How can I make those Wikipedia colored maps?

How does it feel to make a donation to Wikipedia? What made you donate to Wikipedia?

• My friend made a donation and he received a mail appreciating the effort along with a promise that the donation would make a difference and that Wikipedia would spend the donations responsibly. He felt really good sharing this story.

• Answer:

  It is good if donating money makes you feel good. I originally donated my time to pay Wikipedia back for all the times it had helped me in my job, and I have spent thousands of pounds on reference works and subscriptions. It felt right. But be clear that the Wikimedia Foundation is not struggling financially. You can sometimes read reports suggesting that Wikipedia is held together by "gaffer tape and string", as a recent BBC article put it (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19148151). That is not true: Wikimedia revenue has increased more than ten-fold over the past five years, and at the middle of this year, the Foundation had cash reserves of over $27 million. You have to remember that just five years ago, the Foundation got by on annual expenses of just over $2 million, running a Wikipedia that was not that much smaller than it is today (about half the size)!  See http://wikipediocracy.com/wiki/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_revenue%2C_expenses_and_assets for a table based on publicly reported figures. Of course, as that table shows, expenses have grown as well, but some of the Wikimedia chapters genuinely seem to have more money than they know what to do with. Generally, the more money is donated, the more will be spent ... in some way. At present, there are signs that not all of it is spent efficiently, or used wisely.