On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:20 AM, Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi folks,
I'm delighted to tell you that yesterday, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation board of
directors voted to award the Wikimedia Foundation USD 1 million annually for the coming
three years. A total of USD 3 million, spread over three years.
This is what Sloan characterizes as "institutional funding" - meaning, a form
of grant designed to help us work towards our general goals – in our case, financial and
operational sustainability, increasing quality, increasing and broadening participation,
and distributing our material beyond the wiki environment. As you know, we've recently
expanded the staff from 10 to 15, and we still have a few more positions to fill: this
funding will offset those increased costs.
This is fantastic, congratulations to all. Perhaps this can provide
the needed operational cushion to also start fundraising for an
endowment that will support us for years to come.
-- Phoebe