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The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is the parent organization of various free-content projects, most notably Wikipedia, the award-winning online encyclopedia.

What is the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation ?

This page has been moved to wikimediafoundation.org at: about/mission
Please visit the page at its new location. Thank you!

See also our bylaws, vision, and values.

Are you a charity?

Wikimedia is a non-profit charitable corporation organized under the laws of Florida, USA and physically located in San Francisco, California, USA. Fully audited, The Wikimedia Foundation is now listed as a charitable organization at Guidestar and its partner sites. The Wikimedia Foundation has 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in the United States.

The existence of the Wikimedia Foundation was officially announced by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on June 20, 2003. The bylaws of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. are available online.

Which projects do you support?

The Wikimedia Foundation supports Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia and one of the 10 most visited websites world-wide. From the founding of Wikipedia in January 2001, and the incorporation of the Wikimedia Foundation in June 2003, our growth has been staggering. The English-language Wikipedia, our first project, has expanded from 135,000 articles at the time of incorporation to more than Template:EN-WP-COUNT articles today. All Wikipedia languages combined contain more than Template:ALL-WP-COUNT articles.

The Wikimedia Foundation also operates several projects beside Wikipedia, such as Wikimedia Commons, the repository of free images and other media, which contains more than Template:COMMONS-MEDIA-COUNT images, videos, and sound files. We also lead and support the development of MediaWiki, the open source wiki software behind almost all our public websites.

More information may be found on the page about our projects.

How is the Foundation run?

The Wikimedia Foundation has a staff of Template:STAFF-COUNT, led by the Executive Director, Sue Gardner. The staff supports the work of the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who contribute content to the Wikimedia communities. It is also supported by countless volunteers participating through committees, as interns, or on an ad hoc basis.

The Board of Trustees articulates the mission and vision of the Wikimedia Foundation, reviews and helps to develop long term plans, provides oversight, and supports the Wikimedia Foundation's fundraising efforts. It is the ultimate organizational authority of the Wikimedia Foundation as defined in its bylaws. See Meetings for published Board minutes and Resolutions for published Board resolutions. The Board is partially elected from the community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects.

We have one office, located in San Francisco, California (USA), where most of our employees are working. All other board members and staff work remotely.

We strive to operate highly transparently, and have published key policies and financial information.

Who are the members of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees?

Biographies and terms of current board members can be found at Board.

The Board is supported by an Advisory Board, chaired by Angela Beesley.

Who are the members of the Wikimedia Foundation Staff?

Information about the current staff can be found at Staff.

How does the Foundation serve its mission?

There are several key ways:

The Wikimedia Foundation owns the more than 300 servers used to run our projects, along with all the associated domain names and trademarks. It keeps the projects free of charge and free of advertising.
We support strategic software development work on the MediaWiki software and associated tools which allow more people to participate, or allow the existing volunteer community to work more effectively. This includes tools specifically related to quality assurance.
We develop learning resources, support workshops and strive to think intelligently about other ways to bring in new contributors, and to grow Wikimedia as an international movement for free knowledge.
We try to bring the educational content from Wikimedia's projects to people in as many forms as possible. In particular, we want to help disadvantaged communities with limited connectivity to access free educational content, and to contribute to it.

In all this, we are supported by local chapters organized in many different countries.

How is the revenue spent?

A detailed overview of our planned spending can be found in our financial reports.

Where does the money come from?

Wikimedia is funded primarily through donations by tens of thousands of individuals, but also through several grants and gifts of servers and hosting (see benefactors).

The Wikimedia Foundation receives donations from more than 50 countries around the world. Most of the donations to WMF come from English-speaking countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia). Though individual donations are relatively small, their sheer numbers have ensured our success.

We are presently not considering advertising as a source of revenue.

The Wikimedia Foundation has 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in the United States. Donations made from other nations may also be tax deductible. See deductibility of donations for details. Please see our fundraising page for details of making donations via PayPal, MoneyBookers or by postal mail. For all other types of donation, please contact Sue Gardner at sgardnerwikimedia.org.

Do you have audited financial statements?

Our financial statements have been audited for fiscal years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Gregory Sharer & Stuart [1] and are compliant with generally accepted accounting principles.

Links to the financial statements: Financial statements 2006-2007

Latest financial information may be found at Finance report.

