Wikimedia Foundation - Wikipedia

Wikimedia Foundation - Wikipedia
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from
Wikimedia
American charitable organization
See also:
Wikimedia movement
and
List of Wikimedia chapters
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Abbreviation
WMF
Founded
June 20, 2003
; 22 years ago
2003-06-20
St. Petersburg, Florida
, U.S.
Founder
Jimmy Wales
Type
501(c)(3)
charitable organization
Tax ID no.
EIN
200049703
Focus
Free,
open-content
multilingual
wiki
-based
Internet
projects
Location(s)
One Sansome Street
San Francisco
, California, U.S.
Region served
Worldwide
(banned in some territories)
Products
Wikipedia
MediaWiki
Wikibooks
Wikidata
Wikifunctions
Wikimedia Commons
Wikinews
Wikiquote
Wikisource
Wikispecies
Wikiversity
Wikivoyage
Wiktionary
Membership
Board-only
CEO
Bernadette Meehan
Revenue
$185.4 million (2024)
$180.2 million (2023)
$167.9 million (2022)
Expenses
$178.6 million (2024)
$168.3 million (2023)
$145.8 million (2022)
Endowment
> $100 million (2021)
Employees
650 (2025)
Volunteers
277,000 (2024)
Website
wikimediafoundation
.org
foundation
.wikimedia
.org
(Governance)
ASNs
14907
11820
The
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
WMF
) is an American
501(c)(3)
nonprofit organization headquartered in
San Francisco
, California, and registered there as a
charitable foundation
The foundation is most known for being the host of
Wikipedia
, one of the
most visited websites
in the world. It also hosts fourteen related
open collaboration
projects, and supports the development of
MediaWiki
, the
wiki
software which underpins them all.
10
The foundation was established in 2003 in
St. Petersburg
, Florida by
Jimmy Wales
, as a non-profit way to fund Wikipedia and other wiki projects
which had previously been hosted by
Bomis
, Wales' for-profit company.
The Wikimedia Foundation provides the technical and organizational infrastructure to enable members of the public to develop wiki-based content in languages across the world.
11
The foundation does not write or curate any of the content on the projects themselves.
12
Instead, this is done by volunteer editors, such as the
Wikipedians
. However, it does collaborate with a network of individual volunteers and affiliated organizations, such as Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, user groups and other partners.
The foundation finances itself mainly through millions of small donations from readers and editors, collected through email campaigns and annual fundraising banners placed on Wikipedia and its sister projects.
13
These are complemented by grants from philanthropic organizations and tech companies, and starting in 2022, by services income from
Wikimedia Enterprise
. As of 2023, it has employed over 700 staff and contractors, with net assets of $255 million and an endowment which has surpassed $100 million.
History
Further information:
History of Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales
and
Larry Sanger
founded Wikipedia in 2001 as a feeder project to supplement
Nupedia
. The project was originally funded by
Bomis
, Wales's for-profit business, and edited by a rapidly growing community of volunteer editors. The early community discussed a variety of ways to support the ongoing costs of upkeep, and was broadly opposed to running ads on the site,
14
so the idea of setting up a charitable foundation gained prominence.
15
That addressed an open question of what entity should hold onto trademarks for the project.
The Wikimedia Foundation was incorporated in
St. Petersburg, Florida
, on June 20, 2003.
16
17
A small fundraising campaign to keep the servers running was run in October 2003.
18
In 2005, the foundation was granted section
501(c)(3)
status by the U.S.
Internal Revenue Code
as a public charity, making donations to the foundation
tax-deductible
for U.S. federal income tax purposes.
19
Its
National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities
(NTEE) code is B60 (
Adult
Continuing education
).
20
21
The foundation filed an application to trademark the name
Wikipedia
in the US to the
Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences
on September 14, 2004. The mark was granted registration status on January 10, 2006. Trademark protection was accorded also by Japan on December 16, 2004, and by the
European Union
on January 20, 2005. Subsets of Wikipedia were already being distributed in book and DVD form, and there were discussions about licensing the logo and wordmark.
22
On December 11, 2006, the foundation's board noted that it could not become a
membership organization
, as initially planned but not implemented, due to an inability to meet the registration requirements of Florida statutory law. The bylaws were accordingly amended to remove all references to membership rights and activities.
23
In 2007, the foundation decided to move its headquarters from Florida to the
San Francisco Bay Area
. Considerations cited for choosing San Francisco were proximity to like-minded organizations and potential partners, a better talent pool, as well as cheaper and more convenient international travel.
24
25
26
The move was completed by January 31, 2008, into a headquarters on Stillman Street in San Francisco.
27
It later moved to New Montgomery Street, and then in 2017 to
One Montgomery Tower
28
On October 25, 2021, the foundation launched
Wikimedia Enterprise
, a commercial Wikimedia content delivery service aimed at groups that want to use high-volume APIs, starting with
Big Tech
enterprises.
29
In June 2022,
Google
and the
Internet Archive
were announced as the service's first customers, though only Google will pay for the service.
30
The same announcement noted a shifting focus towards smaller companies with similar data needs, supporting the service through "a lot paying a little".
Projects and initiatives
Content projects
For the list, see
Special:SiteMatrix
and
Complete list of Wikimedia projects
at Meta-Wiki.
Logos of Wikimedia projects. Clockwise from directly above the Wikimedia logo:
Wikimania
Wikifunctions
Wikibooks
, Meta-Wiki,
Wikiquote
Wikispecies
MediaWiki
, Wikimedia Incubator,
Wikidata
Wikivoyage
Wikiversity
Wiktionary
Wikinews
Wikisource
Wikimedia Commons
, and
Wikipedia
The foundation operates 12 wiki-based content projects that are written and governed by volunteer editors. They include, by launch date:
Wikipedia
online encyclopedia
Wiktionary
online dictionary
and
thesaurus
Wikibooks
– a collection of
books
, mostly textbooks
Wikiquote
– a collection of
quotations
Wikivoyage
travel guide
Wikisource
digital library
Wikimedia Commons
– repository of images, sounds, videos, and general media
Wikispecies
taxonomic
catalog of
species
Wikinews
online newspaper
Wikiversity
– a collection of tutorials and courses, also a hosting point to coordinate research
Wikidata
knowledge base
Wikifunctions
– a catalog of computer
functions
The foundation also operates wikis and services that provide infrastructure or coordination of the content projects. These include:
Meta-Wiki
– a central wiki for coordinating all projects and the
Wikimedia community
Wikimedia Incubator
– a wiki for drafting the core pages of new language editions in development
MediaWiki.org
– a wiki for coordinating work on the
MediaWiki
software
Wikitech
– a wiki for hosting technical documentation for Wikimedia infrastructure and other projects
Wikimedia Cloud Services
— hosting provider for tools
Wikimedia Phabricator
– a global ticketing system for tracking issues and feature requests powered by Phorge, a fork of the open-source development collaboration tool
Phabricator
Wikimedia Enterprise
Logo of Wikimedia Enterprise
Wikimedia Enterprise
is a commercial product by the Wikimedia Foundation to provide, in a more easily consumable way, the data of the Wikimedia projects, including
Wikipedia
31
and Wikidata. It allows customers to retrieve data at large scale and high availability through different formats like
Web APIs
, data snapshots or
streams
It was announced in March 2021,
32
and launched on October 26, 2021.
30
33
Google
were its first paying customer, with the
Internet Archive
granted free access.
30
Its total revenue in 2022 was $3.1 million.
31
Affiliates
Further information:
Wikimedia movement
and
List of Wikimedia chapters
Wikimedia affiliates are independent and formally recognized groups of people working together to support and contribute to the Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia Foundation officially recognizes three types of affiliates: chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups. Affiliates organize and engage in activities to support and contribute to the Wikimedia movement, such as regional conferences, outreach,
edit-a-thons
hackathons
public relations
public policy
advocacy,
GLAM
engagement, and
Wikimania
34
35
36
While many of these things are also done by individual contributors or less formal groups, they are not referred to as affiliates.
Wikimedia chapters and thematic organizations are
incorporated
non-profit organizations. They are recognized by the foundation as affiliates officially when its board does so. The board's decisions are based on recommendations of an
Affiliations Committee
(AffCom), composed of Wikimedia community members, which reports regularly to the board. The Affiliations Committee directly approves the recognition of unincorporated user groups. Affiliates are formally recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation, but are independent of it, with no legal control of or responsibility for Wikimedia projects and their content.
35
36
37
The foundation began recognizing chapters in 2004.
38
In 2012, the foundation approved, finalized and adopted the thematic organization and user group recognition models. An additional model for movement partners, was also approved, but as of May 19, 2022
[update]
has not yet been finalized or adopted.
36
39
Wikimania
Main article:
Wikimania
Wikimania is an annual global conference for Wikimedians and Wikipedians, started in 2005. The first Wikimania was held in
Frankfurt
, Germany, in 2005. Wikimania is organized by a committee supported usually by the local national chapter, with support from local institutions (such as a library or university) and usually from the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimania has been held in cities such as
Buenos Aires
40
Cambridge
41
Haifa
42
Hong Kong
43
Taipei
London
44
Mexico City
45
Esino Lario
Italy
46
Montreal
, Canada,
Cape Town
Stockholm
, and
Nairobi
47
The 2020 conference scheduled to take place in
Bangkok
was canceled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
, along with those of 2021 and 2022, which were held online as a series of virtual, interactive presentations. The in-person conference returned in 2023 when it was held in Singapore, at which
UNESCO
joined as a partner organization.
48
In 2024, Wikimania was held in
Katowice
, Poland.
Technology
The Wikimedia Foundation maintains the hardware that runs its projects in its own servers. It also maintains the MediaWiki platform and many other software libraries that run its projects.
49
Hardware
See also:
Wikipedia § Hardware operations and support
Overview of system architecture, August 2022. See
server layout diagrams on Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia Foundation servers
Wikipedia employed a single server until 2004, when the server setup was expanded into a distributed
multitier architecture
50
Server downtime in 2003 led to the first fundraising drive. By December 2009, Wikimedia ran on
co-located
servers, with 300 servers in Florida and 44 in
Amsterdam
51
In 2008, it also switched from multiple different
Linux
operating system vendors to
Ubuntu Linux
52
53
In 2019, it switched to
Debian
54
By January 2013, Wikimedia transitioned to newer infrastructure in an
Equinix
facility in
Ashburn
, Virginia, citing reasons of "more reliable connectivity" and "fewer
hurricanes
".
55
56
In years prior, the hurricane seasons had been a cause of distress.
57
In October 2013, Wikimedia Foundation started looking for a second facility that would be used side by side with the main facility in Ashburn, citing reasons of redundancy (e.g.
emergency fallback
) and to prepare for simultaneous multi-datacenter service.
58
59
This followed a year in which a
fiber
cut caused the Wikimedia projects to be unavailable for one hour in August 2012.
60
61
The result of this was another datacenter being added in 2014 at a
CyrusOne
facility in
Carrollton, Texas
, to further improve reliability.
62
63
Both datacenters work as the primary one in alternate semesters, with the other one working as secondary datacenter.
64
Apart from the second facility for redundancy coming online in 2014,
65
66
the number of servers needed to run the infrastructure in a single facility has been mostly stable since 2009. As of November 2015, the main facility in Ashburn hosts 520 servers in total which includes servers for newer services besides Wikimedia project
wikis
, such as
cloud services
(Toolforge)
67
68
and various services for metrics, monitoring, and other system administration.
69
In 2017, Wikimedia Foundation deployed a caching cluster in an Equinix facility in
Singapore
, the first of its kind in Asia.
70
In 2024, a caching data center was opened in
São Paulo
, the first of its kind in South America.
71
Software
The operation of Wikimedia depends on
MediaWiki
, a custom-made,
free
and
open-source
wiki software
platform written in
PHP
and built upon the
MariaDB
database since 2013;
72
previously the MySQL
database
was used.
73
The software incorporates programming features such as a
macro language
variables
, a
transclusion
system for
templates
, and
URL redirection
. MediaWiki is licensed under the
GNU General Public License
and it is used by all Wikimedia projects.
Originally, Wikipedia ran on
UseModWiki
written in
Perl
by
Clifford Adams
(Phase I), which initially required
CamelCase
for article hyperlinks; the double bracket style was incorporated later. Starting in January 2002 (Phase II), Wikipedia began running on a
PHP wiki
engine with a MySQL database; this software was custom-made for Wikipedia by
Magnus Manske
. The Phase II software was repeatedly modified to accommodate the
exponentially increasing
demand. In July 2002 (Phase III), Wikipedia shifted to the third-generation software, MediaWiki, originally written by
Lee Daniel Crocker
Some MediaWiki extensions are
installed
to extend the functionality of MediaWiki software. In April 2005, an
Apache Lucene
extension
74
75
was added to MediaWiki's built-in search and Wikipedia switched from MySQL to
Lucene
and later switched to CirrusSearch which is based on
Elasticsearch
for searching.
76
The Wikimedia Foundation also uses
CiviCRM
77
and
WordPress
78
The foundation published official Wikipedia
mobile apps
for
Android
and
iOS
devices and in March 2015, the apps were updated to include mobile user-friendly features.
79
Corporate identity
The Wikimedia Foundation was founded in 2003 by
Jimmy Wales
so that there would be an independent charitable entity responsible for company domains and trademarks, and so that Wikipedia and its sister projects could be funded through non-profit means in the future.
80
81
The name "Wikimedia", a
compound
of
wiki
and
media
, was coined by American author
Sheldon Rampton
in a post to the English Wikipedia mailing list in March 2003,
82
three months after
Wiktionary
became the second wiki-based project hosted on the original server. The foundation's mission is collection and distribution of educational knowledge under free licenses or public domain and promised to keep these projects free of charge.
