Google’s Grant is good news for Wikimedia!
Earlier today we announced a generous $2 million (USD) grant to the Wikimedia Foundation from the Google Inc. Charity Fund at the Tides Foundation. This is the first gift to the Wikimedia Foundation from Google, and as an unrestricted gift we’ll be able to support operations for Wikipedia and our other free knowledge projects across multiple priorities.
The news has rung out across outlets in the U.S. and abroad, and microbloggers (prompted by a tweet from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales) have been actively sharing the announcement.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has called Wikipedia “one of the greatest triumphs of the internet,” and considering the impact and mission of Google, we’re in good company. Many have speculated as to the relationship between our organizations before, but with this news we’re pleased to clarify their great role as a philanthropic supporter for the Foundation.
Thanks to the good folks at Google for making this possible!
Jay Walsh, Communications
This is a great public relations move for Google. It’s one way for Google to circumvent Wikipedia’s ban on having advertisements…
WMF has also gotten donations from many other companies and organisations, and is most pleased to thank them all very much indeed! $2 million is probably enough to rate a press release and a blog entry …
(The press about Google has been … odd. No-one came out with Microsoft-WMF conspiracy theories after Bing donated a sizable slab of cash. The servers still run Linux and Solaris …)
Awesome news! How close does that put Wikimedia to its fundraising goal for this fiscal year?
i just want to thank wikipedia for all that it has helped me as i have used it alot and i want to thank the makers of wikipedia
Johnathan Vrozos and his fellow bloggers and tweeters are very impressed and pleased with Google and Google’s $2,000,000.00 donation to Wikipedia and Wikimedia and their Foundation.
Wikipedia is an extremely valuable tool to both young and old for un-adulterated information.
Gone are the days of having to go to the library to get the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia or Websters dictionary.
Thanks Google and Wikipedia.
By Johnathan Vrozos
Great move Google supporting Wikipedia, it helps us all move quicker through life..
Good that Google is donating. But I still hope that Wikimedia won’t depend too much on one or two big donators.