Wikimedia Foundation Inc
San Francisco, CA · EIN 20-0049703. Reported 68 grants totalling $17.4M to 35 organizations across tax years 2020-2023, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. For Wikimedia Foundation Inc, the IRS classifies it under education rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE B60) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 35 distinct organizations, with 43% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is concentrated. Most of the money has a settled destination, and the remainder is what is realistically in play.
- How much its list changes. 64% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is about the 57% median for grantmaking charities -- noticeably lower than the 67% private foundations manage. Organizations like this one rotate more of their list each year, which is where an opening for a newcomer tends to be.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $101,950. Half of what it reported fell between $50,000 and $260,000; the smallest was $8,000 and the largest $5,529,704. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tides Foundation | San Francisco, CA | $7,534,002 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Wiki Education Foundation | Chico, CA | $1,526,753 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Art Feminism Inc | Baltimore, MD | $1,168,883 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Black Lunch Table Fnp | Chicago, IL | $1,047,095 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Wikimedia Endowment | San Francisco, CA | $866,498 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Whose Knowledge Question Mark | San Diego, CA | $565,312 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Yale University | New Haven, CT | $540,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Fractured Atlas Inc | New York, NY | $515,446 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Ideas Beyond Borders Inc | New York, NY | $415,335 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Wikimedia New York City | New York, NY | $339,245 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Wiki Society of Washington DC Inc | Washington, DC | $326,928 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Beyond Impact | W Hollywood, CA | $300,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Wikijournal | Maple Grove, MN | $294,799 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Software Freedom Conservancy Inc | Brooklyn, NY | $274,000 | 4 | 4 | 2023 |
| Wikitongues Inc | Brooklyn, NY | $264,165 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Code for Science and Society Inc | Portland, OR | $200,518 | 3 | 3 | 2022 |
| Peace Development Fund Inc | Amherst, MA | $150,885 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Wiki Project Med Foundation Inc | Baltimore, MD | $145,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Smithsonian Institute | Washington, DC | $113,674 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Digital Public Library of America | Boston, MA | $104,684 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Data for Black Lives Inc | Miami, FL | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Hacks Hackers | Washington, DC | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| International Center for Journalists Inc | Washington, DC | $100,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Filipino American National Historical Society | Seattle, WA | $70,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Access Now | New York, NY | $58,000 | 2 | 2 | 2021 |
| Creative Commons Corporation | Mountain View, CA | $53,949 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Carnegie Mellon University | Pittsburgh, PA | $40,112 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Open Environmental Data Inc | Dover, DE | $40,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| The Africa Narrative | Washington, DC | $39,688 | 1 | 1 | 2020 |
| Regents of the University of Colorado | Denver, CO | $38,457 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Ranjitsinh Disale Foundation Inc | Sacramento, CA | $28,879 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| National Council of Teachers of English | Annapolis Jct, MD | $27,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| State of Maryland - University of Maryland Office of Research Administratio | College Park, MD | $25,876 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Margika Inc | Ocala, FL | $19,814 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Helping Give Away Psychological Science | Chapel Hill, NC | $9,992 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
16 of 35 (46%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Tides Foundation
TO SUPPORT WORK TO FURTHER MISSION. - Wikimedia Endowment
BOARD-APPROVED REMIT OF PLANNED GIFTS TO THE WIKIMEDIA ENDOWMENT - Wiki Education Foundation
MULTI-YEAR GRANT FOR SUPPORT OF THE WIKI EDUCATION FOUNDATION ANNUAL PLAN FOR THE 20242026 PERIOD - Artfeminism Inc
MULTI-YEAR GRANT FOR SUPPORT OF THE ART+FEMINISM ANNUAL PLAN FOR THE 2023-2025 PERIOD - Black Lunch Table
MULTI-YEAR GRANT FOR SUPPORT OF THE BLACK LUNCH TABLE (A HISTORY ARCHIVING PROJECT) FOR CALENDAR YEAR 2024 - Yale University
SUPPORT FOR A LEGAL AND RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 30 of 35 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 14 | $6,568,328 | $51,717 |
| 2021 | 21 | $3,329,384 | $100,000 |
| 2022 | 17 | $3,946,341 | $116,900 |
| 2023 | 16 | $3,600,936 | $167,042 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
62% of its giving went to organizations in California. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $101,950 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in California.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Wikimedia Foundation Inc's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2020-2023). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 16 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 1 Sansome Street Suite 1895, San Francisco, CA, 94104.
EIN 20-0049703 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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