11
All intellectual property rights and domain names about Wikipedia were moved to the foundation after its inception,
83
and it currently owns the
domain names
and maintains most of the
Wikimedia movement
's websites.
84
WMF is now the registrant of the domain
wikipedia.org
, owner of the trademark and operator of the wiki platform. It runs projects like
Wikibooks
Wikidata
Wiktionary
and
Wikimedia Commons
; it raises money, distributes grants, controls the servers, develops and deploys software, and does outreach to support Wikimedia projects, including the
English Wikipedia
. It also engages in
political advocacy
regarding copyright,
press freedom
and legal protection of websites from liability related to user content.
85
Finances
Wikimedia Foundation revenue, expenses and end-of-year net assets (in US$), 2003–2023
Green: revenue (excluding direct donations to the endowment)
Red: expenses (including WMF payments into the endowment)
Black: net assets (excluding the endowment)
86
The Wikimedia Foundation mainly finances itself through donations from the public, collected through email campaigns and annual fundraising banners placed on Wikipedia, as well as grants from various tech companies and philanthropic organizations.
13
87
Campaigns for the Wikimedia Endowment have included emails asking donors to leave Wikimedia money in their will.
88
As a 501(c)(3) charity, the foundation is exempt from federal and state income tax.
89
90
It is not a private foundation, and contributions to it qualify as tax-deductible charitable contributions.
87
In 2007, 2008 and 2009,
Charity Navigator
gave Wikimedia an overall rating of four out of four possible stars,
91
increased from three to four stars in 2010.
92
As of January 2020
[update]
, the rating was still four stars (overall score 98.14 out of 100), based on data from FY2018.
93
The foundation also increases its revenue through
federal grants
, sponsorship, services and brand merchandising. The Wikimedia
OAI-PMH
update feed service, targeted primarily at search engines and similar bulk analysis and republishing, was a source of revenue for a number of years.
94
95
DBpedia
was given access to this feed free of charge.
96
An expanded version of data feeds and content services was launched in 2021 as Wikimedia Enterprise, an LLC subsidiary of the foundation.
97
In July 2014, the foundation announced it would accept
Bitcoin
donations.
98
In 2021,
cryptocurrencies
accounted for just 0.08% of all donations
99
100
and on May 1, 2022, the foundation stopped accepting cryptocurrency donations, following a
Wikimedia community
vote.
100
101
The foundation's net assets grew from an initial $57,000 at the end of its first fiscal year, ending June 30, 2004,
102
to $53.5 million in mid-2014
103
104
and $231 million (plus a $100 million endowment) by the end of June 2021; that year, the foundation also announced plans to launch Wikimedia Enterprise, to let large organizations pay by volume for high-volume access to otherwise rate-limited APIs.
105
In 2020, the foundation donated $4.5 million to
Tides Advocacy
to create a "Knowledge Equity Fund", to provide grants to organizations whose work would not otherwise be covered by Wikimedia grants but addresses racial inequities in accessing and contributing to free knowledge resources.
106
107
Wikimedia Endowment
In January 2016, the foundation announced the creation of an
endowment
to safeguard its future.
108
The Wikimedia Endowment was established as a donor-advised fund at the
Tides Foundation
, with a stated goal to raise $100 million in the next 10 years.
109
Craig Newmark
was one of the initial donors, giving $1 million.
110
Peter Baldwin
and
Lisbet Rausing
, of
Arcadia Fund
, donated $5 million in 2017.
111
In 2018, major donations to the endowment were received from
Amazon
and
($1 million each) and
George Soros
($2 million).
112
113
114
In 2019, donations included $2 million from Google,
115
$3.5 million more from Baldwin and Rausing,
111
$2.5 million more from Newmark,
116
and another $1 million from Amazon in October 2019 and again in September 2020.
117
118
As of 2023,
[update]
the advisory board consists of
Jimmy Wales
Peter Baldwin
, former Wikimedia Foundation Trustees
Patricio Lorente
and
Phoebe Ayers
, former Wikimedia Foundation Board Visitor
Doron Weber
of the
Sloan Foundation
, investor
Annette Campbell-White
, venture capitalist Michael Kim, portfolio manager Alexander M. Farman-Farmaian, and strategist Lisa Lewin.
111
The foundation itself has provided annual grants of $5 million to its Endowment since 2016.
119
These amounts have been recorded as part of the foundation's "awards and grants" expenses.
120
The Endowment pays the foundation for expenses the foundation incurs on behalf of the Endowment, mostly salaries of staff; in 2022–2023, this payment was 1.8 million.
121
In September 2021, the foundation announced that the Wikimedia Endowment had reached its initial $100 million fundraising goal in June 2021, five years ahead of its initial target.
