Wikipedia

Quick Take

The Foundation reported $0 in federal lobbying for 2024, then about $490,000 in 2025 and another $300,000 in the first six months of 2026, hiring the law firm Holland & Knight as Republican lawmakers opened investigations into the site.[7][8][9] Its most famous political act came earlier: on January 18, 2012, English Wikipedia went dark for 24 hours to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act, the first time English Wikipedia had staged a protest of this kind.[10] In 2020 the Foundation set aside $4.5 million for a new Knowledge Equity Fund "to address racial inequities," and its 2023-24 budget labeled $31.2 million as spending on "equity."[4][15] Since April 2025 it has drawn a tax-status inquiry from a Trump-appointed prosecutor, a House Oversight investigation, and a bias letter from Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Cruz.[12][13][14] Its new chief executive, in the job since January 20, 2026, is Bernadette Meehan, President Biden's ambassador to Chile and a former Obama Foundation executive.[18]

"There Is No Neutral Stance": The Foundation's Own Words

The June 3, 2020 statement was signed by then-CEO Katherine Maher and COO Janeen Uzzell. It listed George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and David McAtee as "victims of violent anti-Black racism in America," called for reforming criminal justice systems and limiting police use of force, and said "to stay silent is to endorse the violence of history and power."[1] It also pointed back to a 2017 decision in which the Foundation adopted "Knowledge Equity" as one of two pillars of its strategy through 2030, a pledge to support "knowledge and communities that have been left out by structures of power and privilege."[1]

That pledge turned into money. In September 2021 the Foundation announced the first six grants from a $4.5 million Knowledge Equity Fund, which it said was "conceptualized in June 2020, in the wake of global protests about police brutality and racial injustice."[4] Recipients included Borealis Philanthropy's Racial Equity in Journalism Fund ($250,000), which backs US news outlets "led by and for people of color," and a Howard University law fellowship ($260,000) on race and knowledge equity.[4] The Foundation's own FAQ says the fund was set up to address barriers faced by "Black, Indigenous and oppressed/marginalized racialized communities" and that its first-round grantees drew criticism for having little connection to Wikipedia itself.[5] A second round followed in 2023.[5]

The values framing is also written into board-level policy. On December 8, 2021, the Foundation's Board of Trustees approved a Human Rights Policy that roots the projects in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and commits the Foundation to advance the rights of volunteers, staff and readers. The policy states that the Foundation "will not practice or tolerate discrimination on the basis of" a list of characteristics that includes "gender or gender expression" and "sexual orientation," and that it conducts due diligence for volunteers "at greatest risk of persecution, reprisal or harassment... due to their beliefs or characteristics."[29] It also commits the Foundation to use its influence "with partners and governments to promote human rights."[30]

The Foundation frames all of this as making the encyclopedia more complete, not as politics. When critics attacked its 2023-24 budget in December 2024, a spokesperson told Newsweek that the "equity" line "refers to making it possible for more people to share reliable knowledge on Wikipedia," including people of different "political persuasions."[15] Readers can weigh the two framings against the Foundation's 2020 language, which is its own.

Where the Money Goes

The Foundation is large for a charity and runs almost entirely on small gifts. Total revenue was $208.6 million in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, with $189.5 million from donations; expenses were $190.9 million.[2] It reports that 77 percent of spending goes to programs, and it holds the top Charity Navigator marks for governance.[3] Its chief executive's compensation, per the Form 990 covering calendar 2023, was about $473,000.[6]

Two pieces of the balance sheet sat outside the Foundation for years. The Wikimedia Endowment, its long-term reserve, was housed at the Tides Foundation, a San Francisco fund sponsor, from 2016 until it became its own 501(c)(3) on September 30, 2023; the Endowment's first standalone tax return shows a $116.2 million transfer from Tides.[3][19] Separately, at the end of the 2019-20 fiscal year the Foundation moved $8.7 million into a grantmaking account at Tides Advocacy, a related 501(c)(4), to hold the Equity Fund and one other program; it brought the remaining Equity Fund money back in-house in June 2023.[5]

