Wikimedia Foundation reports/Financial/Audits/2024-2025 - frequently asked questions

Executive Summary

The Foundation’s audited financial statements (“audit report”) are an annual report that presents details on the financial statements and the financial activities of the Foundation. The report is audited by an independent external auditor (KPMG) to validate that the financial statements present fairly the financial position of the Foundation based on U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

This year, the audit report covers the fiscal year (FY) 2024-2025 (1 July 2024 - 30 June 2025), as well as the prior fiscal year (1 July 2023 - 30 June 2024) for comparative purposes. The Foundation’s audit report is made up of 1) the independent auditor’s report, 2) financial statements (tables), and 3) notes to the financial statements, as described below.

Note that the Wikimedia Foundation’s audit report is distinct from the Wikimedia Endowment audit report. The Wikimedia Endowment (the Endowment) is a separate tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, with the mission to act as a permanent fund that can support in perpetuity the operations and activities of current and future Wikimedia projects. The Foundation and the Endowment are considered “related parties” under the accounting rules, which means the two parties have a preexisting business relationship or common interest. Therefore, the audit reports for both reference one another. The Wikimedia Endowment audit report for FY 2024-2025 will be published in the coming months.

Independent Auditor’s Report

This is a report from our external auditors, KPMG, issuing their opinion that the Wikimedia Foundation's financial statements for FY 2024-2025 are presented fairly, and in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

Financial Statements

The financial statements provide an overview of basic information about an organization's financial position and its overall financial health. These are referred to as “consolidated financial statements” since they include the financials of both the Wikimedia Foundation non-profit and Wikimedia Enterprise, a limited liability company that is a subsidiary of the Foundation and not a separate 501(c)(3). They are made up of the three statements described below:

• Statement of Financial Position: provides an overview of assets, liabilities, and net assets at a snapshot in time - in this case, as of June 30, 2025 and June 30, 2024. As of June 30, 2025, the Foundation’s net assets were $296.6 million, which represents 17.1 months of operating expenses (based on the annual plan of expenses for FY 2025-2026), in-line with our target.
• Statement of Activities: provides a summary of revenue (primarily donations) and expenses during the fiscal year.
  • Revenue: The Foundation’s total revenue increased by $23.2 million, to $208.6 million during fiscal year 2024-2025. The vast majority of this revenue came from donations (including grants from the Endowment), as well as investment income, Wikimedia Enterprise revenue, and other revenue primarily related to a cost sharing agreement with the Wikimedia Endowment, which, to keep the Endowment’s costs down, allows the Endowment to leverage staffing and other resources from the Foundation and reimburse the Foundation for this usage. Donation revenue increased $14.8 million, from $174.7 million to $189.5 million.
  • Expenses: Our expenses totaled $190.9 million, of which 77.4% went to programmatic activities, 11.4% went to fundraising expenses, and 11.2% went to general and administrative support. These percentages are well within the range of best practice for nonprofits, as Charity Navigator awards the highest score to nonprofits with a programmatic ratio of 70% or higher. There is more information on these topics available in our Annual Report.
• Cash Flow Statement: This table provides details on changes in the Foundation’s cash flows during the fiscal year. These cash flows are divided into operating activities and investing activities. During FY 2024-2025, our operating cash decreased by $11.7 million. This was because the Foundation invested cash into its long-term investment portfolio in order to earn interest income. The Foundation maintained net reserves of 17.1 months of operating expenses, in line with the Foundation’s working capital goals.

Notes to the Financial Statements

These notes include a summary of significant accounting policies as well as additional details on specific accounts, as required by U.S. GAAP.

Audit Report Overview

What is an audit report and why does it matter for an organization?

An audit report is a collection of an organization’s audited financial statements. It gives an overview of an organization’s financial position and overall financial health. The audit results and financial statements are shared with the Audit Committee of the Board of Trustees before they are issued and then they are posted on the Foundation website for public access. The information from the audit report is then used in the financial piece of the organization’s annual Form 990—a form required by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in order for a nonprofit organization to maintain its 501(c)(3) status.

As part of the audit report, an external auditor (in the Foundation’s case, KPMG) expresses an opinion on whether the organization is presenting its finances accurately and in accordance with U.S. GAAP. In this audit report, KPMG issued their opinion that the Wikimedia Foundation’s financial statements for FY 2024-2025 are presented fairly, marking the 20th consecutive year of clean audits since the Foundation’s first audit for the year ended June 30, 2006. It further affirms that the Wikimedia Foundation’s existing processes are designed with appropriate control activities to initiate, authorize, record, process, and report financial data reliably. The strength of the financial statements together with sound control activities contribute to the Foundation's stewardship of donor funds. Receiving clean audits year over year is critical to establishing the Foundation’s credibility and reliability as a nonprofit organization.

