Wikimedia Foundation

Background

In 1999, entrepreneur Jimmy Wales founded Nupedia, a for-profit company that distributed a free online encyclopedia. In 2001, Wales and his employee, philosopher Larry Sanger, started Wikipedia, a bottom-up encyclopedia website designed to provide content to Nupedia. As Wikipedia rapidly supplanted Nupedia, Wales closed down Nupedia.

In 2003, Wales founded the Wikimedia Foundation to house Wikipedia. ²

Activities

The Wikimedia Foundation was established to support Wikipedia, and has since developed eleven branches: Wikimedia Commons, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, and MediaWiki. ³

Funding

In 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation generated $124,631,267, nearly all of which came from donations. ⁴ The average donation was about $15. ³ The Wikimedia Foundation also receives large donations from nonprofits and companies. Its largest donors (above $50,000) include the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and the Argosy Foundation. ⁵

In March 2021, the Daily Dot asked “Wikipedia is swimming in money—why is it begging people to donate?” The article criticized the Wikimedia Foundation’s aggressive fundraising, which included hanging up banners around the world asking for donations. The organization had raised its total fundraising by $200 million to about $300 million over the previous five years. In 2016, Wikimedia established an endowment under the Tides Foundation, a left-of-center pass-through funder, with the goal of establishing a $100 million endowment by 2025. Wikimedia met its goal five years ahead of schedule. Meanwhile, an estimate made within Wikimedia in 2013 stated that the organization could reach a $10 million annual budget. ⁶

In October 2021, the Wikimedia Foundation launched Wikimedia Enterprise, the organization’s first for-profit venture. Wikimedia Enterprise provides means of compiling and sifting through large-scale content from Wikipedia and its other projects. ⁷

Financials

According to its 2023 990 form, the Wikimedia Foundation reported a revenue of $185,418,243, expenses of $178,588,294, and total assets of $286,759,938 with net assets of $271,555,390. ⁸

According to its 2022 990 form, the Wikimedia Foundation reported a revenue of $180,199,672, expenses of $168,305,333, and total assets of $274,123,369 with net assets of $254,971,336. ⁹

Between 2024 and 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation saw an increase in assets from $266 million to $310 million. Contributions to the foundation also increased significantly between those years from $168 to $184 million. According to that same report, internet hosting for Wikipedia cost only $3.4 million in 2025. ^{10 11}

International Controversies

Russia

Wikipedia has faced ongoing threatened censorship from the Russian government. In 2015, Russia blocked Wikipedia for less than a day due to a page on charas, a type of cannabis. Wikipedia was ordered to remove the article, which it refused. The block was revoked after the page was edited to remove instructions on how to use charas. ¹²

On March 1, 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the Russian government issued an order to the Wikimedia Foundation to remove content posted to Russian Wikipedia regarding the invasion. Wikimedia and Russia Wikimedia, the independent affiliate, refused the takedown order. ¹³ The following week, a Russia Wikipedia editor was arrested in Belarus for violating a Russian “fake news” censorship law. ¹⁴

China

Wikipedia has intermittently been censored in China since 2004. In 2019, all Wikipedia sites were indefinitely blocked. The Wikimedia Foundation received no warning or reason for the permanent block, though it coincided with the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy protestors. ¹⁵

In September 2021, the Wikimedia Foundation banned seven Chinese Wikipedia editors and removed 12 pro-China administrators over “infiltration concerns” by the Chinese government. The banned individuals were found to be systematically editing articles to promote pro-Chinese government perspectives. The Wikimedia Foundation was accused of bias against China, but the organization stated the bans were “a result of long and deep investigations” and constituted a rare exception in its typical neutrality. ¹⁶

NSA Lawsuit

In March 2015, the Wikimedia Foundation sued the U.S. National Security Agency alleging First Amendment violations concerning its surveillance operations on American citizens. The Wikimedia Foundation’s announcement attributed the lawsuit to revelations made by Edward Snowden. ¹⁷

Other Controversies

Editor Banning

On June 10, 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation banned a Wikipedia editor who went by the screen name “Fram” for one year. Fram was a prolific editor who had worked on the site since 2005 and was made an administrator in 2007 and had a reputation both for obsessively enforcing editorial policies and for being uncivil in interpersonal disputes. After two warnings for misconduct by the Wikimedia Foundation, Fram was banned. ¹⁸

The ban prompted an immediate backlash by the editor community which culminated in a 470,000 word discussion within one month. Multiple Wikipedia editors and one bot resigned in protest. The reaction was based on the perception that the Wikimedia Foundation was overstepping its traditional bounds by interfering with the largely self-regulating editorial community. ¹⁹

Editing “Wars”

Wikipedia editors have engaged in editing and counter-editing on profiles dealing with contentious political and cultural issues. For instance, as of 2016, the Wikipedia page for former President George W. Bush was the most edited page of all time. ²⁰

In the early 2020s, Hindu nationalists and secularists clashed over the editing of articles pertaining to Indian history and the Indian National Congress political party, with nationalists alleging bias against the Bharatiya Janata Party of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. ²¹

In November 2021, a group of Wikipedia editors lobbied for the deletion of the “mass killings under communist regimes” page on the grounds that it demonstrated an anti-communist bias. A panel of Wikipedia administrators ultimately could not come to a consensus on the issue, and the article was not deleted. ^{22 23}

Left-Wing Bias

In July 2021, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger deemed Wikipedia “propaganda” for left-leaning “establishment” views. Sanger claimed that especially in political articles, right-leaning sources and views are systematically blocked by editors. Meanwhile, controversies are only reported if they receive attention from the mainstream media, while controversies that reveal criticisms of left-leaning organizations or ideas are ignored. ²⁴

Leadership

Maryana Iskander is the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation as of April 2024. Prior to this, she was the CEO of community organization Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. In addition, she previously served as COO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), an associate with consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and a law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. ²⁵

Katherine Maher previously worked as the executive director of Wikimedia Foundation. As of April 2024, she serves as CEO of National Public Radio (NPR). ²⁶