The 2023-24 annual plan is the document critics cite most. It set a $177 million spending goal, with $86.1 million for infrastructure, $39.2 million for "effectiveness," $31.2 million for "equity," and $20.5 million for "safety and inclusion."[15] The equity line, the Foundation says, is mostly grants to volunteer groups and regional affiliates.[15]

Wikipedia has one commercial arm. Wikimedia Enterprise sells fast, structured access to Wikipedia content, and in June 2022 the Foundation named Google and the Internet Archive as its first paying customers.[20] In November 2025 the Foundation publicly asked AI companies to stop scraping the site and pay for access through Enterprise instead, saying human page views had fallen while bot traffic climbed.[21]

The Lobbying Footprint

As a 501(c)(3), the Foundation cannot run a political action committee or back candidates, and it does not. OpenSecrets shows no PAC and no outside spending. What it does show is $28,754 in contributions attributed to the Foundation in the 2024 cycle, a figure that reflects donations of $200 or more by individuals who listed the Foundation as their employer, not Foundation money.[7] Of that, $5,460 went to congressional candidates in the 2024 cycle, and 100 percent of it went to Democrats: 13 House members and 10 senators, with $0 to any Republican.[27] The remainder went to other recipients, including presidential candidates, party committees and PACs.

Lobbying is the more interesting line. The Foundation filed small federal lobbying reports during the SOPA era, in 2011, 2012 and 2014, then reported nothing from 2015 through 2024.[8][28] In 2025 it returned to Washington in force: OpenSecrets' annual totals chart shows about $490,000 in 2025 spending, by far the Foundation's largest lobbying year on record.[28] The pace continued in 2026, with $150,000 reported in the first quarter and $300,000 through June 30, a partial-year figure that covers January through June only.[8] Trade publication Legis1 reported that the Foundation retained Holland & Knight in the second quarter of 2026 for $150,000, fielding a four-person team that includes former Senate Judiciary and Finance Committee staff, at a time of "mounting criticism from Republican lawmakers."[9]

The 2012 blackout remains the Foundation's signature political act. On January 16, 2012, Executive Director Sue Gardner announced that English Wikipedia would go dark worldwide for 24 hours beginning January 18 to protest SOPA and its Senate companion, PIPA, which she said "would seriously damage the free and open Internet." She acknowledged that Wikipedians "will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position."[10] The Foundation has not repeated a blackout since.

It has gone to court against the US government. In 2015 the Foundation, represented by the ACLU, sued the National Security Agency over "Upstream" surveillance, the program that searches internet traffic crossing the US border under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Fourth Circuit dismissed the case on state-secrets grounds, and on February 21, 2023 the Supreme Court declined to hear it. The Foundation's legal director called the outcome "a blow against an individual's right to privacy and freedom of expression."[11]

What Wikimedia Advocates For

The lobbying dollars buy a fairly consistent set of positions, most of them about keeping the internet's legal rules friendly to a volunteer-run, ad-free site. The Foundation is a public backer of Section 230, the 1996 law that shields websites from liability for what their users post. It says it "considers CDA 230 essential to the internet's power for global exchange and free speech."[31] Its self-reported federal lobbying has named both Section 230 and Section 702 surveillance as issues it worked on. After the Supreme Court turned away its NSA case in 2023, the Foundation said it would press Congress to rein in mass surveillance when the Section 702 law came up for renewal.[11]

In June 2025 the Foundation went a step further and built its own lobbying tool. It published the "Wikipedia Test," which it describes as "a public policy tool and a call to action to help ensure regulators consider how new laws can negatively affect online communities and platforms that provide services and information in the public interest." The idea is a rubric asking lawmakers whether a proposed law would make it harder to read, contribute to, or trust a site like Wikipedia.[32] It is a rare case of an organization publicly stating it created an instrument to shape how legislators think.

