Powering 42% of the web, WordPress is 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 2021, a significant number of WordPress events were held online due to the pandemic. Our community, despite the pandemic, organized 15 WordCamps in 2021, and 757 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 3,000 times.

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. Online WordCamps are always free of charge to attend.

WordCamp Program Data

At the time of writing, there were 15 WordCamps organized in 2021. It is difficult to project the growth in numbers of events in 2022, 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 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 (as of 29 October 2021)

  • 757 groups.
  • 111 countries with a meetup group.
  • 473,087 group members, program-wide.
  • 3,006 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 sponsorships of WordCamps as an add-on, 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 is outside the scope of this program.

2022 Global Sponsorship benefit package

(Here is a link to a PDF of these costs and benefits)

Cost: $40,000* USD annual commitment.

*Can be invoiced $10,000 USD per quarter by request.

  1. Featured on all WordPress chapter meetup group pages (as of October 2021: 473,087 Members, 757 groups in 111 countries). This includes the sponsor’s logo, with a link back to the company landing page of your choice, on chapter meetup group landing and event pages.
  2. Inclusion of the sponsor’s name in a “Thank you to our sponsors” text blurb in all WordCamp “ticket purchase successful” pages (14,497 in 2021).
  3. Sponsor’s logo with a link to the company’s site in the “Global Community SponsorGlobal Community Sponsor Company that sponsors the WordPress community events through the global sponsorship program.widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. on the 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. home page (over 400k annual views).
  4. Inclusion of the sponsor’s name in a “Thank you to our sponsors” text blurb in one program-wide email to all (over 470k) members of a WordPress chapter account meetup group.
  5. Sponsor’s logo with a link to the company’s site on the Global Community Sponsor page on WordCamp Central (3,775 views in the past 365 days).
  6. A monthly email with a spreadsheet of WordCamps in planning and on the schedule, including event status and contact information.
  7. Inclusion of the sponsor’s name in a “Thank you to our sponsors” text blurb 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.

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

*WPCSWPCS The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the WordPress Coding Standards. May also be an acronym referring to the Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook. anticipates the need to set a cap on the top tier of local sponsorships somewhere between $2,000–$5,000 USD depending on the WordCamp and its anticipated attendance.

  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. Several swag items added to the swag table of each in-person WordCamp, if available (subject to approval).
  6. Several 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.

**The actual number of tickets is determined per WordCamp and what the organizers choose to offer for all of their top-level sponsors. 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.

Rules for sponsor materials:

1. Sponsor may provide:

  • The sponsor’s name and logo.
  • Slogans that are an established part of the sponsor’s image.
  • The sponsor’s brands and trade names.
    • On the WordCamp site only one brand will be listed
    • It is allowed to mention multiple brands in the sponsor’s bio if they are affiliated, but it will be included only one brand link
    • During the WordCamp, at the sponsor’s booth, the sponsor can mention and provide multiple sponsor materials
  • Sponsor contact information (such as telephone numbers, email addresses, and URLs).
  • Factual (value-neutral) displays of actual products.
  • Displays or handout materials (such as brochures) with factual, non-comparative descriptions or listings of products or services.
  • Price information, or other indications of savings or value, if factual and provable.
  • Inducements to purchase or use the Sponsor’s products or services, for example, by providing coupons or discount purchase codes (subject to approval).
  • Calls to action, such as “visit this site for details,” “call now for a special offer,” “join our league of savings,” etc.


2. Sponsors may not provide:

  • Promotional or marketing material containing superlative messages or un-provable claims about the Sponsor, its products or services, such as “the first name in WordPress hosting,” “the easiest way to launch your site,” or “the best e-commerce pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.”.
  • Claims that WordPress, 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 subsidiaries or related entities, meetup organizers, WordCamps, or WordCamp organizers endorse or favor a Sponsor or its products or services (such as “certified WordPress training” or “WordCamp’s favorite plugin”).

3. Sponsors agree that the WordPress Foundation, any subsidiary or related entity of the Foundation, and WordCamp organizers have the right to request and review sponsor materials in advance of an event, to require changes to any materials in advance, and to require that any materials that do not meet the expectations above be taken down or that any practices that do not meet the expectations above be discontinued during a WordCamp or event. The restrictions above also apply to material placed on any self-serve swag tables reserved for sponsor use.

4. All sponsors are expected to support the WordPress project and its principles, including:

  • No discrimination on the basis of economic or social status, race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed, religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, age, or disability.
  • No incitement to violence or promotion of hate.
  • No spammers.
  • No jerks.
  • Respect the WordPress trademark.
  • Embrace the WordPress license; If distributing WordPress-derivative works (themes, plugins, WP distros), any person or business officially associated with WordCamp should give their users the same freedoms that WordPress itself provides: 100% GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples. or compatible, the same guidelines we follow on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/.
  • Don’t promote companies or people that violate the trademark or distribute WordPress derivative works which aren’t 100% GPL compatible.

5. Sponsorship is in no way connected to the opportunity to speak at an official WordPress event and does not alter the WordPress or WordCamp trademark usage policy found at http://wordpressfoundation.org/. The WordPress Foundation and any subsidiary or related entity of the Foundation reserve the right to modify the requirements and expectations above at any time by providing written notice to the sponsor.

Venue Deposit Risk Sharing

This Global Sponsorship program component allows participating sponsors to share the risk of non-refundable venue deposits. In a post-COVID environment, venue costs are already significantly higher than in prior years. It is increasingly difficult to find venues willing to fully refund deposits if an event is canceled. The venue deposit risk-sharing component of the program was created to allow organizers to explore venues that may not offer fully refundable deposits.

Global Sponsors are being offered the opportunity to sign up for Meetup-only sponsorship in the program and the option to add on WordCamp support. Should a Global Sponsor select the full program sponsorship path, they will be listed as sponsors of every WordCamp in 2022 at the top tier. 

WPCS anticipates the need to set a cap on the top tier of local sponsorships somewhere between $2,000–$5,000 depending on the WordCamp and its anticipated attendance. A portion of that sponsorship will be considered a pledge towards the venue deposit. If the WordCamp is canceled and the venue deposit is forfeited, the amount that was pledged towards the deposit will be billed to the Global Sponsors. The ultimate goal will be for WPCS to share no less than 25% of the risk of a non-refundable venue deposit, with the remaining (75%) balance being shared by all Global Sponsors. WPCS will be using a formula approach to ensure WPCS takes on at least 25% of the risk, so the percentage of the Global Sponsorship that is pledged will vary depending on the circumstances. 

Another issue that WPCS will need to deal with on a case-by-case basis will be the actual deposit amount required to hold a venue space. The cost will differ by location. However, it is important that WPCS confirm the reasonableness of a venue deposit and the contract terms. It is anticipated that a cap will need to be established for venue deposits, as well. Given the estimated size of in-person events this year, the expectation is that the maximum deposit allowed will be $5,000.

Lastly, WPCS wants to limit the deposit amount and percent of risk each Global Sponsor shoulders for each WordCamp, but it makes sense to set a maximum amount a Global Sponsor would need to pledge for the 2022 year as a whole. It is highly unlikely that all events would be canceled and all deposits lost, but should that happen, WPCS will set the maximum amount at risk for each Global Sponsor to $25,000/year. The annual maximum will only apply if we experience cancellations and non-refundable venue deposits.

How will sponsors be billed?

Global Sponsors will be sent a single bill before the end of 2021 for the 2022 program (quarterly installments will be available for those that request it). Sponsors may not be added to the event program until payment has been received.

Additionally, if a Global Sponsor wants to sponsor WordCamps, they will be billed for WordCamps at the end of each quarter. All invoices will be due net 30.

Global sponsors that confirm their commitment (by signing the contract; billing will go out by December 6) by December 1, 2021, will be guaranteed table space for Q1 2022 in-person WordCamps. Global sponsors that confirm after December 1, 2021, might not have table space reserved for them at Q1 2022 in-person WordCamps.

How do I sign up?

For more information on supporting WordPress events through the WordPress Global Community Sponsorship Program, email support@wordcamp.org. We look forward to another amazing year of WordPress community events, and we hope you’ll join us!