Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, operates critical infrastructure, and controls Mozilla trademarks and copyrights.

The Mozilla Foundation describes itself as "a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet.

[8][9] In September 2019, the Mozilla Foundation, Creative Commons, and Coil announced Grant for the Web, a $100 million fund designed to support the development of technologies, content, and ideas utilizing the Interledger Protocol.

On November 4, 2024, The Mozilla Foundation announced via email they had laid off 30% of its employees as the organization says it faces a "relentless onslaught of change.

Per Mozilla Chief Business and Legal Officer Denelle Dixon, "We exercised our contractual right to terminate our agreement with Yahoo!

based on a number of factors including doing what's best for our brand, our effort to provide quality web search, and the broader content experience for our users.

On January 28, 2020, the Mozilla Foundation announced that the Thunderbird project would henceforth be operating from a new wholly owned subsidiary, MZLA Technologies Corporation, in order to explore offering products and services that were not previously possible and to collect revenue through partnerships and non-charitable donations.

[20] On December 20, 2011, Mozilla announced that the contract was once again renewed for at least three years to November 2014, at three times the amount previously paid, or nearly US$300 million annually.

[27] As of July 2024[update], the Mozilla Foundation board of directors has ten members:[28][29] In 2006, after a request from Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD for funding from corporate entities that make a profit through the use of OpenSSH in their packaged distributions, the Mozilla Foundation donated $10,000 to de Raadt and OpenBSD for OpenSSH development.

The Mozilla Foundation found that without OpenSSH, much of the work done by developers would be through insecure and unsafe methods, and gave the funds as a thank you.

[30][31] At the end of 2010, the Mozilla Foundation partnered with Knoxville Zoo in an effort to raise awareness about endangered red pandas.