Wikimedia Foundation
 |
 | |
| Abbreviation | WMF |
|---|---|
| Founded | June 20, 2003, 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) | |
Region served | Worldwide (banned in some territories) |
| Products | Wikipedia, MediaWiki, Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wikifunctions, Wikimedia Commons, Wikinews (discontinued), Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, Wiktionary |
| Members | Board-only |
CEO | Bernadette Meehan |
| Revenue |
|
| Expenses |
|
| Endowment | $169.4 million (2025) |
| Employees | 650 (2025)[2] |
| Volunteers | 277,000 (2024) |
| Website |
|
| ASNs | 14907, 11820 |
| [3][4][5][6][7] | |
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.[8] It is most known for hosting Wikipedia, one of the world's most visited websites. It also hosts and operates 14 related open collaboration projects, and supports the development of MediaWiki, which is the wiki software that underpins them.[9][10][11] The foundation was established in 2003 in St. Petersburg, Florida by Jimmy Wales, as a nonprofit way to fund Wikipedia and other wiki projects[3] that had previously been hosted by Bomis, Wales's for-profit company.[3]
It is structured as a charitable institution. Plus, it also functions independently of advertising and paywalls, relying on millions of individual donations.[3] 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.[12] The foundation does not write or curate any of the content of any associated projects.[13] 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, and user groups.
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.[14] These are complemented by grants from philanthropic organizations and tech companies and, since 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 that has surpassed $100 million.
History
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,[15] so the idea of setting up a charitable foundation gained prominence.[16] That addressed an open question of what entity should hold onto the project's trademarks.
The Wikimedia Foundation was incorporated in St. Petersburg, Florida, on June 20, 2003.[3][17][18] A small fundraising campaign to keep the servers running was run in October 2003.[19] 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.[20] Its National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) code is B60 (Adult, Continuing education).[21][22]
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.[23]
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.[24]
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.[25][26][27] The move was completed by January 31, 2008, into a headquarters on Stillman Street in San Francisco.[28] It later moved to New Montgomery Street, and then in 2017 to One Montgomery Tower.[29]
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