![]() Money the WMF pays into the endowment, however, is recorded under expenditures (“Awards and Grants”). It’s noteworthy that money donated to the endowment is not included in the WMF’s reported net assets ($180 million as of last June) or annual revenue ($130 million). Major donations from Amazon, Google, Facebook, and others have been supplemented by legacy gifts-and $25 million from the WMF itself. Just five years later, the endowment passed $90 million, and the $100 million mark, now described as an “initial goal,” will be reached this year. When the WMF announced the creation of an endowment with the Tides Foundation in January 2016, on Wikipedia’s 15th birthday, its goal was to accumulate $100 million over 10 years, as “a permanent source of funding to ensure Wikipedia thrives for generations to come.” It has ambitious plans to “become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge.” And it is prepared to tell Wikipedia readers it really needs their money when it is richer than ever. So what does the WMF do with all the money? It has used the funds to hire hundreds of additional staff and put money aside for a rainy day. 98% of our readers don’t give they look the other way … We ask you, humbly, don’t scroll away.”īut keeping Wikipedia online is a task that the WMF could comfortably manage on $10 million a year, according to a casual 2013 estimate by Erik Möller, its VP of engineering and product development at the time. Presently shown to readers in pandemic-ridden Latin America, these banners have created a widespread impression that the WMF must be struggling to keep Wikipedia up-and-running, with tearful-sounding messages like: “This Thursday Wikipedia really needs you. ![]() This news may surprise donors and users around the world who have seen Wikipedia fundraising banners displayed at various times during the past year-including, for the first time, in India. In just the first nine months of its current financial year, it has raked in $142 million in donations according to an internal document-and already obliterated its previous annual record. Its total funds, which have risen by about $200 million over the past five years, now stand at around $300 million. The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the non-profit that owns Wikipedia and other volunteer-written websites, is about to reach its 10-year goal of creating a $100 million endowment five years earlier than it planned.
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