of interest for so many tech giants recently and I would be coming up with an informative article for you all at weekend. So stay tuned guys, don't forget to hit the subscribe button which is at the top of the webpage & henceforth, you will be notified via email...!

If you liked the article, then please share it with other people and if you want me to cover any other topic, just feel free to drop your message in the comments section below.