I received a letter today from Wikimedia (the Wikipedia foundation) about a donation I made earlier to Wikipedia. The letter included the bill to use for my tax report and a note thanking me for the donation.
It is my first time donating to an organization responsible for expanding human knowledge. When I did it earlier I didn’t think a lot about why I am doing it. I just felt guilty when I saw the banner asking me to donate to keep wikipedia running.
As I am reflecting more about it now, I think there are more reasons to why one should donate to Wikipedia when possible.
I was just discussing with a friend how the internet gave me access to information I wasn’t able to get before. Big part of this knowledge comes from Wikipedia. When you do a Google search about something or someone, the first snippet you get on the search result is most of the time from Wikipedia. Most of the first search results on Google are wikipedia pages. When you want to know something quick about a topic, you start with Wikipedia.
It is important to keep Wikipedia running and to donate more often. It helps keeping the organization independent from corporate and individual interests, which might lead to a bias in the information being presented or other bad practices. It also helps keeping it FREE, which gives them the ability to benefit – I would argue – billions of people everyday, making knowledge accessible to everyone.
You can donate here.