2020 WordPress Global Community Sponsorship Program

35% of the web is powered by WordPress, the free and open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. 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 2019, 805 meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. groups in the WordPress chapter program met over 5,900 times, and local communities organized 140 annual conferences, which we call WordCamps.

What’s a 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.?

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.

WordCamp Program Data

Sponsorship Regions	Events in 2019	Number of Attendees in 2019	Average size for non-flagship event
Region A (North, Central, South America)	54	14,796	274
Region B (Europe, Africa, Asia)	86	40,672	473
Worldwide	140	55,468	396

We anticipate a 4% increase in events in 2020, which should result in approximately 145 WordCamps.

WordCamps confirmed for 2020 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 meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. 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

• 805 groups
• 107 countries with a meetup group
• 417,197 group members (as of December 7), program-wide
• 5,900 meetup events (as of December 7)

We project a 8% growth in meetup groups, resulting in about 900 Meetup groups worldwide in 2020.

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 quarterly, saving companies time and trouble.

Additional program benefits include:

• Global sponsors’ contact information is sent to local organizing teams to facilitate communication.
• Global sponsor company information is pre-loaded on every WordCamp website by WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each., so the local organizing team can publish the sponsor’s logo and company description with one simple click.
• Global community sponsors also receive any benefits that WordCamp organizing teams include in their local sponsorship packages, and for this reason, frequently receive more benefits than those described in these packages.

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.

What are the costs and benefits associated with global sponsorship?

(Here’s a PDF of an easier-to-scan version of this chart.)

	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Region A (North, Central, South America)	$160,000	$80,000	$45,000
Region B (Europe, Africa, Asia)	$125,000	$70,000	$40,000
Name, logo, and company description on all WordCamp websites in the region	X	X	X
Acknowledgment in one program-wide email to all WordPress chapter account meetups/user groups	X	X	X
Acknowledgment on sponsor page on WordCamp Central	X	X	X
Inclusion in the Thank You To Our Sponsors blog post on each WordCamp you sponsor	X	X	X
Monthly email with spreadsheet of WordCamps in planning and on the schedule	X	X	X
Include a discount or coupon code for your product or service in your company description, posted to all WordCamps in your region (subject to approval)	X	X	
Listing, if requested, on official handbook page with resources that meetup and WordCamp organizers can use for new user workshops, charity hackathons, etc.	X	X	
Inclusion on a “thank you global sponsors” sticker sheet (subject to approval) in the swag pack shipped to all WordCamps (pilot benefit)	X	X	
“Featured” acknowledgment on two meetup organizer newsletters per year (received by 1200+ WordPress community influencers every month)	X		
Table at WordCamps for meeting attendees if space is available*	X		
Acknowledgement in all WordCamp “ticket purchase successful” pages in your region	X		
Acknowledgement on the WordCamp Central home page (615k annual views)	X		
A number of swag items added to each WordCamp’s “swag table,” if available (subject to approval)	3	2	1
A number of free tickets to each WordCamp you sponsor, reserved for your company representatives**	4	2	

*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.

Silver and Bronze global sponsors can “upgrade” to a higher local sponsorship level on individual WordCamps by requesting an invoice for the difference between the desired local level and their global sponsorship level, subject to availability, up to 6 weeks before the date of the WordCamp.

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