What is Wikia? Is it part of Wikipedia? Is it one of the Wikimedia Foundation projects?

Wikia, Inc. is a for-profit company which is completely separate from the Wikimedia Foundation. It was founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Wales is also the founder of the Wikimedia Foundation, and Beesley chairs its Advisory Board. Wikia uses the MediaWiki software developed for Wikipedia in order to allow individuals to create their own wiki communities. These wiki communities are supported by advertising. Wikia is also developing a search engine.

Wikimedia and Wikia have a healthy relationship, and people from one often contribute to the other. They are, however, completely separate. Wikimedia is a non-profit funded through donations, while Wikia is a for-profit funded through advertising. The two organizations are sometimes confused in media reports, since they share a founder.

What is Wikimania? Is it a Wikimedia project?

Wikimania is an annual conference organized by Wikimedia volunteers across the world. Its primary purpose is for the Wikimedia contributors to meet, and it is also an opportunity to raise awareness of the international movement for free knowledge. While not technically a Wikimedia project, the Foundation sponsors and assists the conference team in promotion, hosting, and financial issues. See Wikimania for more details about this conference.

How can I contact the Foundation?

See the Contact us page for details.

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 The '''Wikimedia Foundation Inc.''' is the parent organization of various [[Our projects|free-content projects]], most notably [http://www.wikipedia.org Wikipedia], the award-winning online encyclopedia.
-== What is the mission of the Foundation ? ==
+== What is the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation ? ==
+{{:Mission statement}}
-The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a [[w:en:free content|free content license]] or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
-In collaboration with a [[Local chapters|network of chapters]], the Foundation provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki [[our projects|projects]] and other endeavors which serve this mission. The Foundation will make and keep useful information from its projects available on the Internet [[w:en:gratis|free of charge]], in perpetuity.
-See also our [[mission statement]].
 ==Are you a charity?==
-Wikimedia is a [[w:en:non-profit|non-profit]] charitable corporation organized under the laws of [[w:en:Florida|Florida]], [[w:en:United States|USA]]. Fully audited, The Wikimedia Foundation is now listed as a charitable organization at [http://www.guidestar.org Guidestar] and
+Wikimedia is a [[w:en:non-profit|non-profit]] charitable corporation organized under the laws of [[w:en:Florida|Florida]], [[w:en:United States|USA]] and physically located in San Francisco, California, USA. Fully audited, The Wikimedia Foundation is now listed as a charitable organization at [http://www.guidestar.org Guidestar] and its partner sites. The Wikimedia Foundation has 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in the United States.
-its partner sites. The Wikimedia Foundation has 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in the United States.
 <!--Previous forms 990 are available for our organization at [[form 990]]. -->The existence of the Wikimedia Foundation was [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-June/010743.html officially announced] by Wikipedia founder [[Board of Trustees#Jimmy_Wales|Jimmy Wales]] on June 20, 2003.  The [[Wikimedia Foundation bylaws|bylaws of Wikimedia Foundation Inc.]] are available online.
@@ Line 20: / Line 15: @@
 ==Which projects do you support?==
-WMF supports Wikipedia, the famous online encyclopedia, which was among the 10 most visited websites in the world in mid-2007. From the founding of Wikipedia in January 2001, and the incorporation of the Wikimedia Foundation in June 2003, our growth has been staggering. The English-language Wikipedia, our first project, has expanded from 135,000 articles at the time of incorporation to 1.8 million articles today. Wikipedias in 8 other languages boast over 250,000 articles of their own.
+The Wikimedia Foundation supports Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia and one of the 10 most visited websites world-wide. From the founding of Wikipedia in January 2001, and the incorporation of the Wikimedia Foundation in June 2003, our growth has been staggering. The English-language Wikipedia, our first project, has expanded from 135,000 articles at the time of incorporation to more than {{EN-WP-COUNT}} articles today. All Wikipedia languages combined contain more than {{ALL-WP-COUNT}} articles.
-However, the Foundation also operates several projects beside Wikipedia, such as Wikimedia Commons, the repository of free images and other media, which surpassed 1 million images in November 2006. Wiktionary, the free dictionary, has 8 dictionaries with more than 50,000 entries, three of which have more than 200,000 definitions. Wikisource, an original source repository, is nearing 150,000 pages of content. Wikiquote (quotations), Wikibooks (collaboratively written books), Wikinews (citizen journalism), and Wikiversity (curriculum development) all continue to grow along the same trend line.
