Make WordPress Communities

Keyboard Shortcuts | Hide comment threads

Highlighted Posts

Categorize a post as Highlight to add it to this section.

Tuesday Training: Why is diversity important — To WordPress and YOUR local community?

The WordPress Community is putting more and more effort into diversity. Why? And why is the Community asking you to get on board with this vision, too?

At all tech events — and WordPress is no exception — diversity is a point of concern. Even if your event already seems diverse to you, there is always more that you can do to make sure that people from all walks of life not only feel included, but valued. There may even be members of other underrepresented groups who you hadn’t considered yet who would benefit from your event.

What do we mean by diversity? If everyone who comes to your event looks alike or comes from the same background, your event is not diverse. We often think of diversity in terms of gender, race, or sexuality… but it also includes class, caste, ability, age, and more.

Let’s talk now about seven reasons why diversity in WordPress events is beneficial to WordPress and your local community:

How Does Diversity Benefit WordPress?

1. Diverse events reflect the diversity of WordPress users

WordPress can be used by anybody, so it should also be built by anybody.”
— Josepha Haden Chomphosy (@chanthaboune), WordPress Executive Director, WordCamp US 2021

As developers, designers, marketers, business owners, and content creators, we are not building WordPress and WordPress products just for ourselves. The group of people building WordPress must reflect the group of people who use it. When it’s mainly one kind of person building it, we fail to include the voices and perspectives of other types of users. Just like how new designers who are unaware of color vision deficiencies may not consider adding other forms of visual cues while creating a user interface, there are all kinds of things that we may be overlooking for our users.

2. Diversity makes WordPress more innovative

People from underrepresented groups in technology have a wide range of history, life experiences, and knowledge to share.

When you have a diverse array of life experiences, you approach problems differently. Just as a developer’s point of view is different from a user’s point of view, so are our overall viewpoints.

By inviting more people to the table, more people’s needs will be included and it will bring in fresh ideas that will benefit everyone. Think of how video captions were originally created for people with limited hearing, and now they also benefit, as @annezazu says in Core Editor Improvement: Video Subtitles, people who don’t want to wake a sleeping baby/pet/person nearby, or who prefer reading along while watching your video.

3. Diversity creates space for unique perspectives

More diversity means a better chance of bringing in contributors who are straddling several roles and thus creating unique things with unique perspectives. For example, consider power users who use WordPress in interesting ways, front-end developers, business people who use plugins to make specific kinds of sites, or typographers who use WordPress to do creative things with typography. It’s also important to include people who can talk about running a business in WordPress, how developers can communicate with designers, different things you can do with WordPress, etc.

How Does Diversity Benefit Your Local In-Person or Virtual Community?

4. Fostering a more interesting, creative, and engaged community

“A diverse set of people are more creative. They are also more productive and motivated, and overall, everything becomes far more interesting.

“In fact, diversity and inclusiveness help people stay, invite others, and be far more engaged than a group lacking in diversity and inclusiveness. This makes a lot of sense. If people feel welcome, safe, and don’t feel like the odd man out, they are more likely to enjoy themselves and contribute more.

“And just like a colourful mosaic wall is more fun to look at, a variety of people makes for more fun and interesting experiences!”

– Aurooba Ahmed (@aurooba) (“Allyship for Event Organizers” workshop and “Creating a Welcoming and Diverse Space” workshop)

5. Growing your community

As event organizers, we care about how many people are coming out to our WordPress Meetups and WordCamps. The more people, the better! Diversity efforts are a great way to grow your community and have even more people with different backgrounds and skills attend your events. Especially if you see the same faces all the time — it’s always nice to have fresh faces and perspectives. Attendees who come to events for networking or job opportunities will find immense value in the prospect of always meeting new people at each event.

6. Creating Diversity in Leadership

More and more, people are recognizing the importance of having a diverse group of leaders for their Meetups and WordCamps. When the leadership team is diverse, the events will benefit from having multiple perspectives, and attendees and volunteers will feel more comfortable participating. Invite people of underrepresented groups who already attend and love your events to be leaders in order to empower them and encourage them to grow your event.

In Vancouver, after Luiza and Andrina took our Diverse Speakers workshop, they created and led a new initiative in our community: A monthly WP Users Meetup. It was very popular!

7. Unlocking new opportunities

Bringing in more people with different opinions, viewpoints, and experiences can unlock more opportunities for them. For example, when Kirsten contributed at our local Vancouver WordCamp, she connected with a local agency, became their first female developer, and quickly became the senior developer and team lead. Simply by being at the event, she was introduced to an opportunity she may not have discovered otherwise.

