User:WhatamIdoing/WMF revenue

The Wikimedia Foundation's revenue numbers over time

Year	Total revenue	Adjust for inflation (to 2023)	Inflation percentage	Five-year inflation-adjusted ratio	Ten-year inflation-adjusted ratio
2012–2013	US$48,635,408	US$63,615,000 in 2023	31% (2013–2023)	–
2017–2018	US$104,505,783	US$136,694,000 in 2023	21% (2018–2023)	After adjusting for inflation, the WMF's total revenue in 2017–2018 increased to 2.14x what it had been five years before. This is an increase of 114% over five years, in real terms.
2022–2023	US$180,174,103	–	–	After adjusting for inflation, the WMF's total revenue in 2022–2023 increased to 1.32x what it had been five years before. This is an increase of 32% over five years, in real terms.	After adjusting for inflation, the WMF's total revenue increased to 2.83x what it had been ten years before. This is an increase of 183% over ten years, in real terms.

Green (shorter/lower) shows the effect of inflation.

While the Wikimedia Foundation's budget continues to grow, the rate of growth has significantly shrunk since the pandemic.

A few notes:

• "Total revenue" is not the same as "Fundraising", nor is it the even narrower category, "Amount collected through fundraising banners". Total revenue is the big number includes everything. The percentage collected through fundraising banners changes each year but generally trends towards a smaller amount.
• Inflation was calculated with w:en:Template:Inflation using the US (consumer) index. Most of the revenue and most of the expenses use US dollars, even when they aren't incurred in the US. Inflation is important because even if you do exactly the same thing, with the same number of staff, the total costs will go up every year. Electricity will cost more; insurance will cost more; telephone bills will cost more; rent will cost more; wages will cost more. If you could do something for US$100 ten years ago, in 2023, that same thing would cost $131.
• In addition to everything costing significantly more over time, the Wikimedia Foundation has had two significant increases in costs over the years.
  • The first is that they are trying to mostly pay their staff a typical salary. Ten years ago, the WMF's policy was to underpay staff. At least three out of four employers paid more than the WMF for the same skills. Now, they are trying to pay the median amount (so only a 50–50 chance of getting a better salary if you got a different job).
  • The second is that they are doing more work. Some of this is voluntary (e.g., creating and maintaining more complex software, such as the VisualEditor and the mw:Reply tool), but other parts of it are not (e.g., dealing with external legal problems and technical threat actors).
• There are two years in this chart that show big jumps compared to the prior year: One is in 2014–2015, when revenue jumped to support a significant planned expansion in technical staff. The other was in 2020–2021, when the small-donor fundraising campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic exceeded expectations. The following year, 2021–2022, was the only year whose revenue was lower than the previous year.