Wikimedia Foundation

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For the project page on the foundation itself, see Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Wikimedia Foundation logo - vertical.svg
AbbreviationWMF
FoundedJune 20, 2003; 15 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
  • Negative increase US$ 69.1 million (2017)
  • 66 million (2016)[4]
Endowment (2019)US $35 million[5]
Employees
~301 staff/contractors (as of August 8, 2018)[6]
Websitewikimediafoundation.org

The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF, or simply Wikimedia) is an American non-profit and charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California.[7] It is mostly known for participating in the Wikimedia movement. It owns the internet domain names of most movement projects and hosts sites like Wikipedia. The foundation was founded in 2003 by Jimmy Wales as a way to fund Wikipedia and its sibling projects through non-profit means.[8][9]

As of 2017, the foundation employs over 300 people, with annual revenues in excess of US$109.9 million.[10] María Sefidari is chair of the board.[3] Katherine Maher has been the executive director since March 2016.

Goal

The Wikimedia Foundation has the stated goal of developing and maintaining open content, wiki-based projects and providing the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge.[11] Another main objective of the Wikimedia Foundation is political advocacy.[12]

The Wikimedia Foundation was granted section 501(c)(3) status by the U.S. Internal Revenue Code as a public charity in 2005.[13] Its National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) code is B60 (Adult, Continuing education).[14][15] The foundation's by-laws declare a statement of purpose of collecting and developing educational content and to disseminate it effectively and globally.[16]