In January 2024, the endowment was reported to have a value of $140 million.
122
Financial development
The foundation summarizes its assets in the "Statements of Activities" in its audited reports. These do not include funds in the Wikimedia Endowment, however expenses from the 2015–16 financial year onward include payments to the Wikimedia Endowment.
123
Year
Source
Revenue
Expenses
Asset rise
Net assets at
end of year
2023/2024
PDF
$185,383,511
$178,471,109
$16,584,053
$271,555,390
2022/2023
PDF
$180,174,103
$169,095,381
$15,619,804
$254,971,336
2021/2022
PDF
$154,686,521
$145,970,915
$8,173,996
$239,351,532
2020/2021
PDF
$162,886,686
$111,839,819
$50,861,811
$231,177,536
2019/2020
PDF
$129,234,327
$112,489,397
$14,674,300
$180,315,725
2018/2019
PDF
$120,067,266
$91,414,010
$30,691,855
$165,641,425
2017/2018
PDF
$104,505,783
$81,442,265
$21,619,373
$134,949,570
2016/2017
PDF
$91,242,418
$69,136,758
$21,547,402
$113,330,197
2015/2016
PDF
$81,862,724
$65,947,465
$13,962,497
$91,782,795
2014/2015
PDF
$75,797,223
$52,596,782
$24,345,277
$77,820,298
2013/2014
PDF
$52,465,287
$45,900,745
$8,285,897
$53,475,021
2012/2013
PDF
$48,635,408
$35,704,796
$10,260,066
$45,189,124
2011/2012
PDF
$38,479,665
$29,260,652
$10,736,914
$34,929,058
2010/2011
PDF
$24,785,092
$17,889,794
$9,649,413
$24,192,144
2009/2010
PDF
$17,979,312
$10,266,793
$6,310,964
$14,542,731
2008/2009
PDF
$8,658,006
$5,617,236
$3,053,599
$8,231,767
2007/2008
PDF
$5,032,981
$3,540,724
$3,519,886
$5,178,168
2006/2007
PDF
$2,734,909
$2,077,843
$654,066
$1,658,282
2005/2006
PDF
$1,508,039
$791,907
$736,132
$1,004,216
2004/2005
PDF
$379,088
$177,670
$211,418
$268,084
2003/2004
PDF
$80,129
$23,463
$56,666
$56,666
Expenses (2004–2020)
A plurality of Wikimedia Foundation expenses are salaries and wages, followed by community and affiliate grants, contributions to the endowment, and other professional operating expenses and services.
124
86
Wikimedia Foundation expenses 2004–2020
Wikimedia Foundation's expenses evolution by type in USD
Wikimedia Foundation's expenses as a percentage of the whole
Grants
Wikimedia Foundation and chapters finance meeting 2012, Paris
The Wikimedia Foundation has received a steady stream of grants from other foundations throughout its history.
In 2008, the foundation received a $40,000 grant from the
Open Society Institute
to create a printable version of Wikipedia.
125
It also received a $262,000 grant from the
Stanton Foundation
to purchase
hardware
126
a $500,000 unrestricted grant from
Vinod
and
Neeru Khosla
127
who later that year joined the foundation advisory board,
128
and $177,376 from the historians
Lisbet Rausing
and
Peter Baldwin
Arcadia Fund
), among others.
126
In March 2008, the foundation announced what was then its largest donation yet: a three-year, $3 million grant from the
Sloan Foundation
129
In 2009, the foundation received four grants. The first was a $890,000 Stanton Foundation grant to help study and simplify the user interface for first-time authors of Wikipedia.
130
The second was a $300,000
Ford Foundation
grant in July 2009 for
Wikimedia Commons
, to improve the interface for uploading multimedia files.
131
In August 2009, the foundation received a $500,000 grant from The William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation
132
Also in August 2009, the
Omidyar Network
committed up to $2 million over two years to Wikimedia.
133
In 2010,
Google
donated $2 million
134
and the Stanton Foundation granted $1.2 million to fund the Public Policy Initiative, a pilot program for what later became the Wikipedia Education Program (and the spin-off
Wiki Education Foundation
).
135
136
137
In March 2011, the Sloan Foundation authorized another $3 million grant, to be funded over three years, with the first $1 million to come in July 2011 and the remaining $2 million to be funded in August 2012 and 2013. As a donor,
Doron Weber
from the Sloan Foundation gained Board Visitor status at the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.
138
In August 2011, the Stanton Foundation pledged to fund a $3.6 million grant of which $1.8 million was funded and the remainder was to come in September 2012. As of 2011, this was the largest grant the Wikimedia Foundation had ever received.
