[Foundation-l] [Announcement] Sloan awards Wikimedia USD 1m annually for three years

Tue Mar 25 20:25:16 UTC 2008

Excellent news indeed.   Congratulations to all, and to the projects!  SJ

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:20 AM, Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I'm delighted to tell you that yesterday, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
> > board of directors voted to award the Wikimedia Foundation USD 1 million
> > annually for the coming three years. A total of USD 3 million, spread
> over
> > three years.
> >
> > This is what Sloan characterizes as "institutional funding" - meaning, a
> > form of grant designed to help us work towards our general goals – in
> our
> > case, financial and operational sustainability, increasing quality,
> > increasing and broadening participation, and distributing our material
> > beyond the wiki environment. As you know, we've recently expanded the
> staff
> > from 10 to 15, and we still have a few more positions to fill: this
> funding
> > will offset those increased costs.
> >
> > This is _fabulous_ news. Sloan is high-profile and widely-respected:
> this
> > donation is financially significant for us, and it also signals that
> Sloan
> > sees our work as important and our organization as trustworthy.
> >
> > I'd like to take a moment to thank Erik Moeller, who developed our first
> > contact with Sloan through his work representing Wikimedia on the
> > Encyclopedia of Life's institutional council. (Sloan is an EOL funder.)
> >  Based on that initial relationship, in January Sloan invited Erik to
> > present to them about Wikimedia, after which they asked us for a formal
> > request for funding. Without Erik, this would not have happened. Yay,
> Erik
> > :-)
> >
> > We will be sending out a press release in a few hours, and I will also
> > send this note to foundation-l soon. Meanwhile, please join the staff
> and
> > board of the Wikimedia Foundation in celebrating this terrific news!
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Sue
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Sue Gardner
> > Executive Director,
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> >
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>