The Wikimedia Foundation Gets $2M Google Grant

Google will donate $2 million to The Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikipedia operator officially announced Wednesday, confirming a tweet sent Tuesday by Wikipedia founder and Wikimedia Foundation board member Jimmy Wales.

The foundation said the grant marks the first from Google, although the two organizations have worked together, most notably resulting in Google’s Translation Toolkit supporting direct online translation of Wikipedia articles.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said:

Wikipedia is one of the greatest triumphs of the Internet. This vast repository of community-generated content is an invaluable resource to anyone who is online.

Wales added:

We are very pleased and grateful. This is a wonderful gift, and we celebrate it as recognition of the long-term alignment and friendship between Google and Wikimedia. Both organizations are committed to bringing high-quality information to hundreds of millions of individuals every day, and to making the Internet better for everyone.

And Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner concluded:

It is wonderful that Google has stepped forward as a major supporter of a global, nonprofit information commons. With this generous grant, we will be able to fund additional operations and development work to increase access and contributions to our free knowledge projects globally.

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