Study Reveals Wikimedia Foundation Is 'Awash In Money'

New submitter Harold Dumbacher writes: Few things seen on Wikipedia aggravate its users more than the annual fundraising banners. Yet millions of people continue to contribute, seeming to think that Wikipedia will "go offline" if they aren't given more donations. Yet as a new Wikipediocracy blog post reveals, the Wikimedia Foundation is rolling in dough — $53 million in net assets as of this year (that's actual hard sitting-around currency, currently put into various investment vehicles). Meanwhile it only costs about $2.5 million to actually keep Wikimedia project servers online and handling user traffic. The rest of the WMF's annual donations go for "staff salaries, travel and miscellaneous." And evidently, many people are growing disgruntled with this ongoing state of affairs, even Wikimedia staff who benefit from it.

Comments

Investments?

[jythie]

Wait, so is this liquid cash or invested money? This is a rather important distinction since non-profits often depend heavily on interest from investments as their primary stable source of income. So if this is the later case, it sounds like responsible stewardship, at least that piece of it since I gather the amature nature of administration shows through in other areas.