What timeframe does the audit report represent?

The audit report covers the most recently completed fiscal year, the time period from 1 July 2024 - 30 June 2025, as well as the prior year for comparative purposes.

When will the audit report for the current fiscal year (July 2025 - June 2026) be published?

Audit reports are published in the months after the fiscal year ends, meaning that they are a retrospective look back at the previous fiscal year. The audit report for the current fiscal year (July 1, 2025 - June 30, 2026) is targeted to be released around October / November 2026.

When will the 2024-2025 Form 990 be published?

The Form 990 is the form required by the United States government for organizations to maintain their nonprofit status. While both the Form 990 and the audit report provide financial information about the Wikimedia Foundation, the two documents have different financial reporting requirements as stipulated by the IRS. We will soon begin working on the Form 990 for FY 2024-2025 with support and guidance from KPMG. It is our target and intention that the Form 990 will be completed, approved by the Audit Committee, submitted to the IRS, and published on the Foundation’s website in May 2026, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Where else can I find information about the Foundation’s finances?

The audit report is one of several financial documents that provide information on the Foundation’s financials, financial plans, reporting, and results. As part of the Foundation’s commitment to accountability and transparency, we publish several other documents annually including our Form 990 and FAQs, annual report, annual plan, fundraising report, grantmaking report, and Enterprise report.

Key Highlights

What are the overall takeaways?

In addition to upholding its fiduciary responsibilities, the Wikimedia Foundation’s financial position continued to be healthy as of 30 June 2025 - the final date covered by this audit report. During the 2024-2025 fiscal year, the Foundation’s total revenue increased by 13%, or $23.2 million, to $208.6 million, with $189.5 million coming from donations. Expenses grew by 7%, or $12.4 million, to $190.9 million.

Revenue: The Foundation’s total revenue of $208.6 million during fiscal year 2024-2025 came primarily from donations, as well as investment income and revenue related to Wikimedia Enterprise. This fiscal year saw the continued diversification of revenue streams to reduce reliance on banner fundraising, with banners bringing in 30% of total revenue (down from 32% the year prior), email bringing in 15%, recurring giving bringing in 21%, and Enterprise bringing in 4%. This was the first year that Enterprise contributed meaningfully to revenue. For a deeper dive on Wikimedia Enterprise financial results during the year, please see here.

Due to strong performance across revenue streams, revenue came in at $208.6 million - 11% above the fiscal year target of $188.7 million. Any overage in net revenue is stored in the reserves, which can then be tapped for unforeseen expenses related to critical work. The overage from fiscal year 2024-2025 is being tapped to respond to rising threats to our mission (including legal and regulatory threats), as well subsidizing grants going to groups outside the United States—as the U.S. Dollar falls relative to some other currencies, the Foundation contributes more toward grants so that community groups do not receive less in local currency. It will also be tapped to support Wikipedia's 25th birthday as a strategic, one-time, non-recurring event in the current fiscal year. The birthday activities will consist of community grants for events, a design system for community members to use, and opportunities to be part of partnerships and press work throughout the year, in order to build positive sentiment around the world for Wikipedia and the Wikipedia communities. As we look toward the future, with increased challenges coming from the regulatory sphere, as well as a decrease in reader traffic that amounts to fewer people on the site, it is even more critical to have a healthy reserve to maintain and protect the sustainability of the projects. For more information on our reserves, see What is the Wikimedia Foundation’s approach to cash and investments?

Expenses: Of the total $190.9 million in operating expenses, 77.4% went to programmatic activities, 11.4% went to fundraising expenses, and 11.2% went to general and administrative support. Programmatic activities include things like platform maintenance, community grants, feature developments, and more. By devoting 77.4% of expenses to programmatic activities, we surpassed our goal of 76.9%, and are well within the best practice range from Charity Navigator, which awards the highest score to nonprofits spending 70% of their budget or more on programmatic work. Growth in grants was in line with expense growth overall, with an increase of 9.2% of granting to community groups from the previous fiscal year, and a 7.3% increase in granting overall (community groups + Wikidata), bringing the total to $26.3 million.

What is new on this year’s audit report?