Because there is a lack of learner advocacy, TC (@tlc1206) is creating a business helping Black men learn JavaScript for WordPress. He is creating a community to support and enable men of color to earn a living in tech.

Final Thought

Although I’ve pointed out some good reasons above, you don’t need an objective reason to make your events more diverse. Creating a more inclusive and welcoming environment is also just the right thing to do.

“‘Diversity is good for business‘ is not the point, even if it is true. It’s almost like people are afraid of taking an ’ideological’ stand. It’s ok to want to *just* want to address systemic inequality. You don’t need a ’business case.’”
–John Cutler @johncutlefish

If you would like to learn more about the specifics on how to promote and foster diversity in your local WordPress Meetup or WordCamp community, please sign up for our Allyship for WordPress Event Organizers workshop on November 17, 2021.

Thank you for help on this article @alliennimmons, @annezazu, @cbringmann, @courtneypk, @evarlese

#tuesdaytrainings, #wpdiversity

Meetup Organizer Newsletter: October 2021

Hello friends,

Welcome to the October 2021 edition of the Meetup Organizer newsletter! Read on for the latest updates from the WordPress Community.

Newsletter contents:

  • New Meetup.com Features for Meetup organizers
  • Proposal for the 2022 Global Sponsorship Program
  • Online Event Updates
  • News from the WordPress Community
  • Tuesday Trainings

🎭 New Meetup.com Features for Meetup Organizers

Meetup.com has announced some exciting new features to give better support to community organizers: 

  • COVID-19 safety measures for organizers: A new section has been added to the event scheduler page in Meetup.com titled “COVID-19 safety measures” where organizers can set guidelines such as vaccinations, mask policy, venue types, etc. Read more on this post from the Meetup blog.
  • Add topics for Meetup events: Previously organizers could set topics for Meetup groups, now you can add topics for individual meetup events too. Some organizers may see a list of default topics to choose from when they schedule a new event, which they can modify. The feature is still being tested and may not be available to all organizers yet. You can read all about this feature in the Meetup blog.
  • Viewing events in your preferred time zone: As many meetup groups have been gathering online, their events have been attracting attendees from all around the world! Attendees can now view online events in their preferred time zone. In-person events will continue to be shown in the event’s time zone.

If your local authority allows in-person events and if vaccines OR testing are freely available, you may be able to organize an in-person WordPress meetup. Just fill out our in-person meetup decision checklist and follow the recommendations. Check out our handbook for more.

💰 Proposal for the 2022 Global Sponsorship Program

The Community Team kicked-off discussions on the updated 2022 Global sponsorship program, and is inviting feedback. Similar to the 2021 program, global sponsors will get access to a single sponsorship package to support Meetup groups.WordCamp sponsorship (for all camps in a quarter) will be available as an add-on, billed quarterly. The team aims to finalize the proposal by October 28, 2021.

 🌍🎪 WordPress Event Updates

As the world is slowly returning to normalcy, in-person WordPress events are also coming back. The Community Team has opened up pathways for in-person WordCamps and Meetups, in regions where it is safe to do so, even though most meetups are still online. To support WordCamp organizers and facilitate hassle-free in-person WordCamps, the Community Team recently introduced additional legal protections such as ticket disclaimers and an insurance policy.

Sign up for the following Upcoming Diverse Speaker Training Events

  • Allyship for WordPress event organizers AMER/EMEA November 17, 2021 at 6-8pm UTC / 1-3pm ET / 10-12pm PT. Learn how to be a good ally and to create welcoming and diverse WordPress Meetups and WordCamps for your WordPress community.  
  • How to Own Your Expertise & Start Speaking at WordPress Events Asia #WPDiversity. November 27, 2021 at 7-8.30am UTC / 1500H-1630 GMT+8 / 1230H-1400H IST.
    Aimed at community organizers from Southeast to Southern Asia, this workshop focuses on how to encourage people from underrepresented groups (in terms of gender, race, class, caste, sexuality, ability, age, etc.) to speak at WordPress meetups and WordCamps.

WordCamp US 2021 concludes
One of the biggest WordPress events – WordCamp US 2021 was held on October 1, 2021. The online event offered a unique online experience that united WordPress fans around the world. The camp, which was supported by nearly 20 organizers, sold more than 3,600 tickets, had 18 speakers, and 27 sponsors. Catch the event replay on its website. The sessions will be available on WordPress.tv soon. 

WordPress Translation Day 2021 Celebrations ran for 30 days
WordPress contributors from around the world joined hands  by translating WordPress into their own languages for the entire month of September as part of WordPress Translation Day celebrations. The celebrations consisted of a host of global and local events, translation sprints, and discussion groups. News from local events and stories highlighting notable polyglots contributors will be coming soon. Check out the WP Translation Day website for links to video recordings and more.