139
In November 2011, the foundation received a $500,000 donation from the
Brin Wojcicki Foundation
140
141
In 2012, the foundation was awarded a grant of $1.25 million from
Lisbet Rausing
140
and
Peter Baldwin
through the
Charities Aid Foundation
, scheduled to be funded in five equal installments from 2012 through 2015. In 2014, the foundation received the largest single gift in its history, a $5 million unrestricted donation from an anonymous donor supporting $1 million worth of expenses annually for the next five years.
142
In March 2012, The
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
, established by the
Intel
co-founder and his wife, awarded the Wikimedia Foundation a $449,636 grant to develop
Wikidata
143
This was part of a larger grant, much of which went to Wikimedia Germany, which took on ownership of the development effort.
144
Between 2014 and 2015, the foundation received $500,000 from the Monarch Fund, $100,000 from the Arcadia Fund and an undisclosed amount from the
Stavros Niarchos Foundation
to support the
Wikipedia Zero
initiative.
145
146
147
In 2015, a grant agreement was reached with the
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
to build a search engine called the "
Knowledge Engine
", a project that
proved controversial
148
149
In 2017, the Sloan Foundation awarded another $3 million grant for a three-year period,
138
and Google donated another $1.1 million to the foundation in 2019.
150
The following have donated $500,000 or more each (2008–2019, not including gifts to the Wikimedia Endowment):
Total
($000s)
Donor
Years
9,000
Sloan Foundation
2008–2013
2017–2019
5,952
Stanton Foundation
2009–2012
5,000
(anonymous)
2014–2018
3,100
Google
2010, 2019
2,000
Omidyar Network
2009–2010
1,527
Rausing, Baldwin
via Arcadia, Charities Aid
2008
2012–2015
1,300
Hewlett
2009–2010
500
Sergey Brin & Anne Wojcicki
2010
500
Monarch Fund
2014–2015
Board of trustees
The foundation's
board of trustees
supervises the activities of the foundation. The founding board had three members, to which two community-elected trustees were added. Starting in 2008 it was composed of ten members:
three selected by the community encompassed by all the different Wikimedia projects;
two selected by Wikimedia chapters;
four appointed by the board itself; and
one founder's seat, reserved for Jimmy Wales.
151
152
Over time, the size of the board and details of the selection processes have evolved. As of 2020, the board may have up to 16 trustees:
153
eight seats sourced from the wider Wikimedia community (affiliates and volunteer community);
seven appointed by the board itself; and
one founder's seat reserved for Wales.
In 2015,
James Heilman
, a trustee recently elected to the board by the community,
154
was removed from his position by a vote of the rest of the board.
155
156
This decision generated dispute among members of the Wikipedia community.
157
158
Heilman later said that he "was given the option of resigning [by the Board] over the last few weeks. As a community elected member I see my mandate as coming from the community which elected me and thus declined to do so. I saw such a move as letting down those who elected me."
159
He subsequently added that while on the Board, he had pushed for greater transparency regarding the Wikimedia Foundation's
Knowledge Engine
project and its financing,
160
and indicated that his attempts to make public the
Knight Foundation
grant for the engine had been a factor in his dismissal.
161
Heilman was reelected to the board by the community in 2017.
162
In January 2016,
Arnnon Geshuri
joined the board before stepping down amid community controversy about a "
no poach
" agreement he executed when at
Google
, which violated
United States antitrust law
and for which the participating companies paid US$415 million in a class action suit on behalf of affected employees.
163
164
As of January 2024, the board comprised six community-and-affiliate-selected trustees (Shani Evenstein Sigalov,
Dariusz Jemielniak
Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
, Victoria Doronina, Mike Peel and Lorenzo Losa);
165
five Board-appointed trustees (
McKinsey & Company
director
Raju Narisetti
166
Bahraini human rights activist and blogger
Esra'a Al Shafei
167
technology officer Luis Bitencourt-Emilio, Nataliia Tymkiv, and financial expert Kathy Collins); and Wales.
152
Tymkiv chairs the board, with Al Shafei and Sigalov as vice chairs.
168
In August 2025,
Mayree Clark
was appointed to serve the remainder of Esra’a El-Shafei’s term, extended through January 1, 2027, as El-Shafei stepped off the Board after eight years as a Trustee.
169
As of March 2024 there are six committees of the Board of Trustees: the executive committee (Chair: Nataliia Tymkiv, as the chair of the board), the Audit Committee (Chair: Kathy Collins, appointed in 2023), the Governance Committee (Chair: Dariusz Jemielniak, appointed in 2021), the Talent and Culture Committee (Chair: Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight, appointed in 2023), the Community Affairs Committee (Chair: Shani Evenstein Sigalov, appointed in 2021), and the Product and Technology Committee (Chair: Lorenzo Losa, appointed in 2023).
