San Francisco (CA) - Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, has issued a personal thank you to the 125,000+ donators who helped raise over $4 million since July 1, 2007. This added to the site's already received $2 million, puts them well over the $5.95 million needed to fund Wikipedia through June 30, 2009.





The statement reads:

---

Thank you from Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales

Dear Reader,

Since July 1, more than 125,000 of you have donated $4 million. In addition, we've received major gifts and foundation support totaling $2 million. This combined revenue will cover our operating expenses for the current fiscal year, ending June 30, 2009.

Your donation makes you a key supporter of the free culture movement, and pays for:

Day-to-day operations: servers, hosting, bandwidth, our staff of just 23 people.

Continued development & improvements of open source software that powers all Wikimedia projects.

Outreach events like Wikipedia Academies: in-person workshops where you can learn more about how to use and edit Wikipedia.

Volunteer support: helping our international volunteer community to grow and to continue to do amazing work.

You can still get involved:

Any donations beyond our $6 million goal are put in a reserve fund, which will help us to offset operating costs beyond the current fiscal year. Your continued support will also serve as a much-needed financial safety net if economic conditions continue to worsen globally.

You have proven that Wikipedia matters to you, and that you support our mission: to bring free knowledge to the planet, free of charge and free of advertising. You've helped make and keep Wikipedia available for the whole world.

I deeply appreciate your support.

Thank you,

Jimmy Wales

---

This release does answer one previously unanswered question, namely where the extra money above the $5.95 million required to fund their 2008 annual budget goes. Wales explains that it goes into a "reserve fund" which will be used to offset expenses incurred next year.