In-person do_action charity hackathons are back
The Community Team shared new guidelines for the return of in-person do_action hackathons in regions where local events are allowed. In short, community organizers can plan in-person do_action hackathons either in regions with reduced COVID spread OR exclusively or fully vaccinated/recently tested (negative)/ recently recovered folks in regions where vaccination and testing are freely available.

Upcoming WordPress events 

Past WordPress events

🗞 News from the WordPress Community

🛠 Tuesday Trainings

Check out our Tuesday Trainings (#TuesdayTrainings), where the Community Team publishes a different topic on our blog each week to help organizers and interested community members:

The team is currently discussing the future of weekly Tuesday Trainings. Share your thoughts as comments on the post. Is there a question you would like to answer, or a topic you would like to see discussed? Send an email support@wordcamp.org with the subject line “Tuesday Trainings”!


If you have any questions, Community Team deputies are available to help. Please send an email to support@wordcamp.org or join the #community-events Slack channel. Thanks for everything you do to grow the WordPress community. Let’s keep sharing knowledge and inspiring each other with our contributions! 

We will see you online soon!

#meetup-organizer-newsletter

#newsletter

The following people contributed to this edition of the Meetup newsletter: @webcommsat, @courtneypk, @eidolonnight, @harishanker, @meher, @jillbinder

Workshops from #WPDiversity: October and November 2021

We have workshops for underrepresented community members and for WP event organizers coming up in October and November, 2021. Please join us and help us spread the word!

Allyship for WordPress event organizers AMER/EMEA Accountability

The cohort of the first Allyship program is meeting for an accountability Slack chat about the actions they are taking after the first Allyship for event organizers workshop. Although this session won’t have coaching as one of the main focuses, we will still welcome open discussion.

Others who did not attend the workshop are welcome to participate or lurk. 🙂

Thursday, October 18, 2021
5pm-6pm UTC / 1pm-2pm ET
#community-events Slack channel

Empower Women Speakers For Your WordPress Events in Latin America

A hybrid event in-person in San José, Costa Rica, and over Zoom for women WordPress organizers in Latin America to learn to run Women Speaker workshops.

We will teach you how to run the 4-5 hour workshop that will:

  • Help you understand some of the reasons why women aren’t submitting talks
  • Help the women in your communities overcome their personal barriers to public speaking at your WordPress events
  • Help them create a talk title, pitch, outline, bio, and slide deck
  • Give the new women speakers motivation and confidence to start speaking
  • Increase how many women are giving talks in your community

Saturday, November 6, 2021
1pm-5pm CST
San José, Costa Rica and over Zoom

Register now

Allyship for WordPress event organizers AMER/EMEA

After a successful cohort 1 in August, we are beginning cohort 2 in November. Members of cohort 1 are invited to return and join our new members.

A 2-hour interactive watch party online to learn how to create welcoming and diverse WordPress Meetups and WordCamps for your WordPress community.

This is not just for organizers, but anyone who wants to champion this kind of environment, now or in the future.

Do you run or attend WordPress events and notice only one type of person is attending? You’d love to see more diversity represented, but people are either not showing up — or they attend once and don’t come back. What can you do to be a good ally to foster, promote, and support diversity and an inclusive space?

We know that you have good intentions and really want to do things “right”, and therefore need a supportive space to talk through sensitive real-life challenges, so this watch party workshop will NOT be recorded.

This interactive watch party workshop was created by Allie Nimmons, Aurooba Ahmed, David Wolfpaw, and Jill Binder for WordCamp US 2019.

Wednesday, November 17, 2021
6pm-7pm UTC / 1pm-3pm ET

Register now

How to Own Your Expertise & Start Speaking at WordPress Events Southeast to Southern Asia

Does the thought of speaking at one of our WordPress Meetups or WordCamps intrigue you? Do you identify as a person from a marginalized and underrepresented group (in terms of gender, race, class, caste, sexuality, ability, age, etc.) who is thinking about speaking at a meetup or WordCamp in the Philippines, India, Indonesia, or other nearby timezone? Do you think you don’t know or have anything worth speaking about?

This workshop is for you!

This interactive watch party workshop will be held in English.

Saturday, November 27, 2021
0700H-0830H UTC / 1500H-1630 GMT+8 / 1230H-1400H IST

Register now


We will be holding a “How to Own Your Expertise & Start Speaking at WordPress Events” for AMER/EMEA in December. Stay tuned!

#wpdiversity, #wpdiversityworkshops

Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) Agenda | Wed, Oct 13, 2021

The Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) meets the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month at 5-6pm UTC. The next meeting is tomorrow — Wednesday, October 13, 2021. It takes place in the #community-team Slack channel.