The following is new on this year’s audit report:

• Because the revenue it generates has now become materially significant to the Foundation’s overall budget (4%), Wikimedia Enterprise revenue is now separately presented in the statement of activities, rather than reported within other income. We are also separately reporting deferred revenue (i.e., money we have received but not yet earned as revenue) from Wikimedia Enterprise on the statement of financial position, rather than within other liabilities. Wikimedia Enterprise revenue and deferred revenue continues to be presented within footnote 1(o) as in prior years. For more information on Wikimedia Enterprise, please see here.
• The Foundation removed the current/noncurrent classification of assets and liabilities in our statement of financial position. The Foundation benchmarked other nonprofit organizations and identified that the large majority of nonprofit organizations do not present current/noncurrent classifications. This change simplifies the presentation and preparation of our financial statements.

Wikipedia and the many other Wikimedia projects are created by volunteers. How is volunteer time reflected in the report?

Under U.S. GAAP, volunteer activity is typically not reflected in a nonprofit's audit report. However, Wikimedia projects would not exist without the hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the globe who are active on them, and the report simply wouldn’t be complete without mention of their tremendous efforts. For this reason, page 15 highlights volunteer contributions.

The audit report shows a slightly different figure for community grants than what appears in other places. What does the difference mean?

The audit report is just one of many places the Foundation provides insight into grants. Based on accounting requirements, the audit report includes things within the grants category that we don’t typically consider community grants, such as legacy gifts earmarked for and transferred to the Wikimedia Endowment. So, while the audit report shows $28.7 million in grants, $26.3 million was dispersed in community and project grants, as explained on Diff. Of that $26.3 million, $18.2 million in grants was given out by the Foundation's Community Resources team, as reported in our annual Grantmaking Report. The difference between the two numbers is represented by grants not led by that team, which includes Wikidata and Wikimania scholarships.

What are the Wikimedia Foundation’s sources of revenue?

The vast majority of the Foundation’s revenue comes from individual donations. Every year, millions of people from around the world support the Wikimedia projects, mostly in the form of small, individual contributions. We also receive donations and grants from corporations and foundations, investment income (including interest, dividends and realized gains/losses), Wikimedia Enterprise, and "other income," including revenue from merchandise sales and services provided to support the Endowment through a cost sharing agreement with the Endowment.

During fiscal year 2024-2025, the Foundation’s total revenue was $208.6 million, of which $189.5 million came from donations. Of the total revenue, $62.4 million or 30% came from banner donations, down from the previous fiscal year when 32% came from banners. This decline in percentage contributions from banner fundraising is reflective of progress toward the goal to diversify revenue streams - email donations contributed 15%, recurring giving increased to 21%, and Enterprise contributed meaningfully to revenue for the first time, bringing in 4% of total revenue.

Who donates to the Wikimedia Foundation?

The overwhelming majority of the Foundation's funding comes from millions of individual readers from all over the world giving an average of $11 per donation. We also receive grants from foundations and corporations. The Wikimedia Foundation does not accept government grants. This distributed funding model helps ensure that the Foundation, and the Wikimedia projects, can continue to operate independently. Refer to Fundraising for more details.

What is the Wikimedia Foundation’s approach to cash and investments?

The Wikimedia Foundation’s goal is to ensure we have an appropriate amount of available operating funds. It is considered financial best practice for organizations of all sizes to maintain financial reserves consistent with working capital policies. For nonprofits in particular, reserves are critical due to the way nonprofits raise funds, with a significant majority of funding being raised in a single quarter or season of a year. There are a range of benchmarks including from Charity Navigator - an assessment organization that evaluates hundreds of thousands of charitable organizations based in the United States - that provides guidance on the level of reserves that are considered appropriate for an organization of a given size and budget. Charity Navigator awards full points for organizations with a working capital reserve of 6 months or more.

We maintain a reserve via our cash and investments balance (which is reported within total assets on the Statement of Financial Position included in the audit report) as a source of emergency funding. In keeping with the purpose of nonprofit reserves, our reserve is designed to sustain our work and grant funding to affiliates and volunteers in the event of unplanned expenses, emergencies, or shortfalls in fundraising. In 2022, we asked the Board to consider a clear and specific policy to guide our approach to reserves. In line with organizations of our size, the Board adopted a resolution that guides the Foundation to have a minimum of 12 months of working capital in reserve and a target of up to 18 months. As of June 30, 2025, we had $296.6 million in our reserve, which amounts to just over 17 months of operating expenses and is consistent with our reserves for the last several years.

What happens to any extra revenue raised?

The Foundation does, on occasion, experience strong performance across revenue streams leading to more revenue raised than anticipated. Due to strong performance across revenue streams, revenue came in at $208.6 million - 11% above the fiscal year target of $188.7 million. Any overage in net revenue is stored in the reserves, which can then be tapped for unforeseen expenses related to critical work. The overage from fiscal year 2024-2025 is being tapped to respond to rising threats to our mission (including legal and regulatory threats), as well subsidizing grants going to groups outside the United States—as the U.S. Dollar falls relative to some other currencies, the Foundation contributes more toward grants so that community groups do not receive less in local currency. It will also be tapped to support Wikipedia's 25th birthday as a strategic, one-time, non-recurring event in the current fiscal year. The birthday activities will consist of community grants for events, a design system for community members to use, and opportunities to be part of partnerships and press work throughout the year, in order to build positive sentiment around the world for Wikipedia and the Wikipedia communities.

As we look toward the future, with increased challenges coming from the regulatory sphere, as well as a decrease in reader traffic, it is even more critical to have a healthy reserve to maintain and protect the sustainability of the projects.

What is the nature of transactions with the Wikimedia Endowment?

The Endowment began operations as a standalone tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization on September 30, 2023. There are three main types of transactions between the Foundation and the Endowment:

• Cost sharing agreement: The Endowment does not have any employees of its own. In order to maximize cost efficiency to the Endowment, the Endowment and the Foundation entered into a cost sharing agreement in FY 2023-2024 in which the Endowment pays the Foundation for the work the Foundation does to support the Endowment, primarily fundraising and general and administrative support. Costs include direct business expenses for which the Endowment reimburses the Foundation, such as donation processing fees, business registration fees, website hosting costs, marketing material, printing, mailing, consulting, and travel and transportation. Costs also include Foundation staff time to support the Endowment, such as Fundraising, Legal, and Finance staff time. The Foundation recognized revenue of $2.1 million related to services provided to the Endowment through the cost sharing agreement in FY 2024-2025. The revenue is recorded within other income, net.
• Donation revenue: While the Endowment can receive donations directly, for example via wires sent to the Endowment’s bank account, donations made to the Endowment online are processed via the Foundation’s payment processors. Monthly, the Foundation transfers those donations to the Endowment for donations raised in the prior month. As of June 30, 2025, the Foundation owed the Endowment $187,674 for donations raised on behalf of the Endowment in the month of June. This was subsequently paid in July 2025 and was reported as “Donations payable to the Wikimedia Endowment” in the Statement of Financial Position.
• Funding: During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, the Endowment provided the Foundation with fundings of $1 million for the Wikidata project, $1 million for artificial intelligence and machine learning, $950,000 for the Abstract Wikipedia project, and $150,000 for Wikimedia Commons. Each year, the Endowment uses a portion of its earnings for funding to support the long-term sustainability of Wikimedia projects. Since fiscal year 2022-2023, Endowment funds have supported technical infrastructure and innovation on the projects. These fundings are reported within contributions of cash and other financial assets in the Statement of Activities.

Detailed financials for the Endowment will be available in the Endowment’s audit report, to be released in the coming months.

Terms and Definitions

OPERATING REVENUES

What is "contributions of nonfinancial assets and services"?

Contributions of nonfinancial assets and services includes goods and services that the Wikimedia Foundation would normally pay for, but have been donated to us at no charge, such as bandwidth and hosting services, subscription services, and pro-bono legal services. Further detail is available in the footnotes of the audit report under Contributions of Nonfinancial Assets and Services (Note 1(n)).

What is "other income, net"?

"Other income, net" for the Foundation consists primarily of receipt of payment for services to support the Wikimedia Endowment through a cost sharing agreement, merchandise sales from our online store, and rebate from our corporate credit card program.

What is "investment income, net"?

"Investment income, net" is primarily interest, dividends, and realized gains/losses earned on the Foundation’s cash and investment portfolio, net of investment management expenses. During this audit period, the Foundation was primarily invested in U.S. Treasury securities, corporate bonds, mortgage-backed securities, and stocks (Note 3). It is the Foundation’s investment policy to preserve capital, income and liquidity over capital appreciation, which has higher volatility.

What is "foreign currency losses"?

The Wikimedia Foundation is a global organization. The US dollar is our primary currency, but we make and receive payments in many currencies. Foreign currency transaction gains and losses arise when an organization enters into a transaction using a currency different from its primary currency, and the exchange rate between the two currencies fluctuates between the transaction date (which is the date that we record the transaction as expense or revenue) and the settlement date (which is the date that the cash is actually received or paid). A gain occurs if the value of the primary currency appreciates relative to the foreign currency, increasing the value of the transaction in primary currency terms, while a loss happens if the home currency depreciates, decreasing the transaction's value. In both FY 2023-2024 and FY 2024-2025, the Foundation reported foreign currency losses of $301K and $147K, respectively.

