Our Funding Philosophy
🔍 Radical Transparency
Every grant, donation, and operational expense is published quarterly. We believe the public funding digital heritage deserves full visibility into its allocation.
🌍 Non-Profit Structure
1990 Web Archive operates as a 501(c)(3) digital heritage organization. No shareholders, no venture pressure. Just preservation.
⚖️ Balanced Diversification
We avoid over-reliance on single funding streams by balancing institutional grants, community donations, and academic partnerships.
Current Funding Sources
Grants & Fellowships
NSF Digital Humanities, NEH Preservation Grants, Internet Archive Partnerships
Community Donations
Monthly supporters, one-time contributions, and alumni preservation fund
Institutional Partners
Universities, libraries, and tech foundations collaborating on crawls
Crowdfunding & Events
Annual preservation drives, retro-web galas, and merch revenue
Where Your Support Goes
* Financial statements are audited annually by independent firms and available for public download in our Transparency Hub.
2024 Preservation Goal
Annual Operating Target
$1.8M / $2.4MReaching 100% unlocks our Q4 deep-crawl initiative targeting 1994-1996 dialup-era portals and early academic mailing lists.
Support Tiers
- Username in digital donor wall
- Quarterly preservation newsletter
- Access to beta search features
- Custom URL preservation priority
- API access for researchers
- Annual retro-web digital zine
- Invitation to preservation webinars
- Logo on archive homepage
- Custom preservation reports
- Direct consultation with archivists
- Priority crawl requests
- Dedicated crawl infrastructure
- White-glove restoration services
- Academic partnership & credits
- Custom integrations & API
Help Keep the Early Web Alive
Every page saved is a fragment of digital history preserved. Whether you're a researcher, nostalgic surfer, or institution, your support directly funds preservation.