We welcome new and curious volunteers! All are welcome.

Agenda

  1. Report – how group members doing on items they’re working on for us?
  2. Translations
  3. Update on September 2021 workshops
  4. Chatting about upcoming events:
    1. Upcoming: October 28 Allyship accountability
    2. Upcoming: November 6 Empowering Women in Latin America
    3. Upcoming: November Allyship workshop (cohort 2!) — figuring out the date
    4. Upcoming: November 27 speaker workshop Southeast to Southern Asia
    5. Upcoming: December Allyship coaching and accountability — figuring out the date
    6. Upcoming: December speaker workshop Americas and Europe — figuring out the date
  5. Update on #diverse-speaker-support channel
  6. Jill away Oct 17 – 26, 2021
  7. Open discussion (if time)

The Future of Tuesday Trainings

We hope that you have been enjoying the Tuesday Trainings series, and that you have learned some new things along the way!

Tuesday Trainings has been a great and informative series, but it has been brought up recently that the weekly cadence might be too much for the team, at least at this point in time while our resources are a bit low.

There are a couple of options for changing the cadence:

  • Change the cadence to monthly
  • Pause Tuesday Trainings for now and revisit in 2022

Which option do you think would work best? Or are there other options that we could consider? Please comment below with your thoughts.

In addition, we are seeking a volunteer to take over the management of the Tuesday Training series. Managing the series includes writing posts, recruiting other community members to write posts, and maintaining the editorial calendar (which is essentially a spreadsheet to track the topics and posts). If you’re interested in helping out, please let us know!

#community-team, #tuesdaytrainings

If volunteers are found to manage the series, change the cadence to monthly. If not, pause and revisit in 2022.

Agree with this approach. We have produced some excellent content as part of Tuesday Trainings over the years; it helps to slow down a bit.

I would also like to see more interactive content as part of Tuesday Trainings as well! 🙂

Community Team Rep Nominations for 2022

It is time to start the process to select new Community Team reps for 2022 to replace @kcristiano and myself.

The Role

In the WordPress open source project, each team has one or two (or more!) representatives, abbreviated as “reps”. On the Community team, we have historically had two reps who are asked to commit to the role for a full calendar year.

Team reps are responsible for communicating on behalf of the group to the other contributor groups via weekly updates, as well as occasional chats. 

As a reminder, it is not called “team lead” for a reason. While the people elected as team reps will generally come from the pool of folks that people think of as experienced leaders, the team rep role is designed to change hands regularly.

This role does have a time commitment attached to it, at least one hour a week. The main tasks include:

  • Writing the agenda for the Community Team meetings
  • Run the chat
  • Write the recap and post it in
  • Keep an eye on the moving parts of the team and provide reports for quarterly updates.

Over the year, the team can decide to add one or two people to help, depending on how much work there is. For now, let’s get us two new reps!

How Community Team Rep elections work

Following our election process last year, the Community team is planning on these key steps: 

  1. Call for Nominations: Anyone can nominate a Community team rep! The deadline is 2021-10-29.
  2. Voting for Team Reps: We will open a poll for voting on 2021-11-03. The poll will stay open for three weeks, and close on 2021-11-24. We will then be able to announce our new team reps before the end of 2021! 

Call for Community Team Rep nominations!

Please nominate people for Community team rep in the comments of this post by 2021-10-29. Self-nominations are welcome.

If you would like to nominate someone in private, please reach out to @sippis, @kcristiano or @_dorsvenabili.

If you get nominated, you do not have to say yes! We will only add people who respond positively to a nomination to the poll, so feel free to decline a nomination if you don’t feel like this is the right fit for any reason.

Finally, if you have any questions, please also feel free to ask in the comments.

#team-reps

Legal protections for organizers

As the WordPress Community begins to transition to in-person events, organizers are wondering what legal protections are available to them related to COVID-19. Here are a couple of solutions!

Disclaimer on WordCamp Ticket Purchases

We will be adding a disclaimer to the WordCamp ticket purchase page, which will protect organizers against claims related to COVID-19. The disclaimer text will read:

An inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. COVID-19 is an extremely contagious disease that can lead to severe illness and death. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, senior citizens and guests with underlying medical conditions are especially vulnerable.

By attending WordCamp {city} {year}, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and waive any claims against the event organizers; volunteers; sponsors; the WordPress Foundation; WordPress Community Support, PBC; and their respective affiliates.

This disclaimer will appear on the ticket purchase page for the ticket purchaser to agree to. Agreement is given by checking a box next to the disclaimer (similar to agreeing to the Code of Conduct), before completing their ticket purchase.