What is "release of net assets with donor restrictions"?

The Foundation sometimes receives grants from donors which include restrictions on the use of the funds. Restrictions can be time-based, such as the funds should not be spent until the next fiscal year, or purpose-based. In these cases, the accounting rules require us to report the donation as restricted revenue in the statement of activities and as net assets with donor restrictions in the statement of financial position. Once the restriction expires, that is, when a stipulated time restriction ends or purpose restriction is accomplished, we report this as release of net assets with donor restrictions within the statement of activities in order to “release” the restriction and report the revenue as unrestricted.

OPERATING EXPENSES

What is “salaries and benefits”?

"Salaries and benefits" includes salary, benefits, retirement, wellness, and payroll taxes for full-time and part-time staff members in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. employed by Wikimedia Foundation or its Employers of Record. These costs vary significantly by geography. This number does not include fees paid to contractors, vendors, or consultants. Those costs are reported in the Professional Services expense line.

What are "Internet Hosting" expenses?

The category “Internet Hosting” expenses in the audit report includes the costs we pay to data center and telecommunication providers for physical hosting (space), power and cooling for our servers, and Internet connectivity. This category is a small portion of all of the costs related to run a top-10 global website, deliver on wiki experiences that enable the distribution of free knowledge worldwide, enable the data, models, insights, and tools infrastructure, and more. The total budget of our investment in this work is defined by our Infrastructure goal and was 49.2% of our budget in FY 2024-2025.

What are "other operating expenses"?

"Other operating expenses" include expenses for facilities such as rent and office and non-office supplies, software, insurance, annual staff convenings, recruiting, staff development, and personal property taxes related to equipment at our data center locations.

FUNCTIONAL ALLOCATIONS

What is the "functional allocation of expenses"?

The functional expense statement is created to break out the purpose of spending. Expenses are reviewed and allocated among three categories: Programs, General and Administrative Support, and Fundraising.

What are "Programs" expenses?

The "Programs" category includes all the work done by the Wikimedia Foundation that directly supports the Wikimedia mission. For example, it includes all technology spending with the exception of spending supporting the office (e.g., office equipment). In addition to our two main data centers, five caching data centers, we maintain the software and infrastructure on which we operate some of the world’s most multilingual sites with over 1,000 separate wiki instances and over 3,800 community-contributed tools, many of which are essential to maintaining the content and quality of Wikipedia, as well as seven mobile applications. We also maintain substantial data infrastructure that enables volunteers to gain direct access to wiki content and to analytical information about the wikis. This data is useful for our volunteers, but is also widely used by researchers, companies, and others as one of the largest free and open-source corpus of multilingual content, metadata, and supplementary data. Maintaining this infrastructure and continuously ensuring Wikipedia is online, available, and secure for its hundreds of millions of readers and editors around the world takes significant financial and staff resourcing.

The “Programs” category also includes salaries for technical staff who contribute to the maintenance of our systems, distributed among site reliability engineering, software engineering, security, and a range of other supporting roles. It also includes expenses for all our grant programs, including funding for affiliates, conferences, research, and individual contributor projects, as well as internal staff time to support the grants program. The category also includes movement communications and an allocation of Chief Executive Officer, Legal, Administrative, and Finance staff for the portion of their time spent directly supporting programmatic activity.

Charity Navigator awards the highest score to nonprofits with a programmatic ratio of 70% or higher; the Foundation incurred approximately 77.4% of total spending on programmatic activities.

What are "General and Administrative" expenses?

The "General and Administrative" category includes costs for general and administrative expenses such as business insurance, staff recruitment expenses, and an allocation for general office expenses such as rent. The category also includes the personnel cost for the People department, as well as an allocation of costs for Chief Executive Officer, Legal, Administrative, and Finance staff. This category also includes expenses related to General and Administrative support for the Wikimedia Endowment.

What are "Fundraising" expenses?

The "Fundraising" category includes all spending associated with fundraising activities. For example, it includes the salaries of the Fundraising staff, donation processing expenses related to online fundraising (e.g., Adyen processing fees), and all fundraising-related travel and conference costs. This category also includes expenses related to fundraising for the Wikimedia Endowment.

Other

What are "Contributions Receivable"?

Contributions receivable represent gift commitments due from various individuals and entities. As of June 30, 2025, contributions receivable totaled $1.5 million and represents contributions receivable from one grant as well as contributions receivable from payment processors and chapter fundraising.