Takeaways from the Wikimedia Foundation’s Form 990 for fiscal year 2023-2024

Every year, the Wikimedia Foundation publishes important financial documents outlining how we use donor funds to advance our free knowledge mission. As part of our commitment to transparency, we also provide a summary of these documents to help community members, donors and readers to better understand the work behind the numbers.

This post explains the Form 990 for the Wikimedia Foundation for fiscal year 2023-2024, which ran from July 2023 – June 2024. It provides key highlights and additional information for those who want to dive deeper. 

What is the Form 990?

The Form 990 is the annual tax form required of all nonprofits in the United States. Each year, we compile and then submit it to the US Internal Revenue Service. The Wikimedia Foundation’s Form 990 is intended to provide the public with information on how the non-profit organization is using its funds and on its governance procedures. 

The Form 990 takes the financial information from an organization’s audit report–released earlier in the fiscal year–and supplements it with additional information around governance practices and activities. Therefore, while the financial highlights from the Form 990 are the same as those contained in an organization’s audit report (with some small differences due to varying accounting requirements between the two forms), the Form 990 contains some additional highlights. Highlights from the Foundation’s audit report for fiscal year 2023-2024 were previously shared on Diff, and highlights of the Foundation’s Form 990 are outlined below.

Key takeaways from the Foundation’s fiscal year 2023-2024 Form 990

Highest rating obtained for governance policies and practices

Part VI of the Form 990 asks whether the Wikimedia Foundation has written policies around conflicts of interest, protecting whistleblowers, and guidelines for data retention. It also has questions about governance practices, including those related to the Foundation’s Board structure, voting rights, and independence.  Third party assessment organizations such as Charity Navigator use these governance disclosures (along with other factors like website disclosures and constituent feedback) to rate an organization’s overall health. 

Charity Navigator awarded the Foundation the highest rating for its governance policies and practices, which Charity Navigator refers to as the Accountability and Finance score. Charity Navigator’s most recent evaluation of the Foundation is based on the governance disclosures in the Form 990 from the previous fiscal year 2022-2023; these disclosures have largely remained consistent for the 2023-2024 fiscal year. This rating is based on scores for Accountability and Finance, Leadership and Adaptability, and Culture and Community, for which we received scores of 100, 100 and 95 respectively.

Past leadership transitions reported 

The Form 990 covers compensation information for the organization’s CEO, officers, key employees, and 5 highest paid employees. For income tax reasons, this reporting is done on a calendar year basis rather than a fiscal year basis; therefore, this Form 990 covers compensation reported to the IRS for calendar year 2023. 

Three senior leaders left the Wikimedia Foundation in calendar year 2023 under mutual separation agreements, receiving severance payments upon departure. Severance payments are reported in the Form 990 section on compensation. A severance policy was published during 2023 that sets guidelines and severance amounts for Foundation staff. All listed staff in this Form 990 received severance in line with this policy, except those who departed prior to its implementation.

Continued growth in community grants during a period of slow growth; expense breakdown aligns with Annual Plan goals

The Foundation’s Form 990 reiterates financial information from our audit report, released in November 2024. Financial highlights first released as part of the audit report and reiterated in the Form 990 include:

• Revenue primarily driven by donations. Total revenue as reported in the Form 990 was $185.4M, of which 94%, or $174.5M, came from donations and grants. This was supplemented by $5.3M in investment income and $5.6M in “other revenue”, which included funds from Wikimedia Enterprise, the Wikimedia Endowment, and other smaller sources.
• Expense growth slowing in line with target. In anticipation of slower revenue growth, our 2023-2024 Annual Plan aimed to slow budget growth to around 5% after significant growth in the prior five years averaging 16%. We reached that goal during the fiscal year, as expenses grew by 6% ($10.3M) to $178.6M.
• Sustained growth in community grants. In spite of the Foundation’s overall growth slowing to 5%, we increased community grants by 9.3%, or $2.3M from the previous fiscal year, for a total of $27M. You can find out more about the grants in this fiscal year in the Wikimedia Foundation 2023-2024 report about Community Fund grants.
• Expense breakdowns align with Annual Plan goals. Our expenses in the fiscal year 2023-2024 totaled $178.6M, of which 45% went to technology, 32% went to support volunteers (including both grants and support staff), 11% went to fundraising expenses, and 12% went to general and administrative support. Technology is the largest investment we make as an organization supporting one of the most visited websites in the world. You can read more about our technology work in the 2023-2024 Annual Plan. 

You can review the full Form 990 for the Wikimedia Foundation on our website. Now our Finance team will turn our attention to the Wikimedia Endowment’s Form 990, which will be forthcoming. You can read answers to frequently asked questions on Meta-Wiki.