W3C host MIT intends to withdraw on Dec 31, no agreement reached, W3C at risk

The funding comes from membership fees (based on for-profit status, annual revenue, and World Bank classification of country income of headquarters).

The W3C Staff, who form the bulk of the expenditure of the W3C, have pretty varied roles, from sysadmins in charge of the websites/email lists, to business development (to entice more companies to join and thus provide more funding). There's some degree of project management there, but by and large the project management is fixed by the process document and then left down to the individual groups (where the majority of participation is from representatives of the membership). There are some individuals who are paid directly by the W3C to work on specific technologies/areas (accessibility and internationalisation both come to mind), but not a huge number.