How a charity can lobby at all is worth a line. A 501(c)(3) cannot back candidates, but it can lobby within limits. The Foundation has made the IRS "501(h) election," which swaps a vague "substantial part" test for hard dollar ceilings. Its own Board Handbook puts the rough annual caps at about $1 million for direct lobbying and $250,000 for grassroots lobbying, each requiring sign-off from the Foundation's treasurer.[33]

Washington Turns Up the Heat

Federal officials in both the executive and legislative branches have moved on the Foundation since April 2025.

On April 24, 2025, Ed Martin, then interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia, sent a four-page letter alleging that the Foundation was "allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public," questioning whether it still qualified for tax-exempt status, and asking for records back to January 2021 by May 15.[14] Martin's letter also asserted that the Foundation's board is "composed primarily of foreign nationals."[14]

On August 27, 2025, House Oversight Chairman James Comer and Subcommittee Chair Nancy Mace opened an investigation into "organized efforts, undertaken in violation of Wikipedia platform rules, to influence U.S. public opinion." Their letter to CEO Maryana Iskander cited reports of antisemitic editing campaigns and "pro-Kremlin" manipulation, and asked how often the Foundation holds editors accountable.[13]

On October 7, 2025, Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Cruz wrote to Iskander about "ideological bias on the Wikipedia platform and at the Wikimedia Foundation." He pointed to Wikipedia's source-reliability list, which rates CNN and MSNBC "generally reliable" and Fox News "generally unreliable" for politics, and to Foundation grants to groups such as Art+Feminism and Whose Knowledge. He also quoted a 2024 Manhattan Institute study finding Wikipedia entries "more likely to attach negative sentiment to terms associated with a right-leaning political orientation."[12] That study is an outside assessment; it is reported here as what the senator relied on, not as a finding of this profile.

Pressure has come from outside government too. On December 24, 2024, Elon Musk told his followers to "stop donating to Wokepedia" after a post circulated the 2023-24 budget chart.[15] In January 2025 the Forward reported that the Heritage Foundation had pitched donors on a plan to "identify and target" anonymous Wikipedia editors using facial recognition, breached-password databases and fake accounts; the Foundation declined to comment.[16] On October 27, 2025, Musk's xAI launched Grokipedia, an AI-written rival. The Foundation's response was that "even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist."[17]

Wikipedia's co-founder Larry Sanger, who left in 2002, has argued for years that the site's neutrality policy "is dead"; Cruz quoted him.[12]

Courtrooms Abroad

The Foundation's political fights are not only American. In the United Kingdom it sued to keep Wikipedia out of the strictest tier of the Online Safety Act, arguing that "Category 1" duties written for social media would force identity checks on volunteer editors. The High Court dismissed the challenge on August 11, 2025 while directing regulators to protect the site; the Foundation said on September 12, 2025 that it would not appeal.[22][23]

In India, the news agency ANI sued the Foundation for defamation over its Wikipedia article. When the Delhi High Court ordered the Foundation to delete a Wikipedia page describing the lawsuit itself, the Foundation complied and appealed. On May 9, 2025 the Supreme Court of India set the takedown aside, holding that such orders must meet "a test of necessity and proportionality."[24]

The Foundation also lobbies in Brussels, where it is listed on the EU Transparency Register; its entry there could not be read for this profile.

Who Runs It

Jimmy Wales founded the Foundation in Florida in 2003; it is now based in San Francisco, and Wales holds a founder's seat on its board. Katherine Maher, who signed the 2020 racial justice statement, left on April 15, 2021 and now runs NPR.[25] Two months after leaving, at a June 2021 Atlantic Council event, she said of the fight against online disinformation that "the number one challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States," which she called "a fairly robust protection of rights" that made the work "a little bit tricky."[26] Those are her words about her Wikimedia tenure, said after it ended; Cruz cited her in his 2025 letter.[12]

