Frequently asked questions

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    This page lists frequently asked questions about the Wikimedia Foundation. Other questions are answered here. If you do not find your question answered here or there, please feel free to contact us.

    In a nutshell, what is Wikipedia? And what is the Wikimedia Foundation?

    Wikipedia is the world's largest and most popular encyclopedia. It's online, free to use for any purpose, and free of advertising. Wikipedia contains more than 51 million volunteer-authored articles in over 309 languages, and is visited by more than 430 million people every month, making it one of the most popular sites in the world.

    It is a collaborative creation that has been added to and edited by millions of people during the past ten years: anyone can edit it, at any time. It has become the largest collection of shared knowledge in human history. The people who support it are united by their love of learning, their intellectual curiosity, and their awareness that we know much more together, than any of us does alone.

    The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects. Together these sites are the fifth most visited web property in the world. The Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA. You can review our letter of tax-exemption and our financial reports and annual filings.

    Our mission is to empower a global volunteer community to collect and develop the world's knowledge and to make it available to everyone for free, for any purpose. We work together with a network of chapters in many different countries to achieve this goal.

    If I donate to the Wikimedia Foundation, where does my money go?

    Money you donate pays for staff salaries and technology. Even though Wikipedia and its sister projects together reach 430 million people every month, we employ only Template:STAFF-COUNT people; see our staff overview.

    Our staff is divided into three program departments: technology (website operations, software development); community (public outreach, reader relations and community programs, fundraising), and global development (supporting chapter programs and growing Wikimedia worldwide). The remainder of our staff work in management, finance, and administration, which includes legal protection of our work. Your support also pays for servers, bandwidth, and Internet hosting that allow us to keep Wikimedia's projects running and growing. If you donate to a local chapter in your geography, your donation supports both the Wikimedia Foundation, and program activities in your country.

    Above all, the Wikimedia Foundation exists to support and grow the vast network of volunteers who write and edit Wikipedia and its sister projects – more than 80,000 people around the world.

    Where can I find more financial information?

    The Wikimedia Foundation 2010–11 annual report covers the fiscal year of July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011. Now in its fourth edition, the Foundation's annual report expresses 'how the world tells its story' through the incredible work of our multilingual projects, and describes the priorities, challenges, and achievements within our movement. The report also highlights the world-wide celebrations of Wikipedia 10.

    The 2012-13 Annual Plan is our budget for the current fiscal year. It contains a summary of our strategic goals, financial details on spending and revenue, and detailed explanations and risk analysis.

    Click the images below to download copies of our Annual Reports or our Annual Plan.



    What are your plans? Where is this going?

    As Wikimedia Foundation founder Jimmy Wales put it: "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."

    We're serious about this vision. Every month, more than 430 million people around the world already use Wikipedia. It's available online, on your mobile device, on DVD, in books, and many other forms. We aspire to reach everyone, and to continually provide more and better information.

    Supported by an intense community-driven planning process, in 2010 the the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees set "big, hairy, audacious goals" for Wikimedia. These five-year targets (PDF) include increasing Wikimedia's global reach to 1 billion people and the number of articles in Wikipedia to 50 million. We're also setting out to dramatically increase and diversify participation, and to measure and improve quality of all Wikimedia content.

    Wikimedia is not a traditional organization. It's a global movement. The core of the work is done by thousands of volunteers worldwide. This volunteer community is supported by a network of organizations, with the Wikimedia Foundation at its center, working in partnership with geographically focused local chapters in 38 countries. It's our volunteer community that enables us to accomplish so much with so little.

    These are some of the activities we're focused on right now:

    Operating the world's fifth largest web property. At its heart, the Wikimedia Foundation requires operational excellence to continue to exist. As of 2011, we're operating several hundred servers in three locations. While our global traffic continues to grow, our aim is to provide the best possible site experience to everyone in the world, to maximize uptime, and to ensure that all the information in Wikimedia projects is safe and secure.

    Photograph: Wikimedia Foundation servers in our Florida hosting facility.

    Giving Wikimedia's volunteers the best possible tools to do their work. The core technology that makes Wikipedia and its sister projects possible, the wiki, was invented in 1995. Things have changed quite a bit since then. Wikimedia Foundation projects run on an open source wiki software called MediaWiki, which we develop and improve. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to contribute knowledge, and to give volunteers and readers great tools for assessing and improving article quality. In some areas, we lead and innovate. At minimum, we must keep up with key trends in the ever-changing web we're part of. Because our software is open source, everyone can use and improve it.