+The Wikimedia Foundation also operates several projects beside Wikipedia, such as Wikimedia Commons, the repository of free images and other media, which contains more than {{COMMONS-MEDIA-COUNT}} images, videos, and sound files. We also lead and support the development of [http://mediawiki.org/ MediaWiki], the open source wiki software behind almost all our public websites.
+More information may be found on the page about [[our projects]].
-Overall, our projects have more than 7.8 million pages, 2.2 million images, and 5 million registered accounts.
-Wikitravel, Omegawiki and Wikia are separate wikis which are ''not'' managed by the Wikimedia Foundation.
-More information may be found at [[our projects]]. For example, here is a report on the [[Danny Wool on Wikisource|state of Wikisource]].
 ==How is the Foundation run? ==
+The Wikimedia Foundation has a [[staff]] of {{STAFF-COUNT}}, led by the Executive Director, Sue Gardner. The staff
-The Wikimedia Board of Trustees manages the nonprofit organization and supervises the solicitation and disposition of donations. The Board of Trustees is the ultimate corporate authority in the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. (article IV, sec. 1 of the [[Wikimedia Foundation bylaws]]). The Board has the power to direct the activities of the foundation.
+supports the work of the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who contribute content to the Wikimedia communities. It is also supported by countless volunteers participating through committees, as interns, or on an ''ad hoc'' basis.
+The [[Board of Trustees]] articulates the mission and vision of the Wikimedia Foundation, reviews and helps to develop long term plans, provides oversight, and supports the Wikimedia Foundation's fundraising efforts. It is the ultimate organizational authority of the Wikimedia Foundation as defined in its bylaws. See [[Meetings]] for published Board minutes and [[Resolutions]] for published Board resolutions. The Board is partially elected from the community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects.
-This site includes a complete list of [[meetings|notes from Board meetings]] till the end of 2005.
+We have one office, located in San Francisco, California (USA), where most of our employees are working. All other board members and staff work remotely.
-In 2006, we switched to a dual system, featuring both meeting minutes (usually not published), and [[resolutions]]. We also set up a collection of [[m:Wikimedia committees|committees]] and hired our first Executive Director, Brad Patrick, in June 2006. Most of the interaction between board members, staff, committee members, developers and community happens online, on our wikis, on mailing lists, and through electronic chat (IRC). We do, however, have face to face opportunities, during [[Wikimania]] (our annual conference), during [[Retreat 2006 Board actions and outcomes|board retreat]]s or real life board meetings.
+We strive to operate highly transparently, and have published [[policies|key policies]] and [[finance report|financial information]].
-We have only one office, located in San Francisco, California (USA), where several of our employees are working. All other board members and staff work remotely. The [[current staff|staff]] is eleven people (as of mid-2007); this does not include the many volunteers, from board members to proofreaders.
-At the end of 2006, major changes in the organization took place, including four new board members in three months, change of the chair of the Foundation, setup of an [[Advisory Board|advisory board]], and revised bylaws.
-More information about Foundation activity may be found at
-*[[Policies]]
-*[[Resolutions]]
-*[[Chair letters and appeals]]
 ==Who are the members of Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees? ==
+Biographies and terms of current board members can be found at [[Board]].
-In January 2004, Jimmy Wales appointed Tim Shell and Michael Davis to the [[Board of Trustees]] of the Wikimedia Foundation and later made a call for candidates for community representatives [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-March/014868.html]. In June 2004, an election was held for two user representative Board members. Following one month of campaigning and two weeks of online voting, Angela Beesley and Florence Nibart-Devouard were elected to join the board. They were reelected the following year in July 2005.
+The Board is supported by an [[Advisory Board]], chaired by Angela Beesley.
-In July 2006, Angela Beesley announced her resignation and in September 2006, Erik Möller was elected as her replacement. In October 2006, Florence Devouard became the new chair. In December 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation appointed two new board members, Kat Walsh and Oscar van Dillen. Tim Shell chose to resign from the board and was replaced by Jan-Bart de Vreede, who was appointed vice-chair. In July 2007, an election was held for the expiring terms of Möller, Walsh, and van Dillen. Möller and Walsh both kept their seats, and van Dillen was replaced with Frieda Brioschi. End of 2007, Erik Moeller and Michael Davis left the board, and February 2008, Michael Snow and Domas Mituzas were appointed. In April 2008, Stuart West was appointed as a member and the new treasurer.
