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Wikimedia Foundation spending on travel and conferences

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

The Wikimedia Foundation spends a several million dollars annually on travel and conferences.

The Wikimedia Foundation Administration team includes several staff who manage travel issues, including Travel Manager Doreen Dunican, Travel Coordinator Erin Morris, and Group Travel Project Manager Karen Zwicker. The WMF also includes the Wikimedia Foundation Events team.

The WMF spends several hundred thousand dollars each year on Wikimania scholarships. The WMF occasionally reports the amount spent on pages like Wikimania/Scholarships/2016 and Wikimania/Scholarships/2013, and the amount spent on scholarships to non-American Wikimedians can be found in the Form 990s in Schedule F, listed as "Conference scholarship" and sorted by region. It is unknown whether these expenditures fall under "travel and conferences", "special event expenses", "grants", or some other category in the WMF financial statements. See also Category:Wikimania budget and individual Wikimania pages.

History

[edit]
Year Travel and conferences Special event expense
2004 $293 -
2005 $27,798 -
2006 $76,545 or $140,605[1] -
2007 $264,361 -
2008 $307,679 (-76,000)
2009 $223,193 (-11,995)
2010 $476,663 $70,407
2011 $1,159,200 $36,282
2012 $1,533,150[2] -
2013 $1,395,013 -
2014 $1,965,854 $143,219[3]
2015 $2,289,489 $266,552[4]
2016 $2,296,592 $311,313
2017 $1,954,772 -[5]
2018 $2,389,279 $267,482
2019 $2,867,774 $209,690
2020 $2,309,068 $317,758
2021 $29,214 -

Notes

[edit]
  1. The 2006 and 2007 financial statements contradict each other regarding how much was spent on travel in 2006.
  2. From 2012 on, the statements begin to use the category "travel and conferences" instead of just "travel", although the number for the previous year's "travel and conferences" spending is the same as that year's report on "travel" spending.
  3. "Special event expense, net" for Wikimania, "such as venue rental and catering services, net of sponsorship income".
  4. The note on special event expenses was modified to include "and registration fees" from this year on.
  5. "During the year ended June 30, 2017, the Foundation did not hold the conference and as a result the Foundation did not incur any any costs." - 2018 statements

See also

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