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The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., abbreviated WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as a charitable foundation. It is best known as the host of Wikipedia, the seventh most visited website in the world. However, the foundation also hosts 14 other related content projects. It also supports the development of MediaWiki, the wiki software that underpins them all.The Wikimedia Foundation was established, in 2003 in St. Petersburg, Florida, by Jimmy Wales as a nonprofit way to fund Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and other crowdsourced wiki projects. (Until then, they had been hosted by Bomis, Wales's for-profit company.) The Foundation finances itself mainly through millions of small donations from Wikipedia readers, collected through email campaigns and annual fundraising banners placed on Wikipedia and its sister projects. These are complemented by grants from philanthropic organizations and tech companies, and starting in 2022, by services income from Wikimedia Enterprise.
The Foundation has grown rapidly throughout its existence. By 2022, it employed around 700 staff and contractors, with annual revenues of $155 million, annual expenses of $146 million, net assets of $240 million and a growing endowment, which surpassed $100 million in June 2021.