+== Who are the members of the Wikimedia Foundation Staff? ==
-As of April 2008, the list of board members is
+Information about the current staff can be found at [[Staff]].
-* Frieda Brioschi
-* Florence Devouard (chair)
-* Domas Mituzas
-* Michael Snow
-* Jan-Bart de Vreede (vice chair)
-* Jimmy Wales
-* Kat Walsh
-* Stuart West (treasurer)
-Biographies and terms of current board members may be found at [[Board]].
 ==How does the Foundation serve its mission?==
+There are several key ways:
-First, the Wikimedia Foundation owns the [[m:Wikimedia servers/hardware orders|Wikimedia servers]] along with the domain names and trademarks of all Wikimedia projects and the MediaWiki software. It generally supports all the costs of having the projects up and in working order. Contributors retain the copyright to their own content but must release it under a free license, most commonly the [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html GNU Free Documentation License], allowing anyone to continue to use it for any purpose, in perpetuity. Through this principle of [[w:free content|free content]], we ensure that our work will never be lost to humankind.
+* The Wikimedia Foundation owns the more than 300 servers used to run our projects, along with all the associated domain names and trademarks. It keeps the projects free of charge and free of advertising.
+* We support strategic software development work on the MediaWiki software and associated tools which allow more people to participate, or allow the existing volunteer community to work more effectively. This includes tools specifically related to quality assurance.
+* We develop learning resources, support workshops and strive to think intelligently about other ways to bring in new contributors, and to grow Wikimedia as an international movement for free knowledge.
+* We try to bring the educational content from Wikimedia's projects to people in as many forms as possible. In particular, we want to help disadvantaged communities with limited connectivity to access free educational content, and to contribute to it.
+In all this, we are supported by [[local chapters]] organized in many different countries.
-The Foundation also plays an important innovative part in further developing the projects, connecting people, promoting collaboration with other parties, and so on. In particular, each of [[our projects]] has unique technological requirements, which are met by our small but efficient team of software developers. The highest priority in 2007 will be a renewed focus on quality assurance. This will include mechanisms to identify trusted versions of content such as Wikipedia articles.
-Ensuring success in all endeavors of the Foundation will make it necessary to collaborate with organizations and companies around the planet. Our financial planning includes professional staff who will pursue such strategic partnerships, as well as coordinate our growing network of [[Local chapters|chapter organizations]] in various countries.
 ==How is the revenue spent?==
+A detailed overview of our planned spending can be found in our [[finance report|financial reports]].
-The majority of WMF expenditures support our programs. Foremost are our expenses for the hardware and bandwidth that keep our websites up and running.
-The single greatest expenditure for WMF is hardware, followed by hosting and bandwidth costs. The WMF has seen its inventory of [[meta:Wikimedia servers|computer hardware]] increase steadily to meet demand. Here is a frequently updated status of this hardware: [[meta:Wikimedia hardware status|Wikimedia hardware status]].
-The main reason for the increase is our growth in traffic. At the end of the year 2006, Comscore listed "Wikipedia Sites" as the number six site in the world, measured by unique visitors (*). Wikipedia, our flagship website, received about 285,000 page views per minute. The WMF is concerned about the capitalization and operational commitments necessary to keep these systems running reliably. These costs alone will exceed $2.5 million in the year 2007.<br/>
-<small>(*) Excludes traffic from mobile phones, PDAs, and public computers such as Internet cafes.</small>
-Domain registration and trademarks are another part of Wikimedia's expenditures. The Foundation already owns some of its active and secondary/tangentially-related [[w:en:domain names|domain names]], while others are still free or already owned.
-Due to the increase in [[current staff|office staff]], administrative costs increased. Overall, however, the allocation of expenses for fundraising is low, due to WMF's reliance on online donations for the majority of its revenue. WMF does not engage in "direct mail" advertising campaigns. Given WMF's presence online, it makes sense to communicate and ask for donations in the same virtual space. To date, it has been effective.
-Costs have been kept low in the past three years, in particular because the largest majority of people helping are volunteers.
-See also: [[Planned Spending Distribution 2007-2008]]
 ==Where does the money come from?==
-As of July 2007, Wikimedia is funded primarily through private donations, but also through several grants and gifts of servers and hosting (see [[benefactors]]).
+Wikimedia is funded primarily through [[Donate|donations]] by tens of thousands of individuals, but also through several grants and gifts of servers and hosting (see [[benefactors]]).
-The WMF receives donations from more than 50 countries around the world.  Most of the donations to WMF come from English-speaking countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia).  Over half of these donations are anonymous.  Though individual donations are relatively small, their sheer numbers have ensured our success.
+The Wikimedia Foundation receives donations from more than 50 countries around the world.  Most of the donations to WMF come from English-speaking countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia). Though individual donations are relatively small, their sheer numbers have ensured our success.
+We are presently not considering advertising as a source of revenue.
-The Wikimedia Foundation aims to increase revenue by finding alternative means of support, including grants and sponsorship as well as selling WikiReaders (textbook or PDF versions of articles from Wikipedia).  There has also been discussion of selling a print version of a significant portion of Wikipedia, such as a "Wikipedia 1.0" project.
-We are presently not using advertising as a source of revenue.
 The Wikimedia Foundation has 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in the United States. Donations made from other nations may also be tax deductible. See [[deductibility of donations]] for details. Please see our [[fundraising]] page for details of making donations via PayPal, MoneyBookers or by postal mail. For all other types of donation, please contact Sue Gardner at <tt>sgardner[[Image:At sign.svg|14px| (at) ]]wikimedia.org</tt>.
@@ Line 108: / Line 71: @@
 Links to the financial statements: [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Image:Wikimedia_2007_fs.pdf Financial statements 2006-2007]
 Latest financial information may be found at [[Finance report]].
 == What is Wikia? Is it part of Wikipedia? Is it one of the Wikimedia Foundation projects? ==
-The Wikimedia Foundation is a registered not-for profit dedicated to the development and promotion of  free content. In 2004, Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley founded Wikia, Inc. with the idea of using the same model as the Wikimedia projects to create a vast collection of wikis devoted to content that does not fit the model of any Wikimedia project. Among the initial members of Wikia were Jimmy Wales, Angela Beesley, and Michael Davis, who at the time were three board members of the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikia is, however, a completely separate company.
+Wikia, Inc. is a for-profit company which is completely separate from the Wikimedia Foundation. It was founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. Wales is also the founder of the Wikimedia Foundation, and Beesley chairs its [[Advisory Board]]. Wikia uses the MediaWiki software developed for Wikipedia in order to allow individuals to create their own wiki communities. These wiki communities are supported by advertising. Wikia is also developing a search engine.
+Wikimedia and Wikia have a healthy relationship, and people from one often contribute to the other. They are, however, completely separate. Wikimedia is a non-profit funded through donations, while Wikia is a for-profit funded through advertising. The two organizations are sometimes confused in media reports, since they share a founder.
-In some ways Wikia sites are similar to Wikipedia: both offer free content which anyone can edit.  In others ways they are different: Wikia tends to have more specialized content, and features fan guides, travel information, how-to wikis, and Uncyclopedia, a popular parody of Wikipedia. Unlike Wikipedia, which is funded by donations, Wikia is funded by investors and by advertising.
+== What is Wikimania? Is it a Wikimedia project? ==
-Wikimedia and Wikia have a healthy relationship, and people from one often contribute to the other. They are, however, separate companies with different business models.
+Wikimania is an annual conference organized by Wikimedia volunteers across the world. Its primary purpose is for the Wikimedia contributors to meet, and it is also an opportunity to raise awareness of the international movement for free knowledge. While not technically a Wikimedia project, the Foundation sponsors and assists the conference team in promotion, hosting, and financial issues. See [[Wikimania]] for more details about this conference.
-See [[Press releases/Wikia, Inc. is not the commercial counterpart to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation|Wikia, Inc is not the commercial counterpart to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation]] for further details on the relationships between Wikia and Wikimedia.
-== What is Wikimania? Is it a Wikimedia project? ==
-Wikimania is an annual conference organized by Wikimedia volunteers across the world. While not technically a Wikimedia project, the Foundation sponsors and assists the conference team in promotion, hosting, and financial issues. See [[Wikimania]] for more details about this conference.
 == How can I contact the Foundation? ==
-See the "[[Contact us]]" page for details.
+See the ''[[Contact us]]'' page for details.
 [[Category:About Wikimedia|*]]