We are aiming to roll this update out to WordCamp sites on Wednesday, 13 October 2021.

Insurance Policy

This year, WPCS added a “communicable disease liability coverage” policy to our event insurance. This policy provides coverage to help defer any legal fees and costs related to lawsuits claiming damages due to:

  • Actual or alleged transmission of a communicable disease
  • An act, error, or omission by or on behalf of WPF/WPCS in:
    • The supervision of any person who transmits, is infected with, and/or alleged to be infected with a communicable disease
    • Testing for a communicable disease
    • Actual or alleged failure to prevent the spread of a communicable disease
    • Actual or alleged failure to report a communicable disease to the authorities

This policy is currently in effect and covers all official WordCamps and WordPress Chapter Meetups.

Summary

These legal protections should hopefully ease the minds of organizers concerned about planning in-person WordCamps and WordPress Meetups. Please leave a comment below if you have any concerns or questions!

#policy, #wordcamps

Small request, could we change the US-centric “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” to “World Health Organization”.

Agree completely with this suggestion as WHO is more of an international authority. Additionally, WHO has also issued the same recommendation, so it might make sense to update this reference to “World Health Organization”.

This is an excellent suggestion, thank you for requesting it!

@courtneypk is that language from our insurer? Are they Ok with the change if it is.

That is language from WPF legal advisors and they are OK with the change!

Thanks for putting this together, @courtneypk! Upon reviewing the text and its content, I feel that it offers the right set of protections for in-person WordCamp organizers, and supports them in planning their events, leaving legal worries aside. I am also happy to hear about our insurance policy, which will act as an additional line of protection for our community organizers, if the worst should happen, at all.

Now, I’m patiently waiting for local restrictions on in-person gatherings to be lifted so that I can start thinking of a potential in-person WordCamp in my region, hopefully in late-2022! 😍 🤞

Thanks for putting this together, Courtney. The disclaimer is very clearly written and it will provide the required indemnity to the organizers and the community.
Agree with Timi’s suggestion of changing CDC to WHO to make it globally understandable.
The insurance policy will definitely add a line of protection to the organizers.
Looking forward to the in-person events.

Proposal: 2022 Global Community Sponsorship program

tl;dr: Due to the unpredictability in what events are happening and where, the global sponsorship program proposal for 2022 is similar to the pared-down 2021 program, with a single package. Sponsorship of WordCamps will be offered as an add-on, billed quarterly.

Below you will find a proposal draft for the Global Community Sponsorship program for 2022, with one package being offered as an annual commitment.

As the WordPress Community transitions to holding in-person WordCamps, the question arises of how the Global Sponsorship program will accommodate those events. Until we have more predictability in what events are happening and where, we will offer WordCamp sponsorship per event, billed at the end of each quarter.

Questions? Feedback?

If you have any questions, observations, or critical feedback about this proposal or the program in general, please comment on this post, no later than 15 October 2021. We hope to finalize the program details by 28 October 2021, to allow sponsors time to sign up by the end of the year.

Thanks so much for the hard work, input, and feedback by @angelasjin, @kcristiano, @_dorsvenabili, @sippis, and @courtneypk, with help crunching the numbers from @harmonyromo.

Now onto the proposal!

Show full post

The Details

42% of the web is powered by WordPress, the free and open source software built and maintained by thousands of volunteers all over the world. The WordPress contributor community is made up of developers, designers, writers, photographers, freelancers, agency professionals, and hobbyists, many of whom gather regularly around the world at locally-organized monthly and annual events. Official WordPress community events are exclusively volunteer-organized, and each reflects the interests and expertise of the local community.

In 2021, a significant amount of WordPress events were held online, due to the pandemic. Our community, despite the pandemic, organized 14 WordCamps in 2021, and 755 meetup groups in the WordPress chapter program met over 2,400 times.

What’s a WordCamp?

WordCamp is the annual conference for local WordPress communities; it’s a casual, non-commercial, educational event about WordPress. Events range from intimate 50-person unconferences to multi-track conferences attended by over 3,000. Conference session topics include WordPress development, design, business, social media integration, blogging, and marketing. WordCamp tickets are sold at an extremely low price ($25 USD per person, per day) so that events are accessible to people of any financial background. Online WordCamps are always free of charge to attend.

WordCamp Program Data

At the time of writing, there were 14 WordCamps in 2021, all of them taking place online. It is difficult to project the growth in numbers of events in 2022 as the pandemic continues, but we will see the return of in-person WordCamps, and we do anticipate that online events will continue. 

WordCamps confirmed for 2022 can be found on the official schedule.

