Just after Christmas, Wikipedia announced that it was closing its annual appeal a full six months ahead of schedule having already hit its $6m target.

Not only that, but following an appeal from founder Jimmy Wales in late December (so Wikipedia could avoid having to make charges or take advertising), over the course of just eight days a staggering 50,000 people from around the world donated a total of $2m. The only fundraising outside of social networking was $2m raised from trusts and foundations.

This is the first year Wikipedia has employed professional fundraisers, and it shows. Fundraising went from $1.2m in 2006 and $2.3m in 2007 - to $6m in 2008.

Wikipedia's head of community giving, Rand Montoya, says that all they did was, 'an amazing amount of the basics,' including thanking people, using clear messaging and making it easy for anyone, anywhere in the world, to give in their own currency.

There must be lessons to learn from this. And Wikipedia is even making it easier for us to do that. It aims to be totally transparent, so it publishes its contribution and donor statistics on its blog, and invites comments from anyone who cares enough to leave them.

As part of the appeal, it tested a number of banners, and it's published the results of that testing, too.

As and when it has more results of the analysis into the appeal, that will also be posted on the blog for others to see what works and what doesn't. Obviously not everything's going to work for everyone, but it's a refreshing change from fundraisers mumbling into their sandwiches when asked to comment meaningfully on their results.

It's not going to change the face of fundraising overnight, but it's a fantastic example of the power of social networking and how openness and transparency can help us all.

Kevin Kibble