Here I am pushing a cause. This time it is not for the welfare of the world, but my own personal welfare! This cause, is a worthy one for anyone who wants good information on almost any subject instantly! It is, of course, WIKIPEDIA! If you use a computer and you really want to know about something or somebody living or dead, where do you go? . . .of course, WIKIPEDIA!

In my own little world, I didn't realize how the service was funded, I was only interested in the fact that I could learn all sorts of things I needed to know reliably and instantly. It turns out that it is entirely donor funded. I learned this a few weeks ago and just received the following email which I hope you'll read and consider joining the list of supporters to help pay for such a wonderful FREE service.

Dear Allan Stuart Gleason,

Thank you for your donation to this year's fundraiser. We're a little more than half-way toward our 2010 goal, so I hope you won't mind if I ask you to help again.

Most people don't know this, but I'm a volunteer.

I don't get paid a cent for my work at Wikipedia, and neither do our thousands of other volunteer authors and editors. When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising, but I decided to do something different.

Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.

To keep Wikipedia ad-free, we ask for donations every year on the site. We're sending you this email because we are scaling up our infrastructure this year, and we're simply not able to raise the whole budget from the banners alone.

We have an easy way to make an automatic monthly donation to Wikipedia, and we're looking for people who would like to become sustainers. (Of course you can make a one-time donation as well.)

Please make a monthly recurring gift of $2, $5, $7 -- or whatever you can:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/WMFRE021/en

Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others. It is a unique human project, the first of its kind in history. It is a humanitarian project to bring a free encyclopedia to every single person on the planet.

Every single person.

If all of Wikipedia's 400 million users would donate $1 each, we would have 20 times the amount of money we need. We're a small organization, and I've worked hard over the years to keep us lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.

To do this without resorting to advertising, we need you. It is you who keep this dream alive. It is you who have created Wikipedia. It is you who believe that a place of calm reflection and learning is worth having.

This year, please consider making a sustaining monthly donation of whatever amount you like to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder

P.S. -- If you can't commit to a recurring monthly donation, I hope you'll consider making another one time gift to help us reach our goal before the end of the year. Please make your donation today.

Wikimedia Foundation
P.O. Box 894879
Los Angeles, California 90189-4879
United States