For what it's worth, Charity Navigator gives them 4 out of 4 stars with a 98.33/100 rating: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/200049703
Meanwhile eg the American Cancer Society gets 73/100 and spends more on fundraising than WMF's entire budget, so oncologists can snort blow off hookers in Vegas, but nobody cares.
The whole premise of Wikipedia (or aspiration, at least, and yes, not always fulfilled ...) is that people should have information so they can't be manipulated.
It kind of sucks to see the very organisation hosting the site do the opposite, don't you think?
The question as to whether this is manipulative isn't "is there are any clear statement of fact that is unambiguously a lie even in the most charitable possible interpretation?", it's "will this make ill-informed readers think their donations are necessary for Wikipedia's survival, and is this impression created deliberately?"
I think that's a very obvious "yes and yes".
The donations are used for side projects almost all donors are completely unaware of, whose existence and nature are not hinted at in the ads soliciting donations.
They way they DO stay online for a resilient amount of time is by generating money, i.e. through donations.
In fact, they used to say exactly how many months they have left. Now they don't say that, because they feel they can allow themselves that. Does that mean that it makes sense to stop fundraising? No. Because the minute the public doesn't feel that there's an urgency in donating to your cause, then it's someone else's problem, meaning it's nobody's problem and that's how you kill NPOs.