Wikimedia Foundation

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Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Wikimedia Foundation logo - vertical.svg
AbbreviationWMF
FoundedJune 20, 2003; 18 years ago (2003-06-20)
St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.
FounderJimmy Wales
Type501(c)(3), charitable organization
20-0049703[1]
FocusFree, open-content, wiki-based Internet projects
Location
Area served
Worldwide
ProductsWikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, MediaWiki
Membership
Board-only
Key people
María Sefidari (Chair of the board)[3]
Katherine Maher (Executive director)
Revenue
Expenses
  • Increase US$81.4 million (2018)
  • 69.1 million (2017)[4]
Endowment (2019)US $35 million[5]
Employees
~301 staff/contractors (as of August 8, 2018)[6]
WebsiteWikimediaFoundation.org

The Wikimedia Foundation is an American non-profit foundation. Their main headquarters is in San Francisco in the United States. The Wikimedia Foundation runs many projects using the wiki idea and the MediaWiki software. These projects include Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, and Meta-Wiki.[7]

There are many other wikis related to the foundation, but these are mostly smaller projects. They include the Wikimedia Foundation wiki, the MediaWiki wiki, the Test Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Incubator, Bugzilla, and the Wikimania wiki.

The foundation's creation was officially announced by Wikipedia co-founder[8][9] Jimmy Wales, who was running Wikipedia within his company Bomis, on June 20, 2003.

The foundation gets most of its funds from donations, as it is nonprofit. It also looks for grants. Some companies have helped Wikimedia by giving free computer hardware, and by hosting servers. Since people can write the wikis, Wikimedia projects are free to use. Funds are used to run computer servers and to pay staff. The Foundation had 160 employees in 2013.

In 2013, Sue Gardner was the executive director.[10]

In 2015, Patricio Lorente was the Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board.[11]

In 2016, Katherine Maher became the executive director.

In 2018, María Sefidari is chair of the board.[3]

The different boards[change | change source]

Board of Trustees[change | change source]

Board members at Wikimania 2009 in Buenos Aires

The Board of Trustees in charge of all the affairs of the Foundation has ten members:

  • four who are appointed by the Board itself;
  • three who are selected by the community of all the different Wikimedia projects;
  • two who are selected by the local chapters and thematic organizations;
  • and one emeritus for the foundation's founder, Jimmy Wales.

The Signpost reported that two new trustees were elected in 2019:

  • Nataliia Tymkiv, user:antanana (English or Ukrainian)
  • Shani Evenstein, user:Esh77 i(English or Hebrew)[12]

Advisory Board[change | change source]

The Foundation also has an Advisory Board, an international network of experts who have agreed to give the foundation meaningful help on a regular basis in many different areas, including law, organizational development, technology, policy, and outreach.[13]

References[change | change source]

  1. ↑ "2014 Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (form 990)" (PDF). WMF (Public Inspection Copy). 11 May 2016. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 14, 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  2. ↑ "Contact us - Wikimedia Foundation". Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on June 25, 2017. Retrieved 8 June 2017.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Wikimedia Foundation. "Wikimedia Foundation announces Tanya Capuano as new Trustee, alongside leadership appointments at 14th annual Wikimania". Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on July 20, 2018. Retrieved July 21, 2018.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, Financial Statements, June 30, 2018 and 2017" (PDF). Wikimedia Foundation. September 26, 2018. Retrieved September 29, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ↑ Brent, Marc (24 April 2019). "Peter Baldwin, Lisbet Rausing give an additional $3.5 million to the Wikimedia Endowment". Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on April 25, 2019. Retrieved April 25, 2019. With their gifts, the Endowment has now increased to more than $35 million and have moved us that much closer to our goal of $100 million.
  6. ↑ "Staff and contractors page (Wikimedia Foundation website)". Wikimedia Foundation. September 21, 2017. Archived from the original on June 2, 2016. Retrieved August 8, 2018.
  7. ↑ List of Wikimedia wikis on Meta
  8. ↑ Meyers, Peter (2001-09-20). "Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-31. It's kind of surprising that you could just open up a site and let people work," said Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder and the chief executive of Bomis, a San Diego search engine company that donates the computer resources for the project.
  9. ↑ Bergstein, Brian (2007-03-25). "Sanger says he co-started Wikipedia". ABC News. Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-07-31. The nascent Web encyclopedia Citizendium springs from Larry Sanger, a philosophy Ph.D. who counts himself as a co-founder of Wikipedia, the site he now hopes to usurp. The claim doesn't seem particularly controversial — Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder. Yet the other founder, Jimmy Wales, isn't happy about it.
  10. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/magazine/jimmy-wales-is-not-an-internet-billionaire.html
  11. ↑ Cbrown1023. "Board of Trustees". Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
  12. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-06-30/Op-Ed
  13. ↑ "Advisory Board". Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on 2018-01-31. Retrieved 2009-10-07.

Other websites[change | change source]

Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation&oldid=8056694"