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Design a strategy to grow reader donations to Wikipedia while keeping it ad-free

Wikimedia FoundationProduct Manager · Other
MediumProduct ManagerOtherProduct Design & Strategy

Last updated

A product strategy interview question asking how a Wikimedia Foundation product manager would increase donations to Wikipedia while keeping it free and ad-free. It tests choosing a goal and metric, segmenting readers and donors, diagnosing where the donation funnel leaks, prioritizing ideas, and protecting reader trust.

You are a product manager at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia. Wikipedia is free to read, shows no advertising, and relies on donations to pay for its operations. How would you grow the donations Wikipedia receives?

Clarifying Questions

  • Is success measured as total money raised over a year, the number of donors, or recurring monthly donations, and over what time frame?
  • Should I focus on individual readers, or are other sources in scope, such as companies that reuse Wikipedia content at scale, large gifts and bequests, or the endowment?
  • Are there limits on how fundraising may appear to readers, such as how intrusive a banner can be or how often one reader may see it?
  • Should I prioritize particular countries or language editions, given that readers' incomes and preferred payment methods vary widely?

Hints

Hint 1

Find where giving breaks down: Separate readers who have never given from people who gave once and stopped, and for each group look for the step, from seeing a request to completing a repeat gift, where most of them are lost.

Follow-up questions

  • A new banner raises more money during the campaign, but page views drop in the weeks that follow. How do you decide whether to keep it?
  • How would you grow recurring monthly donors without reducing the total given by one-time donors?
  • In a country where few readers use credit cards, what would you change about the donation flow?