170
Staff
History
Foundation staff in January 2019
In 2004, the foundation appointed Tim Starling as developer liaison to help improve the
MediaWiki
software, Daniel Mayer as chief financial officer (
finance
budgeting
, and coordination of fund drives), and
Erik Möller
as content partnership coordinator. In May 2005, the foundation announced seven more official appointments.
171
In January 2006, the foundation created a number of committees, including the Communication Committee, in an attempt to further organize activities somewhat handled by volunteers at that time.
172
As of October 4, 2006
[update]
, the foundation had five paid employees:
173
two programmers, an administrative assistant, a coordinator handling fundraising and grants, and an interim
executive director
174
Brad Patrick, previously the foundation's
general counsel
. Patrick ceased his activity as interim director in January 2007 and then resigned from his position as legal counsel, effective April 1, 2007. He was replaced by
Mike Godwin
who served as general counsel and legal coordinator from July 2007
175
to 2010.
In January 2007, Carolyn Doran was named chief operating officer and Sandy Ordonez joined as
head of communications
176
Doran began working as a part-time bookkeeper in 2006 after being sent by a
temporary agency
. Doran, found to have had a criminal record,
177
left the foundation in July 2007 and
Sue Gardner
was hired as consultant and special advisor; she became the executive director in December 2007.
178
Florence Devouard cited Doran's departure from the organization as one of the reasons the foundation took about seven months to release its fiscal 2007 financial audit.
179
The
New Montgomery Street
building which housed the headquarters until 2017
Danny Wool, officially the grant coordinator and also involved in
fundraising
and business development, resigned in March 2007. He accused Wales of misusing the foundation's funds for recreational purposes and said that Wales had his Wikimedia credit card taken away in part because of his spending habits, a claim Wales denied.
180
In February 2007, the foundation added a position, chapters coordinator, and hired Delphine Ménard,
181
who had been occupying the position as a volunteer since August 2005. Cary Bass was hired in March 2007 in the position of volunteer coordinator. In January 2008, the foundation appointed Veronique Kessler as the new chief financial and operating officer, Kul Wadhwa as head of business development and Jay Walsh as head of communications.
In March 2013, Gardner announced she would be leaving her position at the foundation.
182
Lila Tretikov
was appointed executive director in May 2014;
183
184
she resigned in March 2016. Former chief communications officer
Katherine Maher
(joined Wikimedia in 2014
122
) was appointed the interim executive director, a position made permanent in June 2016.
185
Maher served as
executive director
until April 2021
186
187
and is credited with building the foundation
endowment
in her tenure.
122
Present department structure
One Sansome Street
has held the headquarters since October 2024
As of November 9, 2025,
[update]
there were about 650 people working at the foundation.
188
Bernadette Meehan
was appointed CEO on January 20, 2026.
189
WMF maintains the following department structure:
190
Office of the Chief Executive Officer
: supports the work of the Wikimedia Foundation Chief Executive Officer.
Advancement
: responsible for fundraising, strategic partnerships, and grantmaking programs.
Communications
: responsible for Wikimedia brand development, marketing, social media, public relations, and global awareness efforts.
Finance and Administration
: responsible for ensuring responsible management of Wikimedia Foundation funds and resources.
Legal
: responsible for mounting opposition to government surveillance and censorship, defending volunteer communities, facilitating policy discussions, and advocating for privacy.
Product and Technology
: builds, improves, and maintains the infrastructure of Wikimedia sites.
People
: responsible for recruitment and training.
Disputes and controversies
See also:
Litigation involving the Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation post-
SOPA
party, 2012
A number of disputes have resulted in
litigation
191
192
193
194
while others have not.
195
Attorney Matt Zimmerman has said, "Without strong liability protection, it would be difficult for Wikipedia to continue to provide a platform for user-created encyclopedia content."
196
In December 2011, the foundation hired Washington, D.C., lobbyist
Dow Lohnes
Government Strategies LLC to lobby
Congress
197
At the time of the hire, the foundation was concerned about a bill known as the
Stop Online Piracy Act
198
The communities were as well, organizing some of the most visible
protest
against the bill on the Internet alongside other popular websites.
In October 2013, a German court ruled that the Wikimedia Foundation can be held liable for content added to Wikipedia when there has been a specific complaint; otherwise, the Wikimedia Foundation does not check the content Wikipedia publishes and has no duty to do so.
199
In June 2014, Bildkonst Upphovsrätt i Sverige filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against
Wikimedia Sweden
200
On June 20, 2014, a defamation lawsuit (Law Division civil case No. L-1400-14) involving Wikipedia editors was filed with the Mercer County Superior Court in New Jersey seeking, inter alia, compensatory and punitive damages.
201
202
In a March 10, 2015, op-ed for
The New York Times
, Wales and Tretikov announced the foundation was filing
a lawsuit
against the
National Security Agency
and five other government agencies and officials, including
DOJ
, calling into question its practice of
mass surveillance
, which they argued infringed the constitutional rights of the foundation's readers, editors and staff. They were joined in the suit by eight additional plaintiffs, including
Amnesty International
and
Human Rights Watch
203
204
205
On October 23, 2015, the
United States District Court for the District of Maryland
dismissed the suit
Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA
on grounds of
standing
. U.S. District Judge
T. S. Ellis III
ruled that the plaintiffs could not plausibly prove they were subject to
upstream surveillance
, and that their argument is "riddled with assumptions", "speculations" and "mathematical gymnastics".
206
207
The plaintiffs filed an appeal with the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
on February 17, 2016.
208
In September 2020, WMF's application to become an observer at the
World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO) was blocked after objections from the government of China
209
over the existence of a Wikimedia Foundation affiliate in
Taiwan
210
In October 2021, WMF's second application was blocked by the government of China for the same reason.
211
In May 2022, six Wikimedia movement affiliate chapters were blocked from being accredited to WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) by China, claiming that the chapters were spreading disinformation.
212
In July 2022, China blocked an application by seven Wikimedia chapters to be accredited as permanent observers to WIPO;
213
China's position was supported by a number of other countries, including Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Algeria, Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
214
Spending and fundraising practices
In 2014, Jimmy Wales was confronted with allegations that WMF had "a miserable cost/benefit ratio and for years now has spent millions on software development without producing anything that actually works". He acknowledged that he had "been frustrated as well about the endless controversies about the rollout of inadequate software not developed with sufficient community consultation and without proper incremental rollout to catch show-stopping bugs".
215
During the 2015 fundraising campaign, members of the community voiced their concerns about the fundraising banners. They argued that they were obtrusive and could deceive potential donors by giving the impression that Wikipedia had immediate financial problems, which was not true. The Wikimedia Foundation vowed to improve wording on further fundraising campaigns to avoid these issues.
216
Despite this, the foundation has continued to come under criticism for running campaigns seemingly designed to "make its readers feel guilty." Such campaigns have additionally been condemned for, in 2021, being run in countries that had been badly affected by the
COVID-19 pandemic
, such as
Argentina
and
Brazil
217
as well as for sparking fears in
India
that Wikipedia might be "dying".
218
This is despite the foundation being in ownership of "vast money reserves", in 2021 reaching its 10-year goal of compiling a $100 million endowment fund in only 5 years.
217
In February 2017, an op-ed published by
The Signpost
, the
English Wikipedia
's online newspaper, titled "Wikipedia has Cancer",
219
220
produced a debate in both the Wikipedian community and the wider public. The author criticized the Wikimedia Foundation for its ever-increasing annual spending, which, he argued, could put the project at financial risk should an unexpected event happen. The author proposed to cap spending, build up the endowment, and restructure the endowment so that WMF cannot dip into the principal when times get bad.
221
As of June 2022, the WMF reported $239 million in net assets. It is expected to raise $174 million in revenue in the 2023.
222
Despite expenses on the foundation staff's salaries, there's a significant surplus left. To manage these funds, the WMF has created an endowment composed of investments and cash. This is managed not by the WMF but by the Tides Foundation.
222
The endowment aims to grow this capital to $130.4 million in the next fiscal year. However, there has been controversy over the administration of the funds. While the Tides Foundation has promised to become a more transparent
501(c)(3)
organization to reveal how it manages funds, details on expenses and salaries are still lacking seven years later. Additionally, the WMF's salary costs have risen from $7 million in 2010/11 to $88 million in 2021/22.
222
Knowledge Engine project
Main article:
Knowledge Engine (search engine)
Knowledge Engine was a
search engine
project initiated in 2015 by WMF to locate and display verifiable and trustworthy information on the Internet.
223
The KE's goal was to be less reliant on traditional search engines. It was funded with a $250,000 grant from the
Knight Foundation
224
Some perceived the project as a scandal, mainly because it was conceived in secrecy, and the project proposal was even a surprise to some staff, in contrast with a general culture of transparency in the organization and on the projects. Some of the information available to the community was received through leaked documents published by
The Signpost
in 2016.
225
223
Following this dispute, Executive Director
Lila Tretikov
resigned.
226
227
228
Security incident
On March 5, 2025, a malicious JavaScript worm resulted in some administrative accounts vandalizing and deleting Meta-Wiki pages for about 23 minutes. The incident put the wikis on read-only lockdown.
229
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