Wikipedia Has a Ton of Money, So Why Is It Begging You to Donate Yours?

If you’ve been on Wikipedia at any point last week, you probably noticed a dramatic, black-and-yellow banner plastered atop your screen: “DEAR WIKIPEDIA READERS,” it begins in all caps—before launching into a desperate, paragraph-long pitch for money.

The banner heralds the start of the Wikimedia Foundation’s December fundraising drive, an annual Internet tradition as reliable as year-end lists and April Fool’s fakes. This year, WMF—the nonprofit that administers Wikipedia.org—hopes to raise $25 million to keep the site “online and growing.” Reading that, you may well assume that the world’s seventh-largest site risks going dark if you don’t donate.

In reality, that couldn’t be further from the case.