Please note that the Global Community Sponsorship program does not include flagship events such as WordCamp Europe, WordCamp Asia, or WordCamp US, even though they’re listed on the official schedule.

What’s a Meetup?

WordPress Meetups are locally-organized user groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis to discuss WordPress (commonly once a month). These events take many formats: presentations/lecture series, hackathons, social gatherings, workshops, coworking, running a WordPress help desk, contributor sprints/drives, and others. Groups hosted on meetup.com can become an official WordPress chapter group and receive financial and organizational support from the WordPress Community team.

Meetup Program Data (as of 24 September 2021)

  • 755 groups
  • 111 countries with a meetup group
  • 470,605 group members, program-wide
  • 2,498 meetup events scheduled in 2021 to date

How does event sponsorship help WordPress?

Companies that sponsor WordPress community events support the WordPress open source project by helping our volunteer-organized, local events provide free or low-cost access for attendees. WordPress community events strengthen, inspire, and connect the community that builds and maintains WordPress.

Why sponsor via this program rather than sponsoring individual events?

As the WordPress community continues to grow, many companies find they don’t have time to coordinate with multiple teams of volunteer event organizers. The WordPress Global Community Sponsorship Program ensures that your support reaches WordCamps and meetups quickly and provides stability to locally-organized events. WordPress global community sponsors have a single, centralized point of contact and are billed annually or quarterly, saving companies time and trouble.

This year, only one sponsorship package is offered as an annual commitment. A single package should make this easier to administrate, which is extra-important right now, as volunteer engagement is (for perfectly understandable reasons) so low.

As the WordPress Community transitions to holding in-person WordCamps, the question arises of how the Global Sponsorship program will accommodate those events. Until we have more predictability in what events are happening and where, we will offer sponsorship of WordCamps, billed at the end of each quarter.

Please note that the Global Community Sponsorship program does not include flagship events WordCamp Asia, WordCamp Europe, or WordCamp US, as the scale of those events are outside the scope of this program.

2022 Global Sponsorship benefit package proposal

Cost: USD $10,000 per quarter

  1. Featured on all WordPress chapter meetup group pages (as of September 2021: 470,605 Members, 755 groups, 111 countries). This includes your logo, with a link back to the company landing page of your choice, on chapter meetup group landing and event pages.
  2. Acknowledgement in all WordCamp “ticket purchase successful” pages (14,497 in 2021).
  3. Acknowledgement on the WordCamp Central home page (over 400k annual views).
  4. Acknowledgement in one program-wide email to all (over 470k) members of a WordPress chapter account meetup group.
  5. Acknowledgement on sponsor page on WordCamp Central (3,775 views in the past 365 days).
  6. Monthly email with spreadsheet of WordCamps in planning and on the schedule
  7. Acknowledgement on all monthly Meetup Organizer Newsletters (received by 1,675+ WordPress community influencers every month).
  8. Opportunity to list discounts or free resources that meetup and WordCamp organizers can use for new user workshops, charity hackathons, etc., on the official WordCamp Organizer handbook page for use at community events. This page will be promoted through the Meetup Organizer newsletter, received by 1,675+ WordPress community influencers monthly.

ADD-ON: WordCamp benefits

Cost: Varies; based on local WordCamps top publicized sponsorship level, billed at the end of each quarter.

  1. Name, logo, and company description on all WordCamp websites
  2. Inclusion in the “Thank You To Our Sponsors” blog post on each WordCamp
  3. A sponsor landing page that includes a discount or coupon code for your product or service in your company description, posted to all WordCamps (subject to approval)
  4. Table at in-person WordCamps for meeting attendees, if space is available*
  5. A number of swag items added to the swag table of each in-person WordCamp, if available (subject to approval)
  6. A number of free tickets to each in-person WordCamp, reserved for your company representatives**

*Not all WordCamp venues will have space to provide tables to sponsors, but if the venue has enough space to accommodate sponsor tables, then community sponsors will be offered exhibition space. In your notification email, you’ll be informed whether or not the venue has exhibition space so you can request a table right away.

**Free, reserved tickets will return to the general ticket pool if they are not claimed one month before WordCamp. Tickets reserved for sponsors should not be used for ticket giveaways; these are only for your company representatives who wish to attend the event.

Please see Rules for Sponsor Materials for more details about terms of sponsorship. Please also see our sample sponsorship agreement.

#global-sponsorship, #proposal, #sponsorship

Hi @courtneypk, I looked at this post about this program for 2021 (http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20211020173837/https://make.wordpress.org/community/2021/02/18/proposal-2021-global-community-sponsorship-program/) and see that it did not include direct WordCamp sponsorship. Does the 2022 proposal resume direct WordCamp sponsorship? I’m asking from a WordCamp organizer’s perspective. In Birmingham, AL, were looking at having an in-person event in 2022; I’d like to get a sense for how much fundraising our local organizing team would need to do.

Good question @rmarks! Yes, it does include direct WordCamp sponsorship, if the global sponsor signs up for the add-on package. However, the base package does not include direct WordCamps sponsorship.

The proposed change for 2022 is that Global Sponsors who add on sponsorship for WordCamps will support all WordCamps (as opposed to choosing which WordCamps to sponsor a la carte), at the camp’s top published level.

In short, there would not be a community grant as we’ve had in the past, but WordCamps will get credited global sponsorship funds at the top local level.

I think I am following you. I still have a bit of confusion learning how much credit a WordCamp will receive.

Let’s say in 2022 there are 8 companies who have added on WordCamp support. Let’s also assume my top tier is $2500. Can I assume that would be $20,000 of funds the local team would not need to raise?

In the past, the amount of the community grant would be determined during budget review. I plan to be going through that in the next few weeks. I feel, though, that we won’t know our credit amount until sometime in 2022. What are your expectations about when, during the sequence of a WordCamp being planned, will WCS be able to communicate the program credit to the organizing team.

Let’s say in 2022 there are 8 companies who have added on WordCamp support. Let’s also assume my top tier is $2500. Can I assume that would be $20,000 of funds the local team would not need to raise?

Yes, in this example, that would be correct!

What are your expectations about when, during the sequence of a WordCamp being planned, will WCS be able to communicate the program credit to the organizing team.

As far as knowing when your WordCamp will know what the credit amount will be, we’re hoping that we’ll know which sponsors are on board by the end of 2021 at the latest. This is why we’ve started working on the program earlier than past years.

To clarify a bit more, while your example is correct, camps will still need to be prepared to raise 100% of the funds according to the updated guidelines and not depend on global sponsorship.

Thank you for putting this together, @angelasjin, @kcristiano, @_dorsvenabili, @sippis, and @harmonyromo. I honestly feel that this is the best proposal for both sponsors and Camp organizers alike especially in these confusing times. The best thing about this proposal is that it allows WordCamp Central to be financially lean while offering the best kind of support to all parties involved. Love it! <3

After reading the proposal, I found a few points ambiguous. @courtneypk has done an excellent job clarifying them in the comments above (thanks for your excellent questions, @rmarks!).

With that in mind, I think we should update the proposal to state:

  • That WordCamp organizers will not have access to community grants in 2022.
  • However, all the global sponsors will support camps individually by mandatorily signing up for the top tier of that camp. So for instance, if WordCamp Narnia as a top tier of $2000, and if we have 6 global sponsors, WordCamp Narnia will have an assured income of $2000 x 6 = $18,000 (not counting local sponsors)
  • WordCamps will still have to raise 100% of their costs from local sponsorships, but a certain amount of the same will be covered by global sponsors (as mentioned in the example below).

^^ I hope I got that right? If so, it might help to add an FAQ section on to our global sponsorship document to clarify the same for camp organizers and sponsors.

The FAQ is an excellent idea, if we’re unable to clarify in a revision to the proposal! Perhaps bolding key points would help, too.

I have a few additional questions related to the implementation of our global sponsorship program. I am not sure if we have answers to these questions yet, but it’s good food for thought, as we work on finalizing the nitty-gritties of our 2022 program.

  • Does the global sponsorship program for 2022 only cover in-person WordCamps, or will it cover all camps that year?
  • How does the global sponsorship implementation look like, practically, for organizers? Would we still be following our former approach? (like adding global sponsor listings to WordCamp sites by default, for instance).
  • My understanding is that sponsors mandatorily have to sponsor all (in-person?) WordCamps (apart from flagships) for that year, and that they cannot opt-out or move to a different sponsorship tier. Is that right?
  • The proposal states that sponsors will be billed on a quarterly basis. My understanding is that they will be invoiced before the beginning of the quarter, based on the WordCamps that are on the schedule, is that right? For instance, for WordCamp Narnia happening on May 15, 2022 (Q2), globals will be invoiced at the end of Q1/start of Q2 (late March/Early April 2022) – based on the list of WordCamps that are on the schedule, is that right?
    • If this is the case, how will we invoice globals for camps that happen within the quarter? Using the same example stated above, WordCamp Hogwarts got scheduled with a start date of June 18th, on April 10th, and by then, the invoices for Q2 were sent . In that case, would we invoice globals for WordCamp Hogwarts alongside the Q3 invoices?

As I mentioned above, I am not sure if we have answers to all these questions yet, but I feel that it would be good to start thinking about these points, as it will help us create a smooth and beneficial global sponsorship program in 2022!

