Foundation 360: Meet the humans behind the Wikimedia Foundation
You probably know Wikipedia. You might know the Wikimedia Foundation. Now, get to know the people behind our nonprofit.
This year, Wikipedia celebrated its 20th birthday. It was the subject of over 800 news articles in 79 countries.
What is still less-known is that Wikipedia is just one part of a much larger Wikimedia movement — comprising 13 free knowledge projects, 170+ global movement affiliates, dozens of global campaigns, and one global nonprofit: the Wikimedia Foundation.
The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. It is supported by donations (most around US$15) from people like you and maintained by hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the world. Wikipedia is the world’s only major website run by a nonprofit organization.
The Foundation’s vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge, and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge freely.
In addition to hosting projects, we build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content; support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible; advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia and free knowledge to thrive; and so much more.
Get to know more about this work — and meet the humans behind-the-scenes making it happen!
Meet Maggie
“Helping people feel safe in a world that, as far as I can see, is increasingly tense and difficult to engage internationally, is one of the biggest impacts I can hope to have in my life, ever.” — Maggie Dennis, Community Resilience and Sustainability, Legal Department
Read our interview with Maggie Dennis, who leads the Community Resilience and Sustainability team. Maggie has been part of the Wikimedia movement for nearly two decades and played a lead role in developing the movement’s new Universal Code of Conduct.
Meet Julie
“I think the global, human element of what the Wikimedia Movement does challenges us to be nimble, courageous and curious when it comes to hiring, and allows us to really be open to all sorts of candidates.” — Julie Brown, Director of Recruiting, Talent and Culture Department
Read our interview with Julie Brown who helped build the Foundation’s global recruiting strategy from the ground up when she joined in 2017. She shares the impact of COVID-19 on our hiring, how our global hiring has grown, and tips for applicants.
Meet Sherwin
“The reason I went to law school in 2002 was because I was inspired by the ability for the internet to be this collaborative, weird place, built out of collections of individuals.” — Former Lead Public Policy Manager, Legal Department
Read our interview with Sherwin Siy, who supported the Foundation’s digital rights policy work as a Lead Public Policy Manager for the Legal Department. Sherwin passed away in July 2021, but his legacy and advocacy for free knowledge carries on.
Meet Anusha, Zack, and Mayur
“My role at the Wikimedia Foundation is an ideal coming together of my career passions blending together technology’s promise as a great equalizer, the power of knowledge to build stronger communities, and advocacy and policy work that influences decision-making on a global scale. It is world changing work and I’m grateful to be a part of it!” — Anusha Alikhan, Senior Director of Communications, Communications
“The Movement Communications team and I are both new to the Foundation. If we were a Wikipedia article, we’d be a stub. The brilliant thing about that is that we get to build the stub together with the Wikimedia movement. It means I get to meet the many wonderful humans behind our projects and work with them.” — Mayur Paul, Director of Movement Communications, Communications
“I was raised by a computer teacher outside of Boston. She instilled a belief that technology is a unique tool for human betterment, something that can help everyone. Wikimedia embodies this social good promise better than anything else on the internet.” — Zack McCune, Director of Brand, Communications
Read our interview with Anusha Alikhan, Zack McCune, and Mayur Paul, leaders in the Foundation’s Communications Department. Together, they lead a dynamic department of people with as diverse timezones, life situations and passions as theirs. Learn about their work and their roles in bringing the movement together to celebrate and collaborate during Wikipedia’s 20th birthday.
Meet James
“As a numbers person, I am always thinking about the scale of the impact of Wikimedia. It’s just so massive. No matter how many times I think about it, I can never wrap my head around what it means to get over 15 billion monthly page views. It’s just a number I can’t conceptualize. It’s mind boggling, and it’s humbling.” — James Baldwin, Director of Finance, Finance and Administration Department
Read our interview with James Baldwin, who helps ensure the Foundation maintains its status as a charitable organization; pays the costs of servers and critical infrastructure so that knowledge on Wikimedia projects is available anytime, anywhere; and supports the work of community groups around the world. James recently supported the financial side of our new community grantmaking strategy.
Meet Megan
“The funds we raise make it possible to build new product features, to fund community projects that make our movement more inclusive, to manage all our data centers and keep the sites up and running, to be leaders in the fight for freedom of expression online, and much more.” — Megan Hernandez, Vice President, Advancement Department
Read our interview with Megan, who leads the department responsible for ensuring the Wikimedia movement has the resources and relationships it needs to thrive. Megan shares how we pivoted our fundraising efforts during COVID-19 and our work to sustain the free knowledge ecosystem into the future.
Meet Carol and Margeigh
“If you imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge, and then compare that to what we have today, you will see that not all people feel welcomed right now. Opening the door to newcomers is essential for us to live into our mission and to ensure the future of the Wikimedia projects.” — Carol Dunn, Vice President of Product Management, Product Department
“I realized our collective knowledge is a foundational piece of cultural infrastructure that must be protected so that it can remain a resource for everyone. I’m here at the Wikimedia Foundation to make sure we’re focused on how to protect this precious resource while at the same time ensuring it can grow and evolve over time.” — Margeigh Novotny, Senior Director of Product Design and Strategy, Product Department
Read our interview with Carol Dunn and Margeigh Novotny, who are partnering with Wikimedia communities to welcome newcomers to the movement. They are leaders in a department that delivers tangible value to billions of users across the globe every month — working with members of our communities to identify needs and opportunities, and then iterate with them to develop and refine user experiences.
This series of profiles, written by Elena Lappen, were originally published on Diff, sharing news from across the Wikimedia movement.
