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/ 

[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment_Essay 

[4]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 

[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment

--

Lisa Seitz Gruwell Chief Advancement Officer Wikimedia Foundation

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