Background

The Apps team has focused on reducing barriers and friction for users who want to donate, and exploring integrated donation experiences. Donors often express that their motivation to give came from how often they use the site. The more they use the service, the more they want to give back. Below are a few example donor testimonials that helped shape our thinking for this hypothesis:

• …I do use your services and information constantly so feel I should pay at least a little more.I will now arrange that myself and put reminders in my calendar.- Donor, France
• I use Wiki so often that I am very happy to help keep it going in a small way. - Donor, United Kingdom
• I already feel very proud of quite modestly supporting financially Wikipedia from time to time, which I sincerely believe is one of the greatest contributions of technology to the access of knowledge throughout the planet, and hence to freedom. - Donor, Spain
• I use wikipedia often... even multiple times some days. I value wikipedia and am happy that it's "free". I know the ALL freedom comes with a cost... so opting for a small monthly donation that will add up to 3 times what I've given annually is a bargain! - Donor, United States
• I am pleased to confirm that I have just activated a new recurring donation. This is my way of expressing gratitude for the invaluable work you do in making knowledge freely accessible to everyone. - Donor, Italy

Donation banners and emails often serve as “reminders” to donate for our readers, but there are limited opportunities for readers to customize when and how they are reminded to donate. The apps already locally store and surface the user's reading history. Due to the history being stored locally on device, it can be cleared by the user at any time, and is never stored externally. Because of this, the apps have a unique strength that can allow us to experiment with a customizable donation reminder tied to reading habits, while respecting reader privacy.

We hope to experiment with a customizable donation reminder that allows app users to decide how often they want to be reminded to donate based on their usage of the site, and what their preferred amount is. When they are ready to donate, their selections from earlier help facilitate a more frictionless donation. By allowing users to opt-in and personalize their reminder before showing it, our goal is that readers will set the intention to donate at a later date, and that following up on that goal will be a pleasant experience that strengthens their relationship with Wikipedia.

Hypothesis

Wiki Experiences 3.2.2: If we prompt Android App readers in non-campaign markets to set up an optional, customizable (amount and frequency) reminder for donations based on their usage of Wikipedia, we’ll see a 5% increase in app menu donations in those markets.

Experiment duration: 15 & 30 days
Release date: 2025-08-21
15 Days - 2025-09-05
30 Days - 2025-09-20

How will we know we are successful?

Validation

• Primary KR 1.1 – 5% increase in app menu donations from this audience compared to the same period YoY
• KR 1.2 – 15% of prompt impressions will set up a recurring donation reminder
• KR 1.3 – 0.5% of users who see their donation reminder complete a donation

Guardrails

• GR 2.1 – At least a 60% satisfaction rate with the reminders as measured through the survey
• GR 2.2 – No more than 60% of qualitative feedback through survey, email, or talk page is negative

Curiosities

• CR 3.1 – How do these donations differ from banner campaign donations (average gift and share of new donors)
• CR 3.2 – How many users customized their donation reminder vs kept the default options?
• CR 3.3 – How did the prompt acceptance rate differ between different user segments?

Requirements

Must have:

• Users can choose whether or not to receive donation reminders.
• Users can turn off or edit donation reminders any time in Settings
• Prompt: Set-up form for a recurring donation reminder
  • Allow user to enter their donation amount
  • Allow user to customize the number of article views after which they want to be reminded
  • Close / No thanks option
• Reminder:
  • After required number of articles has been viewed, remind the user to donate
  • Prefill the amount in the donation form
• It should be clear that the donations are to support the Wikimedia Foundation
• Mark the feature as an experiment
• Donations made through the reminder should be a subgroup of App Menu donations
• Show survey to satisfaction survey with free-text feedback to users who have had an impression of the prompt

Audiences

Primary
Italian and English language readers in Italy

Undecided Languages

• German & English language readers in Germany
• English language readers in BigEN markets
• Frequent app readers who have not previously donated, and have not seen banners previously

Designs

Core Screens