Why would WordPress contributors need a nonprofit to pay them? On WPwatercooler episode 437, the three founding directors of the WP Community Collective explained: Katie Adams Farrellcolleague, Sé Reedcolleague and me. I brought my own path, from contributing in nap time windows to a job that paid me to contribute.
🎙️ Episode details
- Show: WPwatercooler, episode 437, “Funding the Dream with the WP Community Collective”
- Host: Jason Tuckercolleague
- Guests: the WPCC founding directors, Katie Adams Farrell, Sé Reed and me, Courtney Robertson
- Date: December 2, 2022
- Topics: my contribution history, why companies find sponsorship hard, and why the WP Community Collective needs a donate button
- Show notes: WPwatercooler episode 437, with a transcript
🧭 My contribution history, and its gaps
To start, my first WordPress contribution was checking in guests at a WordCamp around 2009. Later, I started contributing regularly on a team in 2014, alongside client work. As a bootcamp instructor, I couldn’t contribute for a few years. Then, with small children and a three hour nap window, I had to choose carefully what to spend that time on.
Seeing Learn WordPress take shape before its launch, I asked the person who became my manager whether a company might ever employ me to contribute. I’d worked for three major WordPress brands by then. At the first two, contributing as part of my role wasn’t an option.
🏢 Why companies find sponsorship hard
I tried to be fair to employers, because I’d worked inside hosts and plugin companies. After all, sponsoring a contributor raises practical questions. For example, can the company hire where the person lives, given tax and labor rules? Which department do they report to? What are their goals and performance measures, and how do you explain all of that to shareholders?
I was clear that funding isn’t only the job of hosts, plugin and theme companies or large agencies. Those are simply the places where I’d seen the challenges up close.
💸 Why the WP Community Collective needs a donate button
Next, the panel talked about GitHub Sponsors as one route. I noted that I’d helped GoDaddy sponsor an individual contributor, Joe Dolsoncolleague, through GitHub Sponsors, and it was the easiest sponsorship I’d pushed through. His accessibility work doesn’t mostly require code. Still, requiring GitHub to give or receive money is a barrier for many contributors. So a plain donation page is easier for people who never use GitHub.
🧪 What can you take from the WP Community Collective founders?
- Companies: decide reporting lines and goals before you sponsor a contributor, so the role survives a reorganization.
- Individuals: ask whether contribution can be part of your job. The answer can change.
- Donors: a collective lets you fund contributors who don’t market themselves.
🔭 Update: the WP Community Collective today, November 2026
The WP Community Collective later rebranded as The WPOCC, where I’m still a co founding board member. That came after this 2022 conversation.
Also, more conversations like this one live in my podcast and speaking archive.
🗓️ Archival note
WPwatercooler’s episode page is dated December 2, 2022. Then I added this post on November 9, 2026, from the show notes and the publisher’s automated transcript, which has errors. However, I reviewed the transcript, not the recording.