The other source of income for the endowment is investment earnings.
On Mon, Oct 4, 2021 at 11:03 AM Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Lisa and all,
According to Meta and the just-released WMF Advancement fourth-quarter
tuning session deck, the Endowment actually passed the $100-million mark
not this month, but three months ago – in June, before the start of this
current financial year. The Meta page e.g. says:
The Endowment reached our initial $100 million goal in June 2021. The goal
was set as part of a ten-year plan from 2016-2026.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=2…
This means the Endowment grew by around $40 million in the 2020/2021
financial year alone – about as much as in the three previous years
together – based on this Meta edit by Endowment Director Amy Parker, who
stated that on June 30, 2020, the Endowment stood at $62.9 million:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=n…
I say "around $40 million" because if the Endowment grew from $62.9
million on June 30, 2020, to over $100 million sometime during June, 2021,
at least $37.1 million (and probably a little more) must have been added to
it in the 2020/2021 financial year.
Now, according to the just-released WMF Advancement fourth-quarter tuning
session deck, in the 2020/2021 financial year the Foundation raised ...
– $154 million for the Foundation (vs. an initial target of $108 million)
– $18.9 million (vs. a target of $5 million) for the Endowment
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWikimedia_Foundation…
I've been told by WMF staff that the WMF receives two kinds of moneys for
the Endowment:
– Some are "pass-through" donations to the Endowment. These are moneys
received by the Foundation that are passed straight on. They enter the
Endowment directly and do not appear in the Foundation's Revenue, Assets or
Expenses figures.
– Some are ordinary WMF revenue, reflected in WMF Support and Revenue
totals, which is then used to make a Foundation grant to the Endowment.
Such WMF grants to the Wikimedia Endowment are included in the Foundation's
expenses total, under Awards and Grants. My understanding was that this has
been $5 million per annum (equalling the target mentioned in the above
slide), for the past six years.
So what are the $18.9 million for the Endowment in the tuning session
deck? Does that mean that the WMF, in the last financial year, took $172.9
million in revenue ($154M + $18.9M) and made an $18.9 million grant to the
Endowment?
Or are these $18.9 million pass-through gifts to the Endowment, which
won't show up in the Foundation's financial statements at all, and the
annual $5 million came on top of that, out of the $154 million?
At any rate, given that the Endowment evidently grew by at least $37.1
million in the last financial year, the $18.9 million mentioned in the
tuning session deck are about $20 million short. Where did the other money
come from, given that it seems to have been so much more than in previous
years?
Were there any particularly large gifts from companies or foundations? The
only major gift mentioned on the Meta page is a $1 million gift from Amazon.
I am sorry for the many questions, and apologise in advance for any errors
or misunderstandings on my part, but I find the Endowment set-up completely
impenetrable and non-transparent.
There is no Form 990 documentation, because the Foundation says on the
Form 990 it does not have any Endowment assets, and there are no timely
updates or audited financial statements about money going into the
Endowment or coming out of it. I wish this were different.
I will copy these questions to the Endowment talk page as well.
Regards,
Andreas
On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 3:58 PM Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Dear all,
Today I am very happy to announce the Wikimedia Endowment [1] has reached
its initial $100 million goal. The Endowment was started in 2016 as a permanent
fund to support the Wikimedia projects in perpetuity [2].
My deep gratitude goes out to our generous donors, the Endowment board,
Foundation staff, and volunteers who made this possible. I am grateful
to the future-focused community members who began considering the idea of
an endowment years ago, to those who participated in community
conversations on Meta [3] to help us think through initial decisions
regarding its launch, and to all contributors whose work creating
Wikimedia content has brought free knowledge to the world.
As part of this milestone, the Wikimedia Endowment Board has also
welcomed three new members: Phoebe Ayers, Patricio Lorente, and Doron
Weber, bringing in important expertise of the Wikimedia movement and
priorities as well as in nonprofit management.
You can read more about this milestone, what it means for the movement,
and what comes next for the Endowment on Diff [4] and the Endowment Meta
page [5]. We invite you to share any questions or feedback on the Endowment
talk page [6].
Thank you to everyone who has made this incredible achievement possible.
Best regards,
Lisa
[1]
https://wikimediaendowment.org/
[2]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/mission/
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/mission/>
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment_Essay
[4]
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/09/22/the-wikimedia-endowment-reaches-100-m…
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/09/22/the-wikimedia-endowment-reaches-100-million-milestone-and-welcomes-three-new-members-to-its-board-more-on-what-these-developments-mean-for-the-projects-and-movement/>
[5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Endowment
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Endowment>
[6]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment
--
Lisa Seitz Gruwell
Chief Advancement Officer
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
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