The MIT Press receives $10 million endowment gift for open access to knowledge | May 8, 2023

“The MIT Press today announced that it has received a $10 million gift from Arcadia—a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage, and promote open access to knowledge—to establish the Arcadia Open Access Fund. The new fund will support the MIT Press’s ground-breaking efforts to publish open access books and journals in fields ranging from science and technology to the social sciences, arts, and humanities. It will also help the MIT Press continue to develop tools, models, and resources that make scholarship more accessible to researchers and other readers around the world. “We are incredibly grateful to Arcadia for this generous gift,” said Amy Brand, Director and Publisher of the MIT Press. “The new endowment makes it possible for the MIT Press to build on and sustain its influential publishing programs. With this enduring support for open books and journals, we can use our power as an academic publisher to expand public understanding of scholarship and science and to democratize participation in research.” Arcadia is providing an outright endowment gift of $5 million, as well as a $5 million “challenge” gift to incentivize other funders by matching their support of MIT’s open publishing activities….”

The Wikimedia Endowment reaches $100 million milestone and welcomes three new members to its Board: more on what these developments mean for the projects and movement – Diff

“Now in Wikipedia’s 20th year, it is with immense gratitude that we announce that the Wikimedia Endowment has reached its initial $100 million goal ahead of schedule. With this milestone, the Wikimedia movement will have a critical base level of funds to continue to flourish and thrive over the long-term. This milestone was achieved thanks to the generosity of our Endowment donors, who find value in the volunteer-created content on Wikimedia projects and want to protect and support its growth for others to benefit from. …”