California · Nonprofit
WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC
WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC (California) receives grants from 1234 organizations whose IRS filings report $100,864,786 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($26,326,464). 719 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 72% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $205M
- Funders on record
- 1,234
- Grants received
- $101M
- Net assets
- $297M
What Wikimedia Foundation Inc does
Mission
The mission of the wikimedia foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. (see schedule o)in coordination with a network of individual volunteers and our independent movement organizations, including recognized chapters, thematic organizations, user groups, and partners, the foundation provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects and other endeavors which serve this mission. The foundation will make and keep useful information from its projects available on the internet free of charge.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Technology: our core functions include support for the technology that makes wikipedia and other wikimedia projects possible, which together is one of the world's most popular web platforms, and the world's largest collaborative free knowledge project. The wikimedia foundation provides the servers and electricity needed to keep the websites running, along with dedicated technical resources to build, improve, and maintain the technical infrastructure of wikimedia projects. These ongoing engineering efforts and product improvements require research and design work, as well as legal support. All of this allows for the best experience for our readers and volunteer community, ensuring users continue to access, contribute to and grow the world's largest online free knowledge resource. (see schedule o)in addition to our two main data centers and five caching data centers, we maintain the software and infrastructure on which we operate some of the world's most multilingual sites with over 1,000 separate wiki instances and over 3,800 community-contributed tools, many of which are essential to maintaining the content and quality of wikipedia, as well as seven mobile applications. Wikipedia…
$85,835,166 spent59% of program spendingSupport for volunteers: the wikimedia foundation support for volunteers focuses on sustaining and growing the wikimedia projects and contributor communities around the world. Grantmaking provides funding to wikimedia affiliate organizations, as well as other mission-aligned organizations and individuals for programmatic work that advances wikimedia's free knowledge mission. Other activities include partnerships to position wikimedia as a key player in the free knowledge ecosystem, trust and safety to protect online contributor communities, legal and advocacy to raise awareness about and defend the wikimedia model worldwide, and communications to build trust and affinity with wikimedia's global audiences.
$60,447,868 spentof which $29,021,576 as grants41% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $146,283,034.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 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 2020 to 2021, from $191M to $240M (+26%).
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.
91% of WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (14% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 9 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.
Chief executive
Maryana Iskander
Chief executive officer
Board chair
Nataliia Tymkiv
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 223 funders to 471 funders, grant income rose $4.7M → $20M.
80 of 1234 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 72% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $5.7M from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Wikimedia Endowment); $15k from one payer (the payer's own filing calls it a related party, largest The Halperin Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC raised.
From the IRS filings of WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 1234 funders by total. 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
WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 26% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
76% 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 WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 49% · 2018 40% · 2019 50% · 2020 31% · 2021 21% · 2022 23% · 2023 21% — 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.
How long its funders stay
43% of WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 58% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
72% of WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $28M that is directly attributable, 68% of it comes from funders outside California, across 50 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $73M arriving through sponsors registered in 28 states 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
WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 679 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 679 education nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Organizations like WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC
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
77% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
95%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 28 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Wikimedia LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC: 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 WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC?
- WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC (California) receives grants from 1234 organizations whose IRS filings report $100,864,786 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($26,326,464). 719 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 72% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC have?
- IRS filings report 1234 organizations giving $100,864,786 in grants to WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC, 719 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $26,326,464 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC 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.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 1234 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