Maryana Iskander, a lawyer and former Rhodes Scholar, led the Foundation from January 2022 to January 2026. Her successor, Bernadette Meehan, was appointed December 9, 2025 and started January 20, 2026. The Foundation's own announcement lists her prior roles: US Ambassador to Chile from 2022 to 2025, Executive Vice President for Global Programs at the Obama Foundation, and Spokesperson for the White House National Security Council under President Obama.[18] She holds a political science degree from Boston College.[18]

Where to Find Them

Wikipedia is free, carries no advertising, and is available in hundreds of languages. The Foundation raises money through on-site donation banners and email appeals, mostly in December, and publishes its audit reports, tax returns and annual plans on its governance wiki.

Footnotes

[1] Katherine Maher and Janeen Uzzell, Wikimedia Foundation, "We stand for racial justice," June 3, 2020. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2020/06/03/we-stand-for-racial-justice/

[2] Wikimedia Foundation, "Wikimedia Foundation reports/Financial/Audits/2024-2025, frequently asked questions," Meta-Wiki, accessed September 3, 2026. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial/Audits/2024-2025_-_frequently_asked_questions

[3] Wikimedia Foundation, Diff, "Sharing the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Endowment fiscal year 2024-2025 Form 990s," May 18, 2026. https://diff.wikimedia.org/2026/05/18/sharing-the-wikimedia-foundation-and-wikimedia-endowment-fiscal-year-2024-2025-form-990s/

[4] Wikimedia Foundation, "Wikimedia Foundation Announces First Grant Recipients of New $4.5 Million Equity Fund to Close Knowledge Gaps and Promote Racial Equity," September 8, 2021. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/09/08/wikimedia-foundation-announces-first-grant-recipients-of-new-4-5-million-equity-fund/

[5] Wikimedia Foundation, "Knowledge Equity Fund" and "Knowledge Equity Fund/Frequently asked questions," Meta-Wiki, accessed September 3, 2026. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund

[6] Philanthropy.org, "Wikimedia Foundation INC, Form 990 financials (EIN 20-0049703), FY2024," summarizing the IRS filing, accessed September 3, 2026. https://philanthropy.org/990/report/200049703/wikimedia-foundation-inc

[7] OpenSecrets, "Wikimedia Foundation Profile: Summary," accessed September 3, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/wikimedia-foundation/summary?id=D000085196

[8] OpenSecrets, "Wikimedia Foundation Lobbying Profile," data downloaded July 23, 2026, covering January 1 through June 30, 2026, accessed September 3, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2012&id=D000085196

[9] Legis1 Editorial, Legis1, "Wikimedia Foundation Hires Holland & Knight for Lobbying," July 6, 2026. https://legis1.com/news/wikimedia-foundation-lobbying-hires-holland

[10] Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation, "Wikipedia's community calls for anti-SOPA blackout January 18," January 16, 2012. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-sopa-blackout-january-18/

[11] Wikimedia Foundation, "U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Wikimedia Foundation's Challenge to NSA Mass Surveillance," February 21, 2023. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/02/21/u-s-supreme-court-declines-to-hear-wikimedia-foundations-challenge-to-nsa-mass-surveillance/

[12] U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, "Chairman Cruz Sounds Alarm Over Left-Wing Ideological Bias on Wikipedia," October 7, 2025. https://www.commerce.senate.gov/press/rep/release/chairman-cruz-sounds-alarm-over-left-wing-ideological-bias-on-wikipedia/

[13] U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, "Comer and Mace Investigate Efforts to Manipulate Information on Wikipedia," August 27, 2025. https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-and-mace-investigate-efforts-to-manipulate-information-on-wikipedia/

[14] Edward R. Martin, Jr., United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, "Letter from Ed Martin to the Wikimedia Foundation," April 24, 2025, public-domain text hosted at Wikisource, accessed September 3, 2026. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_from_Ed_Martin_to_the_Wikimedia_Foundation

[15] Newsweek, "Elon Musk Takes Aim at Wikipedia," December 27, 2024. https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-takes-aim-wikipedia-fund-raising-editing-political-woke-2005742

