According to a Tweet just sent from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Google has donated $2 million to the Wikimedia Foundation. Wales says the official announcement will be made tomorrow.
The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit that focuses on the development of free, multilingual content to wiki-based projects. The Wikimedia Foundation operates Wikipedia, but has also helped develop Wikimedia Commons, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikinews, and Wikiversity.
Earlier this year, Wikimedia announced that it has raised $8 million for the 2009-10 fiscal, exceeding its goal for the year by $500K. The Foundation has received over 230,000 donations, up from 125,000 donations received during the 2008-09 campaign. It’s unclear if the $2 million from Google is bundles into the $8 million but I’m sure we’ll find out tomorrow.
The foundation recently added Craigslist founder Craig Newmark to its advisory board, which also includes tech visionary Mitch Kapor.