California · Nonprofit
Whose Knowledge Question Mark
Whose Knowledge Question Mark (California) receives grants from 4 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,049,112 to it, the largest being WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC ($781,612). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $3.0M
- Funders on record
- 4
- Grants received
- $1.0M
- Net assets
- $1.7M
What Whose Knowledge Question Mark does
Mission
We are a global campaign to center the knowledge of marginalized communities (the majority of the world) on the internet.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Honoring Our Guardians - Activities 2023 Through our Honouring Our Guardians program, the Guardians have been meeting online regularly throughout 2023 as a bilingual group across multiple time zones; English/Brazilian Portuguese (with simultaneous interpretation) with the Guardians from the Yomba Valley, Turtle Island (United States), the Great Ocean States of the Pacific (Fiji and Aotearoa/New Zealand), and the (Brazilian) Amazon. The space grew out of the need to specifically have Indigenous women from across the world meet to reflect on knowledge and climate justice, from their own place-based work, but also in collective solidarity. We also began to explore the intersections of this work with digital justice, including the possibilities of Indigenous leadership in an ecologically sound internet. In September 2023, we gathered with Indigenous women from the Pacific Islands and the Brazilian Amazon to reflect on the program, and join the III Indigenous Women's March: Women Biomes in Defense of Biodiversity through Ancestral Roots. The march gathered over 8,000 women from the 247 Indigenous peoples in Brazil, as well as international allies. We were in solidarity with our…
$231,939 spent22% of program spendingLiberatory Archives and Memory (formerly Whose Digital Archives) - Activities 2023 We welcomed Sally Al-Haq to our team as a co-lead for our program Liberatory Archives and Memory (LAM). LAM is a broad container for reimagining the archive and sites of memory as powerful spaces and acts of resistance, healing, and transformation. It includes the Whose (Digital) Archives? initiative in the United Kingdom and our work globally. Central to the program are the infrastructures of (liberatory) archives and memory in imagining alternatives to Big Knowledge (archives, museums, libraries and other memory institutions such as academic and publishing) and their infrastructures. We have been building a network of community archivists and historians across the Global Majority, mapping connections in different contexts. In collaboration with Shubra Archives in Cairo, we presented an introductory session on Liberatory Archives in Arabic. We are expanding our advisory circle for archives globally through exploratory conversations with community-led initiatives across Global Majority World, and we are connecting with a constellation of foundational scholars in the Liberatory Archives field. We…
$194,760 spent$2,663 earned by the program19% of program spendingLanguage Justice (formerly State of the Internets Languages) -Activities 2023 In celebration of the International Mother Language Day, we published the International Sign (IS) translation of the State of the Internet's Languages (STIL) summary report on February 21st, 2023. It comprises a series of 19 short videos, signaled by deaf interpreters, researchers, advocates for sign language, and translators Laura Lesmana Wijaya and Razaq Fakir, from Southeast Asia and Africa respectively. The videos are hosted in the STIL website and, as part of our open knowledge practices, they are also available for download via archive.org. As part of the STIL report, the videos are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. We balance openness of content with the dignity and security of marginalized communities, and we chose this license because the STIL report includes work from and with communities who have historically seen their knowledge exploited by others. This is our way to respect all that they generously shared with us and the world. We started two research-in-action processes to look at critical language justice issues online:…
$186,445 spent18% of program spendingOTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 4: Liberatory Archives and Memory (formerly Whose Digital Archives) - Activities 2023 We welcomed Sally Al-Haq to our team as a co-lead for our program Liberatory Archives and Memory (LAM). LAM is a broad container for reimagining the archive and sites of memory as powerful spaces and acts of resistance, healing, and transformation. It includes the Whose (Digital) Archives? initiative in the United Kingdom and our work globally. Central to the program are the infrastructures of (liberatory) archives and memory in imagining alternatives to Big Knowledge (archives, museums, libraries and other memory institutions such as academic and publishing) and their infrastructures. We have been building a network of community archivists and historians across the Global Majority, mapping connections in different contexts. In collaboration with Shubra Archives in Cairo, we presented an introductory session on Liberatory Archives in Arabic. We are expanding our advisory circle for archives globally through exploratory conversations with community-led initiatives across Global Majority World, and we are connecting with a constellation of foundational scholars in the…
$432,144 spent$103,375 earned by the program41% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2023 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,045,288.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2021, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2021, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $483k to $1.6M (+223%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
99% of Whose Knowledge Question Mark’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (97% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 4 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Board chair
Camille E Acey
Board Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2022 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 3 funders, grant income rose $219k → $339k.
1 of 4 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 9% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of Whose Knowledge Question Mark’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
Whose Knowledge Question Mark leans on a few funders — its largest provides 75% of grant income and the top three 93%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
93% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund Whose Knowledge Question Mark.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2022 77% · 2023 58% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Where its funders are
92% of Whose Knowledge Question Mark's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $93k arriving through sponsors registered in 1 state is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
Whose Knowledge Question Mark runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 976 civil rights nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 976 civil rights nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like Whose Knowledge Question Mark
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
67% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
0%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Whose Knowledge UK Cmmunity Int Company · partnership
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Whose Knowledge Question Mark: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Whose Knowledge Question Mark?
- Whose Knowledge Question Mark (California) receives grants from 4 organizations whose IRS filings report $1,049,112 to it, the largest being WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC ($781,612). 2 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Whose Knowledge Question Mark have?
- IRS filings report 4 organizations giving $1,049,112 in grants to Whose Knowledge Question Mark, 2 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Whose Knowledge Question Mark?
- WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC is the largest funder on record, with $781,612 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Whose Knowledge Question Mark find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Whose Knowledge Question Mark →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2021–2024), and the filings of 4 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing