Google donates to Wikimedia Foundation

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has said in a message on Twitter that internet search giant Google has donated $2 million to the Wikimedia foundation, with a statement to be made tomorrow.

The foundation operates user-edited encyclopedia Wikipedia, along with a number of other sites including Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wiktionary and Wikinews.

Earlier this year Wikimedia already said it had raised $8 million for the current financial year, beating its goal of $7.5 million, but it isn’t yet known whether the $2 million from Google plays into that figure.

The site has received hundreds of thousands of donations after Wales said the site required extra funding over the next year.