Directory:Wikimedia Foundation/Grand Donors

The Grand Donors are individuals who contribute more than $1,000 of their own money to the Wikimedia Foundation. The 2007 fund drive to monetize the 2008 budget includes allocations of:

• $182,000 for Mike Godwin and the Foundation's legal hassles;
• $201,000 to help all of the Board members with their travel to the new headquarters in the very expensive city of San Francisco;
• $509,000 for Sue Gardner and her executive office staff; and,
• $699,000 for overall finance and administration.

Only four percent of the Wikimedia budget goes toward "Program Services" which are supposed to be the inspirational intentions of any well-meaning non-profit agency.

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Click here for the source of the following data.

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1. Tyko Strassen - $1,000
Mathematician (specializing in computer science), full professor at a university of applied sciences, teacher of different didactic courses (in German) for university professors, registered as a Swiss Engineer STV.

"I use wikipedia almost every day. Best project on earth - keep it up!"

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2. Anonymous - $1,500
Who can be identified as such (sha1:338c3706b3f34653d195ee40a310f73d2fb52b5c), but only by himself.

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3. Joichi "Joi" Ito - $1,000
An American-educated Japanese activist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. Ito is the chairman of the board of Creative Commons and the chairman of Six Apart Japan. He is on the board of Technorati, Digital Garage, WITNESS, Pia Corporation, Socialtext, and iCommons. But since he is not on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation, he is not entitled to be on the board of Wikia, Inc.

Haven't we seen you moblogging, Joi?

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4. Anonymous - $1,000
This one decided to be really anonymous, with no hash function.

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5. Michael Minor - $10,000
There are lots of guys with the name "Michael Minor", but we're going to assume it's this one, until proven otherwise. A leading creative and Internet marketing designer in the Chicago area. He has worked with large national advertising and design agencies such as Leo Burnett and Ogilvy.

"Information should be free and accessible!"

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6. Anonymous - $2,000
Unwilling to leave a name, since $2,000 is what a typical cotton farm family of 10 persons would earn in a whole year in Chad, Benin, or Mali, according to OxFam. Better that this money go to an encyclopedia that might help North Africans more fully understand their role in the History of western Eurasia.

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7. John Dash - $1,000
There are two notable men by the name of "John Dash". Which one would be pumping $1,000 off to the Wikimedia Foundation? The church pastor who founded the New Beginning World Outreach...

Or, the Physics professor from Portland State University who thinks cold fusion will work someday...

Being that Wikipedia is managed in a half-crazy manner, and cold fusion is another half-crazy idea out of Utah, we're guessing this donor is the physicist.

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8. Bill Liao - $1,000
Bill is a Chinese-Australian who runs the website Xing.com. It's a Top 2000 site which is a knock-off of LinkedIn.com, a Top 200 site.

"The future potential of Wikipedia for humanity may manifest positively only if the quality of information is upheld!"

Too bad your $1,000 isn't going to help uphold the quality of information in Wikipedia, considering how it's the encyclopedia anyone can ruin.

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