Wikimedia Foundation

“We’re not a foundation with a community, we’re a community with a foundation,” Quim Gil, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager, once observed. The Wikimedia Foundation was established in this spirit in 2003 to support Wikipedia, the Wikimedia community, and the Wikimedia sister projects.

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit foundation responsible for sustaining and protecting the Wikimedia vision: a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We keep Wikipedia free, online, and always available. We make it easier and faster to read and contribute, and build secure connections that protect the privacy and freedom of our users.

We work with the global Wikimedia community to encourage edits and contributions from people all over the world, in hundreds of languages. We support institutional partnerships with galleries, libraries, archives and museums that open up collections of images, media, and critical datasets for the world to share and explore.

We defend the values of freedom of information and expression, open source, open access, and open licenses.

We believe everyone has the right to knowledge. We defend our communities when they are threatened, legally or otherwise. We stand against censorship, and support open licenses, open access, and open source. We engineer privacy for readers and contributors.

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge

We support our contributors, users, and developers. Last year we gave more than 5.7 million USD to projects that increase the quantity, quality, diversity, and reach of knowledge around the world. We offer resources to people and organizations that believe in the Wikimedia vision. We will only achieve our vision when we share it. By supporting communities, building technology, and funding great ideas, the Wikimedia Foundation is a foundation for people everywhere to change their world.

The whole world needs knowledge: more people than before, in different ways than before. Our mission is to ensure that everyone, now and in the future, can access all information. In the hands of everyone, it can cure disease, settle disputes, lift oppression, and inspire creativity.

Join our mission. Share your knowledge. Work with us. Contribute.

The Wikimedia Foundation is a four-star rated charity according to Charity Navigator.