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description: An open and neutral home for the GraphQL community, dedicated to promoting widespread adoption and accelerating development of the surrounding ecosystem
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# What is the GraphQL Foundation?

The **GraphQL Foundation** is a neutral foundation founded by global technology and application development companies. The GraphQL Foundation encourages contributions, stewardship, and a shared investment from a broad group in vendor-neutral events, documentation, tools, and support for GraphQL.

GraphQL was created in 2012 and open sourced by Facebook in 2015. In 2019, Facebook and others [created the GraphQL Foundation](https://foundation.graphql.org/news/2019/03/12/the-graphql-foundation-announces-collaboration-with-the-joint-development-foundation-to-drive-open-source-and-open-standards/) as a neutral, non-profit home for the GraphQL assets and ongoing collaboration, and hosted by [The Linux Foundation](https://linuxfoundation.org). The GraphQL Foundation is a fully neutral home for the GraphQL trademark, and provides a means of collecting and distributing membership dues to support core community infrastructure and programs.

## The GraphQL Foundation supports the community

The primary mission of the GraphQL Foundation is to ensure that the GraphQL community is able to focus on the continued evolution of the [specification](https://spec.graphql.org) and [reference implementations](/code/). We accomplish this through a number of core activities:

- Funding grants for project maintainers and community gardeners.
- Coordinating and funding mentorship programs.
- Providing collaboration infrastructure.
- Managing the GraphQL trademark and related policies.
- Providing legal support for projects.
- Operational and logistical support through The Linux Foundation.

The GraphQL Foundation works in close collaboration with the [GraphQL Working Group](https://github.com/graphql/graphql-wg/) and the [GraphQL TSC](https://github.com/graphql/graphql-wg/blob/main/GraphQL-TSC.md).

## Members support the GraphQL Foundation

The GraphQL Foundation would like to thank [our current members](/foundation/members/) for their ongoing support to ensure the sustainability of the GraphQL ecosystem. Learn more about how your company can demonstrate its commitment to GraphQL by [becoming a member of the GraphQL Foundation](https://graphql.org/foundation/join).

If you have questions, you can reach out to [membership@graphql.org](mailto:membership@graphql.org).