Wiki Education Foundation/Press Release 14 April 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wiki Education Foundation receives grant to support programmatic activities

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, April 14, 2014 — The Wiki Education Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting university students as they contribute content to Wikipedia, has received a $1.39 million grant from the Stanton Foundation. The grant covers the first year of a three-year funding period supporting the programmatic activities of the Wiki Education Foundation.

The grant will support the Wiki Education Foundation’s following objectives: to engage with university students and instructors to improve Wikipedia’s content in underdeveloped areas; to enhance university students’ media-, information-, and web-literacy skills; and to increase the number and diversity of contributors to the world’s largest publicly accessible free knowledge resource, Wikipedia.

“I am grateful for the Stanton Foundation’s support of our programmatic activities,” said Frank Schulenburg, Executive Director of the Wiki Education Foundation. “This grant will enable us to continue our work with university students to improve the accuracy and availability of information on Wikipedia and enhance students' literacy skills in today's technological environment.”

The Wiki Education Foundation is a spin-off of the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wiki Education Foundation was founded in July 2013 as a separate non-profit organization based in San Francisco. In November 2013, the new organization assumed responsibility for supporting the Wikipedia Education Program in the United States and Canada, formerly run by the Wikimedia Foundation. The program, in which students write Wikipedia articles in place of traditional term papers, created the equivalent of more than 7,000 printed pages of new, high-quality content during the fall term of 2013 and the equivalent of more than 36,000 printed pages of content since its start in 2010.

The grant will enable the Wiki Education Foundation to improve the Wikipedia Education Program in the United States and Canada as well as develop additional programs to improve underdeveloped content areas on Wikipedia.

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About the Wiki Education Foundation

The Wiki Education Foundation supports innovative uses of Wikipedia and related projects in communities of teaching, learning, and inquiry in the United States and Canada. The Foundation aims to improve the breadth, scope, and quality of Wikimedia content; enhance student information fluency; and increase the number and diversity of contributors to the free knowledge movement by engaging educators, researchers, and students. The Wiki Education Foundation has applied for 501(c)(3) charity status.

Press Contact

LiAnna Davis, Head of Communications and External Relations
liannawikiedfoundation.org