Good questions Hari! I’ll try to address those in some capacity.

Does the global sponsorship program for 2022 only cover in-person WordCamps, or will it cover all camps that year?

It will cover both in-person and virtual WordCamps.

My understanding is that sponsors mandatorily have to sponsor all (in-person?) WordCamps (apart from flagships) for that year, and that they cannot opt-out or move to a different sponsorship tier. Is that right?

That is something we envisioned yes. Mainly because next year will probably not see that many WordCamps yet, and this also reduces the admin work.

The proposal states that sponsors will be billed on a quarterly basis. My understanding is that they will be invoiced before the beginning of the quarter, based on the WordCamps that are on the schedule, is that right? For instance, for WordCamp Narnia happening on May 15, 2022 (Q2), globals will be invoiced at the end of Q1/start of Q2 (late March/Early April 2022) – based on the list of WordCamps that are on the schedule, is that right?

Idea was that sponsors will be billed based on WordCamps already happened in the previous quarter. So we’d look back at which WordCamps did take place, how much their top-level sponsorship did cost and bundle those together. @harmonyromo is the best person to confirm this.

– That WordCamp organizers will not have access to community grants in 2022.
– However, all the global sponsors will support camps individually by mandatorily signing up for the top tier of that camp. So for instance, if WordCamp Narnia as a top tier of $2000, and if we have 6 global sponsors, WordCamp Narnia will have an assured income of $2000 x 6 = $18,000 (not counting local sponsors)
– WordCamps will still have to raise 100% of their costs from local sponsorships, but a certain amount of the same will be covered by global sponsors (as mentioned in the example below).

Correct, their will be no grants as in prior years.

In theory your calculation on the Camps is correct, but that will be finalized during the review process where we get feedback from potential sponsors. We do need to have camps be reasonable – we don’t want Narnia saying – let’s have a massive afterparty and we know how to fund it – Top level is 25,000 USD. If we do that we’ll get TONS of Global money. Since we are paving new ground we have to review this. In the beginning we capped the global fee based on a few dollars per attendee. So if you had 200 attendees the fee would be about 1,200. Our hope is to not have to go to that level of detaial. but we may set minimum and maximum amounts. This will be ironed out before the program is finalized.

The expectation is in-person camps have to be able to cover all costs. The global program will bring some relief to local orgs, but more so create a safety net for the entire program. What do I mean y a safety net? We are navigating a world with risks on events like never before and we simply cannot afford another round of cancellations and lost deposits. It is our hope that once finalized the Global program can help bring stabilty and mitigate risks so we can have WordCamps begin in person again while being financially responsible.

The proposal states that sponsors will be billed on a quarterly basis. My understanding is that they will be invoiced before the beginning of the quarter, based on the WordCamps that are on the schedule, is that right?

Sponsors will be billed at the end of each Quarter for WordCamps. They will pay up front for the general Global fee (meetups and other benefits are what sponsors receive). As we cannot predict with accuracy the number of camps this is the best balance of efficiency as well as being fair to Sponsors.

@harishanker @rmarks Thank you for the feedback. This is the earliest we’ve publicized the proposal and we want to be very transparent. We are meeting with Sponsors that have been in the program to get feedback. Based on the feedback here and that we receive directly, we’ll post the final program details.

If any potential sponsor would like to join a meeting with the team putting this together, let us know and we’ll make that happen. We want as much feedback as possible.

Thanks for the excellent clarifications, @sippis and @kcristiano! That answers all my questions! 🙂

@kcristiano I agree with your points on the expenses, and the logic of asking globals to sponsor top tiers of in-person WordCamps definitely sounds fair, as we may not be having as many camps in 2022, as we had in the previous years. I also agree that invoicing sponsors at the end of the quarter is a better approach, because if we do that earlier, it could result in ambiguity.

Looking forward to hearing feedback from our global sponsors and community members, as that will help us solidify the program.

Please note that the Global Community Sponsorship program does not include flagship events such as WordCamp Europe, WordCamp Asia, or WordCamp US, even though they’re listed on the official schedule.

Does that mean other events can be promoted to ‘flagship events’ throughout the year? Or can we explicitly mention the camps that are excluded?

I’m asking because in the current wording we could take our sponsors’ money and just name all events flagship events.

Does that mean other events can be promoted to ‘flagship events’ throughout the year? Or can we explicitly mention the camps that are excluded?

It is highly unlikely that the community would see other flagship events than listed there. Also partially because it is a discussion involving the whole Community Team if new flagship WordCamp would be born.

For what it’s worth and if I do remember correctly, the wording has historically been the same.