Uploading Sponsorship Agreements

This week we added a new metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. box to the Edit screen for WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. sponsors. It allows you to upload a PDF or image file of a sponsorship agreement that the sponsor has signed.

Wait. Sponsors have to sign a sponsorship agreement?

97% of WordCamps don’t need to ask companies to sign sponsorship agreements if they don’t want to. We only need a signed contract on file if a sponsor is being charged $10,000 USD or more.

Some companies require a signed contract with an event before they can pay an invoice, though, and in that case, organizers can use this tool to store the signed contracts in case they need to find it later.

Why do we need to upload the signed agreements?

WordPress FoundationWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org. and WordPress Community SupportWordPress Community Support WordPress Community Support PBC is a subsidiary of WordPress Foundation. It is created specifically to be the financial and legal support for WordCamps, WordPress Meetup groups, and any additional “official” events organized within the WordPress Community Events program., PBC undergo a yearly financial audit, and the auditors ask for paperwork. After a year or so of searching Google Drive folders, we decided that storing contracts on each WordCamp site would be easier to manage.

How does it work?

upload

  • Once you have a signed agreement for a particular sponsor, edit that sponsor in your WordCamp site.
  • Find the Sponsor Agreement meta box in the right column. Click Attach Signed Agreement to bring up the standard WordPress media modal. Here you can upload the file or find it in the Media Library if it’s already in there.
  • Once you’ve selected the file, make sure you Update the sponsor post so that the change gets saved.
  • If you need to replace the agreement file with a different one, first remove the existing one and then upload a new one in its place.

This sponsor says it already has a signed “global sponsorship agreement”. What does that mean?

global

Global community sponsors sign a contract at the beginning of each calendar year, which is managed by deputiesProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook.. In the unlikely case that we need to generate an upgrade agreement with a global sponsor in excess of $10,000 (we’re probably a few years away from that), we’ll deal with that separately.

Thanks to @andreamiddleton for providing the what/why on sponsorship agreements 🙂