n January 2016, the Foundation announced the creation of an endowment to safeguard

its future. The Wikimedia Endowment was established as a collective action fund at
the Tides Foundation, with a stated goal to raise US$100 million in the next 10
years.[91][92] Craig Newmark was one of the initial donors, giving US$1 million.
[93] Peter Baldwin and his wife, Lisbet Rausing, donated US$5 million to the
endowment in 2017.[94]

In 2018, major donations to the endowment were received from Amazon.com and
Facebook (US$1 million each) and George Soros (US$2 million),[95][96][97] followed
in 2019 by another US$2 million from Google,[98] another US$3.5 million from
Baldwin and Rausing,[94] US$2.5 million more from Newmark,[99] and another US$1
million from Amazon in October 2019 and again in September 2020.[100][101]

The Foundation itself has provided annual grants of $5 million to the Tides
Foundation for the purpose of the Wikimedia Endowment.[102] These amounts have been
recorded as part of the Foundation's "awards and grants" expenses.[103] In 2020,
the Foundation separately donated US$4.5 million to Tides Advocacy for a "Knowledge
Equity Fund"; this provides grants to organizations unrelated to Wikimedia that
work to address racial inequities in accessing and contributing to free knowledge
resources.[104][105] In September 2021, the Foundation announced that the Wikimedia
Endowment had reached its initial $100 million fundraising goal in June 2021, five
years early.[5]