    Photograph: Affinity diagram created based on Wikipedia usability research.

    Developing recruiting resources for new volunteers. Wikimedia is made of people. To grow our global community, we need to excite people about the prospect of being part of it – and help them with their first steps. To this end, we develop and maintain a library of outreach resources, such as videos and screencasts, but also printed "how-tos" and other more targeted resources (for teachers, librarians, students, and others). See the bookshelf of outreach resources.

    Video: Wikimedia volunteers speak about their motivations, shot at the Wikimania 2010 conference. Having trouble playing the video? View it on YouTube.

    Staging outreach and community events world-wide. Once a year, hundreds of Wikimedia volunteers come together at Wikimania, in a different location around the world each year. (You should come! In Summer 2013 Wikimania will be in Hong Kong.) And, Wikimedia's chapter organizations have staged dozens of additional events, competitions and conferences around the world. Some are targeted at recruiting new volunteers; some give the community space to think about its work, and to do it. Recognizing the value of people coming together because they are passionate about Wikimedia's mission has been key to our success.

    Photograph: Participants of the "Free Your Knowledge" student competition in Indonesia listening to an introductory presentation (2010).

    Partnering with cultural institutions. Galleries, libraries, archives, and museums protect and make available the world's history, culture and knowledge. Their mission is to serve and inform the public, just like Wikimedia's. We've successfully partnered with cultural institutions around the world – not just in working with them to make digital reproductions available for free, but also in improving Wikipedia articles and other content related to their collections and archives. Wikimedia chapters are playing a lead role in organizing conferences and meetings targeting the cultural sector, and executing partnerships.

    Photograph: Wikipedia volunteers at a "backstage pass" event organized by the British Museum (2010).

    Working with the educational sector. In the age of the open web, there's the potential for student projects to be more than just exercises. Pioneering professors have long assigned Wikipedia writing as coursework to their students. Everybody wins: students get an audience for their work, teachers successfully motivate their students, and readers get better articles. Wikimedia chapters have also reached out to schools to develop media literacy and to promote responsible use of Wikipedia in the classroom.

    Photograph: Indiana University students of Barry Rubin's Seminar in Urban Economic Development are improving Wikipedia articles as part of their coursework.

    Providing access to Wikipedia everywhere. The next billion people to discover the web will do it using mobile phones, some without ever having touched a laptop. We need to make sure that our sites and services work both on modern smartphones and (to the extent it's possible) on lower-end devices. Our current mobile version is a start and we'll continue to improve it (including moving beyond the read-only experience). And for people with no or intermittent Internet access, we're supporting copies of Wikipedia that can be used completely offline, including projects like the WikiReader, offline readers for desktops and smartphones, and printed versions of Wikimedia content.

    Photograph: Wikipedia's mobile version works on the PlayStation Portable – and on your smartphone.

    Informing our decision-making with facts and data. Analytics, research, experiments and forecasts are essential to make good decisions in a complex environment like Wikimedia. The Wikimedia Foundation Report Card and the Statistics Portal provide a wealth of up-to-date analysis which helps us understand the impact of our work. The Strategy Wiki is a public planning space where longer term trends are analyzed. Research projects provide us with in-depth analysis and experiments, supported by the volunteer-driven Research Committee. We're data nerds – what else would you expect from the kinds of people who love working on an online encyclopedia?

    Illustration: Projection regarding availability of mature language editions useful to different segments of the world's population.

    The Wikimedia Foundation isn't a start-up company that will fade away in a few years. We're in this for the long haul. Everything we do is aimed at providing you, and the rest of the world, with free and immediate access to all the world's knowledge. Join us!

    Which projects do you support?

    The Wikimedia Foundation supports Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia and one of the five 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 to more than 5,900,000 articles today. All Wikipedia languages combined contain more than 51,000,000 articles.

    The Wikimedia Foundation is not affiliated with WikiLeaks.

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

    How is the Wikimedia 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 projects. The Wikimedia Foundation 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 comprised of ten members, with three seats elected directly by the Wikimedia community; two seats selected by the Wikimedia chapters; one Board-appointed "community founder" seat (reserved for Jimmy Wales); and four Board-appointed "specific expertise" seats. The Board is supported by an Advisory Board, chaired by Angela Beesley Starling.

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

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

    How is the Wikimedia Foundation funded?

    The Wikimedia Foundation is funded primarily through Template:2012FR/Link-Donate from hundreds 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. The average donation is quite small, but their sheer numbers have ensured our success. People make contributions year-round, and once a year the Wikimedia Foundation makes a formal request for donations.

    We are 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. Click here for details on how to make a donation via PayPal, MoneyBookers or by postal mail. For all other types of donation, please contact us through donate@wikimedia.org.

    Why doesn't Wikipedia use ads for revenue?

    We do not believe that advertising belongs in a project devoted to education, and one that is driven by the values consistent with a balanced, neutral encyclopedia. Our big, global volunteer community (the people who make Wikipedia) have always felt that advertising would have a major effect on our ability to stay neutral, and ultimately ads would weaken the readers' overall confidence in the articles they are reading.

    The current models for web advertising are also not supportive of our views on user privacy. We do not want to deliver ads to users based on their geography or on the topic they are currently reading about. Contextual advertising (similar to geo-targeted advertising) reads the content you are viewing which goes against Wikipedia's strict privacy policy for users. We respect your right to online privacy, and bring you the knowledge and information you are looking for.

    We are not against the world of online advertising, nor are we against other organizations that host ads. We just know ads are not an appropriate thing to find in a project devoted to education and knowledge - and especially one that strives for balance and neutrality.

    How much money are you hoping to raise?

    The 2011-12 plan posits revenue of $29.5 million, a 24% increase over projected revenue of $23.8 million for 2010-11.

    More details about our finances can be found in our financial reports. Here is our 2011-12 Plan (PDF), and here is the Questions and Answers page related to it.

    Where can I learn more about your recent activities?

    For the fiscal year 2009-10, please Download the 2009-2010 Annual Report: PDF version (5.0 MB)

    If you want to keep up with Wikimedia events more regularly, we recommend the following sources:

    How can I donate via Debit or Credit card?

    To donate using any major credit or debit card (VISA, MasterCard, Discover or American Express), PayPal, Moneybookers, bank transfer; please visit Template:2012FR/Link-Donate. Our donation options support many (although not all) currencies.

    What other options exist to allow me to donate?

    Alternatively ways to donate to the Wikimedia Foundation include:

    Are my donations tax-deductible?

    For information on tax deductibility and tax reciepts please refer to the list of countries for the details of tax-deductibility.

    Why is there a minimum donation?

    We receive small donations from people who don't have much money, and we are really, really grateful to those donors.

    Unfortunately it is not uncommon for people to use donation mechanisms such as ours to test stolen credit cards to see if they work. Those people typically use a very small amount for their testing: a $1 minimum donation amount seems to deter them.

    What is your donor privacy policy?

    We are serious about protecting the privacy rights of our donors. Please see our Donor Privacy Policy for our full details. In short, we do not share, sell, or trade your email address with anyone.

    What is your refund policy?

    If for any reason you wish to have your donation refunded, please contact us via email at donate@wikimedia.org. We will need the following information in order to process your refund:

    • Date of donation (All refund requests must be made within 90 days of donation)
    • Amount donated (Donations above USD $10,000 are considered major donations and are subject to the applicable grant agreement between the Foundation and the donor)
    • Full name
    • Payment method used (credit card, bank transfer, E-wallet, …)
    • Country of origin
    • Reason for the refund

    Please note that some payment methods may not support refunds, or require refunds to be made through the payment method (card) utilised, so additional information may be required to process your refund. All refunds will be processed as quickly as possible, but processing times may vary depending on the payment method.

    What can I do to help you spread the word?

    Spread the word any way you can! Tell your friends and family. Tell them what Wikipedia means to you. Ask them if they use it and if so, what it means to them. Use this text as the signature file on the bottom of your emails:

    We’ve created the greatest collection of shared knowledge in history. Help protect Wikipedia. Donate now: https://donate.wikimedia.org

    How can I contact the Foundation?

    If you still have questions or concerns please feel free to contact us. For donation questions you can email donate@wikimedia.org

    For other questions see the Contact us page for more details.

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