[tim--]

The Wikimedia Endowment (which is sorta-kinda separate) is to drive solutions to that exact problem.

By having a separate fund that the Wikimedia Foundation can access to help Wikipedia to have the technical expertise and knowledge workers required to continue the work of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Should the Wikimedia Foundation cease to exist, the funds in the endowment can be redirected to a successor.

EDIT: this is similar in style to the UK's Guardian Foundation, who provides funding to The Guardian newspaper. https://theguardianfoundation.org/

[tsimionescu]

The point is that without Wikipedians adding and improving articles, Wikipedia will die, even if the site could be kept up indefinitely. So it has to remain a relatively wide social phenomenon, an obscure Wikipedia that no students know about and care to use will knowledge rot, even if it doesn't but rot.