PRESS RELEASE
DATE: 12-02-2022
Long-time WordPressers launch nonprofit initiative to fund WordPress contribution
Since its inception, the WordPress community has been engaging in dialogue around the challenges of contribution. As a community, we have struggled to balance the needs of the WordPress project with the resources of the corporations, small businesses, and community members that are an integral part of the WordPress ecosystem.
- Hiring employees with hours dedicated full- or part-time to an open source project has a fiscal limit within a traditional corporate structure.
- Most WordPress contributors cannot volunteer the time and resources required to participate in lead roles and contribute consistently or significantly
- Individual sponsorship efforts force contributors to spend valuable time marketing and fundraising for their income.
The WP Community Collective aims to address some of these ongoing challenges by creating community-funded Fellowships to financially support individual contributions to the WordPress project and community.
“We hope that the WP Community Collective can help bridge the gap between the passion people feel for WordPress, and the very real and practical limits of volunteer contribution,” said founding co-director Sé Reed.
The WP Community Collective is a nonprofit organization, fiscally hosted by the 501(c)3 Open Collective Foundation, a structure that provides an established model of funding through individual donations, corporate partnerships, and grants. Additionally, as part of the Open Collective, all WPCC financial management will be 100% visible and transparent (https://opencollective.com/thewpcc)
The WP Community Collective has launched with a small administrative governance team consisting of Sé Reed, Katie Adams Farrell, and Courtney Robertson. Over the next year, the team will formalize the organizational structure to include greater community representation, including an Advisory Board with a permanent seat for the Executive Director of WordPress.
The WPCC’s first initiative is the WPCC Accessibility Fellowship. They are currently in discussion with an existing unsponsored core contributor to hold the inaugural role of Accessibility Fellow, and have launched the fundraising efforts to fund this Fellowship: https://opencollective.com/thewpcc/contribute/accessibility-fellowship-46812
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