The Wikimedia cash crunch story: what Devouard really said

Florence Devouard, chairwoman of the Wikimedia Foundation - which owns operates the online encyclopedia Wikipedia - on Thursday at LIFT07 in Geneva said that they currently have cash to pay the bills for about three months (see my original post - Philippe Mottaz also reported on it from the conference, and corrected his initial post). The information in the meantime has made rounds in the blogosphere, morphing into "Wikimedia to could shut within 3-4 months", accompanied by the inevitable speculations about who could take it over.

Let's start by saying that the most-digged story on this (by several thousand people) was by a blogger that was not at the conference. Laurent Haug, the producer of LIFT, has already made clear that  Devouard did not say that Wikipedia is going to shut down, nor used the word "disappear" during her speech. I had a long chat with her during LIFT, and here is what she told me:

• We currently have money in the bank for three-four months, but "I don't worry for the future" (verbatim).
• We are trying to give Wikimedia a more professional structure.
• In mid-2005 we hired our first employee, now we have ten.
• In 2005 we were spending 5000 USD a month for bandwidth only; our projections for 2007 say between 60'000 and 100'000 USD a month for bandwidth.
• We had a single server in 2003 when we did the first fundraising: we raised about 20'000 USD and we bought two additional servers.
• We have 350 servers now, in three data centers, and hardware costs alone for the first half of 2007 are projected at more than 1 million USD (here is the last approved hardware purchase for 300'000 USD)
• Our end-2006 fundraising drive brought in about 1 million USD; for this year we would need about 5 million USD in total.
• So we are experiencing the normal cash issues that all fast-growing organizations experience; and we are a non-profit with limited revenues (mostly from donations, something from royalties: DVDs, info embedded in other sites, etc).
• There are many contributors, particularly in the US, that would not be totally against accepting advertising on Wikipedia, Europeans are strongly against.

I have under my eyes the Wikimedia Foundation financial statements for 2004-5-6 (their fiscal year goes July to June). Here is what they say:

Revenues (including in-kind support):

to June 2004: 80'129 USD
to June 2005: 379'088 USD
to June 2006: 1'508'039 USD

Expenses:

to June 2004: 23'463 USD
to June 2005: 177'670 USD
to June 2006: 791'907 USD

Cash available at end of year:

June 2004: 9'718 USD
June 2005: 137'237 USD
June 2006: 512'313 USD

The growth is spectacular. Donations are coming in steadily at about 30-40'000 USD a week, Devouard told me, which together with the million USD raised at the end of 2006 should put the organization on the safe side for the near future.

So Devouard's call for support at LIFT07 was a legitimate and serious one, because Wikipedia's growth requires resources. But she did not suggest at any moment that Wikipedia, which has become an essential resource for the world, is going to "disappear" or "shut down" anytime soon.

UPDATE 18 February 07 - Final word on Wikipedia: not gonna shut down, but needs support

Comments

[Charbax]

I interviewed Florence Devouard at Lift07, the video is here:

http://charbax.com/2007/02/10/lift07-interview-of-florence-devouard/

[Duncan]

If you want to talk about accuracy in this case, perhaps you should re-read the post at 901am I wrote, it didn't say "Wikipedia to shut down" as you've put in your post here, it said "Wikipedia could shut down", and there's a world of difference. If you also took the time to read it you'll note that I said "I smell a begging bluff on this one"...meaning that I didn't believe that Wikipedia would shut down because lets face it, the chances of this happening, no matter what she did or didn't say, are pretty close to zero.

[Duncan]

Two other things: so I wasn't at the conference? I'm not allowed to report on what someone else suggested was said at the conference. Have we all got to be filthy rich or have a sugar daddy company to fund trips to Europe to make comments on this stuff? This sort of intellectual and financial snobbery wont get you far.

Secondly: you're running Captcha's on this blog. Perhaps there is some snobbery here, after all, you're intentionally barring people with visual disabilities from participating in the conversation here. Lets see: the not rich/ sugar daddy company free + visually impaired need not participate. Great set of morals you have.

[BrunoG]

Deep apologies for the slight misquote (I've corrected, but it was already easily verifiable by readers clicking on the link), but on the rest: Filthy rich? Sugar daddies? Gimme a break (LIFT is one of the cheapest conferences around). What about instead showing a tiny bit of humility and correcting your headline by updating your post, like your original source has done?
http://www.viadigitalis.org/index.php/?p=187
B.

[Laurent Haug]

The video of Florence Speech is now available on:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-431051858508446013&hl=en

[John]

"...you're running Captcha's [sic] on this blog. Perhaps there is some snobbery..."

Wow, equating captchas with snobbery is pretty agressive. I haven't labeled my home restroom or front door in braille but that doens't mean I am trying to keep visually impaired people out of my house.

I think Duncan needs a nap. Let's hope he manages to make more insightful and reasonable contributions to his own blog.

[Bradipus]

Just to put things right: the Wikimedia Foundation does not OWN Wikipedia.

The foundation owns the servers on which Wikipedia is hosted, as part of the object of the foundation which is to support free content projects such as Wikipedia, Commons, Wikiquote, Wikisource, etc.

The foundation also owns the name "Wikipedia"

But nobody owns Wikipedia if you consider Wikipedia as being the content, the encyclopedia.

[Brunog]

Fair enough, Bradipus. I've changed that into "operates", which certainly better reflects the situation. Thanks for pointing that out. B.