Wow I had no idea those ads on wikipedia were blatant lies. I've never donated but I've definitely thought about it a few times whenever I saw those ads. This is somewhat eye-opening.
Donations follow the same axiom as pricing: ask for what the market will bear.
while "dire" might be a bit of an overstatement, I agree with this impression because it is in part why I donated once or twice.
This is a reasonable stance to take, except when your donations are enough to cover the core product for decades.
It's not literally fraud in the legal sense, but it's purposefully taking advantage of the goodwill of unsophisticated donors to fund projects and people the donors predictably wouldn't approve of if they understood what was happening. The donors think they are supporting Wikipedia, and the money is largely going elsewhere. Morally, it's lying.
Not defending. Having done some myself, I'd guess they're mostly following the standard playbook.
And yet every donation dialogue on their page is a desperate plea for money to preserve Wikipedia itself.
This is the misleading theme around Wikimedia's donation strategy.