Statistical analysis of Wikimedia Foundation financial reports

By Lionel Scheepmans

This page is a research providing English charts about Wikimedia foundation finance evolution from 2004 to 2017.

All data used for this analysis came from the Wikimedia foundation Web site page named "Financial reports pointing to all financial statements by fiscal year. Since 19 September 2018‎, informations moved to the new Wikimedia foundation Web site, same title of page.

Details sources for 2004 and 2005
2004 : Income - Outcome

2005 : Income - Outcome

Financial statement by fiscal year (June 30) from 2004 to 2016 (Audited by KPMG)
2004-2005-2006, 2007 , 2008 , 2009 , 2010 , 2011 , 2012 , 2013 , 2014 , 2015 , 2016 , 2017 , 2018 , 2019 , 2020.

Wikimedia Foundation's expenses evolution by rubrics in US dollars




Awards and grants
The Foundation has a program of awarding grants to support chapters, affiliates, user groups, and individuals in projects that further the mission of the Foundation. Chapters are independent organizations that share the goals of the Foundation and support them within a specified geographical region. In addition to this work, which is reflected above in the awards and grants line, an overwhelming majority of the Foundation’s project activities are carried out by an international network of volunteers, whose activity is not reflected in the table above.

For example (unaudited):

Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Foundation receive more than 15 billion page views per month, making them one of the most popular Web properties worldwide. Available in more than 290 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 51 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community. For the year ended June 30, 2017, the educational content of the Foundation’s largest project, Wikipedia, grew by approximately 4.8 million articles to approximately 45.4 million articles.

For the year ended June 30, 2017, volunteers added approximately 7.5 million images, movies, and sound files to the Foundation’s multimedia repository, making the total 40.6 million files.

Volunteers also contribute in several ways to the Foundation’s wiki software: volunteer software developers add new functionality to the code base, and volunteer language specialists add to the code base by translating the wiki interface into different languages. During the year ended June 30, 2017, there were 41,742 commits merged, through the efforts of approximately 403 authors/contributors

During the year ended June 30, 2016, the Foundation entered into an agreement with the Tides Foundation to establish the Wikimedia Endowment as a Collective Action Fund to act as a permanent safekeeping fund to generate income to ensure abase level of support for the Wikimedia projects in perpetuity. The Endowment is independent from the Foundation. The Foundation provided irrevocable grants in the amounts of $5 million on June 29, 2016 and $5 million on June 27, 2017 to the Tides Foundation for the purpose of the Wikimedia Endowment.

Other Operating Expenses
Other operating expenses primarily include facility expenses, funding of the Wikidata project, staff related expenses, insurance and personal property tax expenses, and other general administrative expenses.

In-kind service expences
In-kind service revenue and expenses recorded on the statements of activities consist of contributed legal services, engineering services, and internet hosting.

Special Event Expense
Special event expense, net includes costs for the annual Wikimania Conference, such as venue rental and catering services, net of sponsorship income and registration fees.

Salaries and wages, Internet hosting, Professional service expenses, Depreciation and amortization, Travel and conferences, Donation processing expenses
These rubrics are not explained on financial statements.