[16] Arno Rosenfeld, The Forward, "Scoop: Heritage Foundation plans to 'identify and target' Wikipedia editors," January 7, 2025. https://forward.com/news/686797/heritage-foundation-wikipedia-antisemitism/

[17] Forbes, "Musk Launches 'Grokipedia'" (headline shortened), October 28, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/10/28/musk-takes-on-wikipedia-with-ai-generated-grokipedia-what-to-know/

[18] Wikimedia Foundation, "Wikimedia Foundation appoints Bernadette Meehan as Chief Executive Officer," December 9, 2025. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/12/09/wikimedia-foundation-appoints-bernadette-meehan-as-chief-executive-officer/

[19] Wikimedia Foundation, Diff, "Sharing the Wikimedia Endowment's Form 990 for fiscal year 2023-2024," July 14, 2025. https://diff.wikimedia.org/2025/07/14/sharing-the-wikimedia-endowments-form-990-for-fiscal-year-2023-2024/

[20] Wikimedia Foundation, "Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as its first customers; allows new customers to self sign-up for free trials," June 21, 2022. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/06/21/wikimedia-enterprise-announces-google-and-internet-archive-first-customers/

[21] TechCrunch, "Wikipedia urges AI companies to use its paid API, and stop scraping," November 10, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/10/wikipedia-urges-ai-companies-to-use-its-paid-api-and-stop-scraping/

[22] High Court of Justice (Administrative Court), Wikimedia Foundation & Anor v Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology [2025] EWHC 2086 (Admin), August 11, 2025. https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/admin/2025/2086

[23] Wikimedia Foundation, "Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations," July 17, 2025, updated September 12, 2025. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2026/07/10/wikimedia-foundation-challenges-uk-online-safety-act-regulations/

[24] Columbia Global Freedom of Expression, "Wikimedia Foundation v. Asian News International," case summary of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. v. ANI Media Private Limited, 2025 INSC 656 (Supreme Court of India, May 9, 2025), accessed September 3, 2026. https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/wikimedia-foundation-v-asian-news-international/

[25] Wikimedia Foundation, "Wikimedia Foundation CEO Katherine Maher to Step Down in April 2021," February 4, 2021. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2021/02/04/wikimedia-foundation-ceo-katherine-maher-to-step-down-in-april-2021/

[26] Lindsay Kornick and Hanna Panreck, Fox News, "NPR boss once called the First Amendment a 'challenge' and 'reverence for the truth' a distraction," April 17, 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/media/npr-boss-called-first-amendment-challenge-reverence-truth-distraction

[27] OpenSecrets, "Wikimedia Foundation Profile: Recipients," 2024 cycle, accessed September 3, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/wikimedia-foundation/recipients?id=D000085196

[28] OpenSecrets, "Wikimedia Foundation Profile: Lobbying," Annual Lobbying Totals chart, accessed September 3, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/wikimedia-foundation/lobbying?id=D000085196

[29] Wikimedia Foundation, "Policy:Wikimedia Human Rights Policy," approved by the Board of Trustees December 8, 2021, accessed September 3, 2026. https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Wikimedia_Human_Rights_Policy

[30] Wikimedia Foundation, Diff, "What the Wikimedia Foundation's new Human Rights Policy means for our Movement," December 9, 2021. https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/12/09/what-the-wikimedia-foundations-new-human-rights-policy-means-for-our-movement/

[31] Wikimedia Foundation, "Wikimedia panelists tackle the future of intermediary liability," August 2, 2018, accessed September 3, 2026. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2018/08/02/intermediary-liability-future-panel/

[32] Wikimedia Foundation, "The Wikipedia Test," June 27, 2025. https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/06/27/the-wikipedia-test/

[33] Wikimedia Foundation, "Legal:Wikimedia Foundation Board Handbook," section on limits on lobbying and the 501(h) election, accessed September 3, 2026. https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook