Sponsorship

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Since its founding, Wikimedia has experienced exponential growth. Estimates show that it may be necessary to purchase a new server every month in future. The Wikimedia Foundation relies on donations from individuals and companies to maintain this level of growth.

Major benefactors offering financial support to the project are listed on the Foundation's benefactors page. Wikimedia continues to be funded primarily by private donations, but we hope that this additional sponsorship will allow us meet our projected server demands.

Wikimedia would like to reassure its readers that corporate sponsorship will not lead to obtrusive advertising. Details of sponsors will not appear on articles since this would potentially lead to conflicts of interest and an impression of a lack of neutrality. Wikipedia's credibility should not be allowed to suffer as the result of having inappropriate companies listed in the main namespace.

At this stage, the only mention of sponsors happens on the Foundation wiki. Future possibilities for sponsorship include sponsored search, sponsorship of WikiReaders, sponsorship of Wikimedia events, and promotion on flyers for the Wikipedia Topic Evenings.

Any corporate donations are treated purely as donations, not as payment for anything in return. We do not accept conditional offers.

For information on sponsorship of the Wikimedia Conference, please see Wikimania:Sponsors.