Wikimedia Foundation posted their audited 2007 financial statements (I’ve embedded the document below) last week. Their fiscal year actually ends June 30, so these are already almost eight months old, but they reveal some interesting information about the entity that controls Wikipedia nonetheless.
Generally Wikimedia publishes these five months or so after the end of the year; this year they took eight months. Total donations and other income increased from $1.5 million in 2006 to $2.7 million (the period covered is prior to their recent fundraising effort). Donations of Google stock actually made up a material portion of contributions – 681 shares were donated in fiscal 2007 (worth about $315,000 based on the current stock price).
Travel expenses jumped significantly from $140k to $264k. Given that this period included time when Jimmy Wales was pitching Wikia Search around the world, some conspiracy theorists are speculating that travel expenses related to the for-profit Wikia (which Wales founded) were being reimbursed by Wikimedia Foundation. Wales, however, told me via email that the foundation does not reimburse him for any travel expenses at all, even for pure Wikipedia events, in order to remove any doubt about mixing funds between the entities. “I fund all that myself, out of my own pocket personally,” he said.
The financial statements also note, though, that Wikia and Wikipedia do share some infrastructure costs, assets, employees and expenses:
The Organization shares hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc., a for-profit company founded by the same founder as Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Included in accounts receivable at June 30, 2007 is $6,000 due from Wikia, Inc. for these costs. The Organization received some donated office space from Wikia Inc. during the year ended June 30, 2006 valued at $6,000. No donation of the office space occurred in 2007.
Through June 30, 2007, two members of the Organization’s board of directors also serve as employees, officers, or directors of Wikia, Inc.
Financial statements for 2006 are here.
I’ve tracking who’s involved with WF. For those interested take a quick look in this ManagedQ search: http://www.mana...edia+foundation Should be interesting to see how large this project gets in the coming years.
Big round of applause for JW.
I am very thankful for this awesome resource which is Wikipedia.
Thanks Jimmy!
really great stuff!! true altruism
RK
http://theindia...t.blogspot.com/
I think wikipedia is better than google. Its article is updated frequently.
——————–
http://www.noteflag.com — a simple web bookmarking
Rindy – be a moron on someone else’s site please.
Can TechCrunch please disable links in comments? It’s easy to do. Otherwise, I see this site becoming a testbed for Guerilla PR.
If yow want more knowledge about unsecured loans and Unsecured personal loans so visit http://unsecure...ne.blogspot.com
I just wanted to point out, too, that Wikia and Wikimedia do not “share some infrastructure costs, assets, employees and expenses” any longer.
First, we have never shared employees per se. I mean, I am an employee of Wikia, but I am not an employee of Wikimedia. I am an unpaid board member, like all of us are. Volunteers.
We also don’t share any infrastructure costs, assets, or expenses. For a while Wikia donated office space to the Wikimedia Foundation, but that ended some time ago.
@Jimmy
“The Organization shares hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc., a for-profit company founded by the same founder as Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Included in accounts receivable at June 30, 2007 is $6,000 due from Wikia, Inc. for these costs. ”
Mike was quoting from your own accounts document so the clarity needs to be put in your own document really. But then I suppose thats what happens when you release your accounts 8 months late
.
http://www.wate...oncontrol.info/ First, we have never shared employees per se. I mean, I am an employee of Wikia, but I am not an employee of Wikimedia. I am an unpaid board member, like all of us are.
Some conspiracy theorists are speculating that travel expenses related to the for-profit Wikia (which Wales founded) were being reimbursed by Wikimedia Foundation. The people has this perception for almost all the foundations.
I’ll say again: Don’t “think small”. Any real conflicts will not be about $6,000 in hosting or office space, or even on which account somebody put a plane trip. The benefits at issue are harder to delinate but far more valuable.
Good work.
Sky is the limit
One day it will become the best information center
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