Donations - A Business Model, Really?

Image : http://flouzo.net/articles/2008/02/13/do…]
Wikipedia has seen huge success and growth with their Q4 campaign totals. Along with rather large growth in dollar figures, there has also been consistent growth in the number of contributors.
An easy explanation for this is the length of the campaign. In 2005 and 2006 the fourth quarter fund raiser laster 20 and 21 days. For the 2007 campaign they ran it from October 22 right through to January 6th , 2008.
Considering that they had more than 44,000 donation for this last campaign, the extended time frame obviously worked out well.
What is it then that makes Wikipedia work so well with this type of business model? It’s quite simple really. It is all about ownership and community.
All of the content on Wikipedia is user contributed. This gives users a sense of ownership over the site. A lot of the work is also a collaborative effort between many individuals. This builds a sense of community surrounding the site. Those two things combined make it the perfect type of project for this kind of business model. Users are active participants in a community and want to see the project continue.
So back to my original question; can donations really be a business model? The answer of course is yes. All it takes is a community of active participants who have a sense of pride and ownership in your project.
Resources:
I wrote and posted this article for a friend of mine who runs community driven donation campaigns. They have had huge past and current successes raising capital through donations. For more information please see the site:
Trevas Walker
http://ebookguru.wordpress.com]
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