[Foundation-l] Great news! Google gives Wikimedia USD 2 million

Hi all, I am delighted to tell you that Google is giving Wikimedia a grant of USD 2 million. It will come to us via the Google Fund at the Tides Foundation, which handles all of Google's philanthropic activity, and it is completely unrestricted. We'll be putting out a press release tomorrow, but I wanted to tell you beforehand. This is really great news. It's important to us financially, of course, but I see it as equally important from a symbolic perspective. I believe that Wikimedia and Google are natural allies and partners --- we both want to help provide people everywhere around the world with information. It seems natural to me that Google would want to support Wikimedia's work, and I am happy they are doing it. You probably know that Google and Wikimedia -–both editors and Wikimedia Foundation staff-- have, from time to time, collaborated on projects together. (For example, the Google team has created functionality inside the Google Translate Toolkit that enables editing and uploading of translated articles to Wikipedia.) This grant will not be channeled specifically towards Google-related activities: it will go into our general operating revenues. Having said that, I look forward to Google and Wikimedia continuing to do good work together. The press release is below. It will go out tomorrow morning , but you don't need to keep this news confidential. Feel free to tell your friends :-) Thanks, Sue Gardner Wikimedia Foundation announces $2 million grant from Google Donation will support capacity investments in Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects EMBARGOED UNTIL 8:00AM PST, February 17 2009 SAN FRANCISCO, CA February 17, 2009 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia, today announced that it has received a $2 million (USD) grant from the Google Inc. Charitable Giving Fund of Tides Foundation. This is the Wikimedia Foundation's first grant from Google. The funds will support core operational costs of the Wikimedia Foundation, including investments in technical infrastructure to support rapidly-increasing global traffic and capacity demands. The funds will also be used to support the organization's efforts to make Wikipedia easier to use and more accessible. "Wikipedia is one of the greatest triumphs of the internet," offered Google co-founder Sergey Brin. "This vast repository of community-generated content is an invaluable resource to anyone who is online." Wikipedia founder and Wikimedia Foundation board member, Jimmy Wales, also commented on the Google gift. "We are very pleased and grateful. This is a wonderful gift, and we celebrate it as recognition of the long-term alignment and friendship between Google and Wikimedia. Both organizations are committed to bringing high quality information to hundreds of millions of individuals every day, and to making the Internet better for everyone." The two organizations have a long-standing working relationship. Most recently, Google and the Wikimedia Foundation have partnered to support translation of Wikipedia content into key languages with relatively small Wikipedia editions. Google's Translation Toolkit supports direct online translation of Wikipedia articles, and has been used by Google in Wikipedia translation pilot projects with speakers of Arabic, Hindi, and Swahili. Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, offered: "It is wonderful that Google has stepped forward as a major supporter of a global, non-profit information commons. With this generous grant, we will be able to fund additional operations and development work to increase access and contributions to our free knowledge projects globally." Wikimedia's support comes primarily from individual donations made by regular users of Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation completed its 2009-10 fundraiser in January. During the drive, 240,000 individuals donated more than $8 million, representing three quarters of its planned revenue for the fiscal year. -- ﻿Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate