2019 Global Sponsors

I am excited to announce the global sponsors for 2019! Thank you to all the sponsors that support the WordPress community programs.

In region A (North, Central, and South America), the global sponsors are:

In region B (Europe, Africa, and Asia), the global sponsors are:

Full details on the 2019 Global Sponsorship program and packages can be found here.

The Global Sponsor information for event organizers page in the handbook has been updated, and we’ll be updating the rest of the handbook pages in the coming days. A group of volunteers will also be updating all 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. sites to reflect the current list.

Please join me in giving another big thanks to all the global sponsors for their continued support!

#global-sponsors

WordCamp 2018 Global Sponsor Updates

It’s a new year, and with that comes the need to check 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. sites created last year with last year’s Global Sponsors to ensure they’ve been updated for 2018. An email with updated sponsor information has gone out to all 2018 camps, but the next step is a site audit to ensure sponsors are being properly recognized on each site.

We need a few existing 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. who have access to WordCamp’s Help Scout to volunteer to check each 2018 WordCamp site, let us know if the sponsor areas are accurate and reach out to the team to remind them to update if it isn’t. Ideally this project will be completed by Monday, January 15, 2018.

We’ve created a spreadsheet listing each event, the event’s region, email address, and a column for you to leave any notes. If you’re interested in checking a few sites please dive right in, just sign off on the completed items by putting your name in the “checked by” column. You can find the spreadsheet here.

The 2018 Global Sponsors by region and level are as follows:

Western Region (The Americas):
Gold: Jetpack, WooCommerce, Bluehost
Silver: Dreamhost, GoDaddy
Bronze: Boldgrid

Eastern Region (Europe, Africa, and Asia Pacific):
Gold: Jetpack, WooCommerce
Silver: GoDaddy
Bronze: Bluehost

For more details read through the Global Sponsors page in the handbook. 

If you have any questions let us know below!

#deputies, #global-sponsors, #wordcamps

New Gold level Global Sponsor for the second half of 2016: BoldGrid

Hey folks, good news! We have a new global community sponsorGlobal Community Sponsor Company that sponsors the WordPress community events through the global sponsorship program. in the Western region for the second half of 2016: BoldGrid! I’ll be pushing out the sponsor post to each Western-region 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. on the schedule this week, and following up with organizers to make sure they get the message. 🙂 During that process, we might revisit global sponsorship grants with events that are struggling with fundraising, but we won’t be adding to the global grant if that would mean over-funding an event.

If you have any questions about this, please comment! 🙂

#global-sponsors

Quarterly report on WordPress Community Team activity: April to June 2016

I send a quarterly report to our Global Community Sponsors on what the WordPress Community team has been up to in the past 3 months, and I thought it would be worth sharing amongst ourselves as well. 🙂 So here it is: our Q2 WordPress Community activity report!

WordCamps

Twenty-eight WordCamps were held between April and June (11 in the Eastern sponsorship region, 16 in the Western sponsorship region, and 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. Europe which of course is not a part of the global sponsorship program), with a total of nearly 9,000 tickets sold. The biggest event in this period (not counting WordCamp Europe) was WordCamp Miami, with three days of events and over 1,000 attendees, closely followed by WordCamp Atlanta, which sold 928 tickets for their three-day event.

Name Sponsor Region Tickets Sold
WordCamp Torino Eastern 396
WordCamp London Eastern 660
WordCamp Finland Eastern 262
WordCamp Bratislava Eastern 191
WordCamp Sunshine Coast Eastern 187
WordCamp Porto Eastern 324
WordCamp Denmark Eastern 71
WordCamp Antwerp Eastern 198
WordCamp Belgrade Eastern 226
WordCamp Marbella Eastern 122
WordCamp Bilbao Eastern 146
WordCamp Europe excluded 2,178 (plus 1,399 free livestream tickets)
WordCamp Jacksonville Western 210
WordCamp Nuremberg Western 295
WordCamp San Diego Western 584
WordCamp Albuquerque Western 100
WordCamp Buffalo Western 143
WordCamp Chicago Western 373
WordCamp Vernon Western 109
WordCamp Maine Western 171
WordCamp St. Louis Western 192
WordCamp Minneapolis Western 602
WordCamp Calgary Western 134
WordCamp Asheville Western 326
WordCamp Hamilton Western 190
WordCamp Kansas City Western 167
WordCamp Northeast Ohio Western 118
WordCamp Ottawa Western 246
 TOTAL 8,921 (or 10,320 including the WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. livestream tickets)

So. Many. WordCamps! We have 33 camps currently scheduled for the July-September period, 11 WordCamps scheduled for Q4 (including WordCamp US), and 31 WordCamps that have been approved for pre-planning (about 10 of these are slated for 2017, but still). We’re right on track for seeing more than 100 WordCamps organized this year!

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.

The WordPress 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. chapter account grew by more than 56 groups in Q2 (April-June), with a total number of groups on the chapter account clocking in at 305 as of July 1! There were a whopping 806 official meetup events in just the second quarter of this year, with a recorded attendance total of 15,976. The total number of members across all groups on the chapter account is currently 112,778. In the first half of 2016, we’ve added nearly the same number of meetup groups to the chapter account as we added for the entire year of 2015. Yeah, I can’t believe my eyes either!

Community 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.

These last three months, our 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. have been focusing on providing as much support as possible to our WordCamp and meetup event organizers, who have been busy elves as you can see above! We’re going to start working on the 2017 Global Sponsorship program around September, and send out a sponsor survey around that time to find out what our global sponsors are loving and also where we can improve for next year.

Finally, the WordCamp Incubator program announced three locations for late-2017: Denpasar, Indonesia, Harare, Zimbabwe, and Medellín, Colombia will all have WordCamps this year for the very first time! Dates for those events should be announced no later than August, so stay tuned!

#global-sponsors

Global Community Sponosrship informational hangout on March 9

For companies interested in joining the global community sponsorship program in the second quarter of 2016, we’ll be holding a Q&A hangout on Wednesday, March 9, 12pm – 1pm Pacific time.

If your company is not already enrolled in the global community sponsorship program but would like to be, and you have questions about the program, please reply in the comments or email support@wordcamp.org, and we’ll invite you to the Q&A. Companies that wish to join the global sponsorship program for Q2 must confirm and pay their first invoice no later than March 15.

If you’re an event organizer and have questions about the global sponsorship program, check out this page in the handbook! If you have more questions after reading that through, check out Sponsorship Office HoursOffice Hours Defined times when the Global Community Team are in the #community-events Slack channel. If there is anything you would like to discuss – you do not need to inform them in advance.You are very welcome to drop into any of the Community Team Slack channels at any time., Wednesdays at 17:00 UTC in #events.

#community-management, #global-sponsors

Global Community Sponsorship Update

Hey all! @kcristiano and I just wanted to update you on what’s been happening in the Global Community Sponsorship program in the last couple of weeks since our last update. (Hint: a lot!) We have received signed contracts and payment from the following confirmed global sponsors:

Bluehost (Gold Western and Silver Eastern)
GoDaddy (Silver Worldwide)
Jetpack (Gold Worldwide)
Pantheon (Silver Western)
WooCommerce (Gold Worldwide)
WPML (Bronze Worldwide)

Either Kevin or I have added all of these fantastic sponsors to the relevant 2016 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. sites, merged into the local levels. If you have a 2016 WordCamp on the official schedule and think there might be a problem or discrepancy with global sponsor acknowledgement, please just pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” Kevin or me in slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/., or leave a comment on this thread. 🙂

We are still waiting for payment from Bronze global sponsors DreamHost (Bronze Western) and Plesk (Bronze Western), but they’ve returned their signed contracts and issued payment so it’s just a matter of a few more days until we can add them to all the 2016 sites.

Speaking of those 2016 sites, at this time, they are:

WordCamp Paris
WordCamp Norway
WordCamp Miami
WordCamp Prague
WordCamp Dayton
WordCamp Lancaster PA
WordCamp Mumbai
WordCamp Atlanta
WordCamp Torino
WordCamp London
WordCamp Jacksonville
WordCamp Nuremberg
WordCamp San Diego
WordCamp Chicago
WordCamp Vernon
WordCamp Minneapolis

Gold global sponsors should be merged into the highest local sponsorship level, Silver should be merged into the second highest, and Bronze should be merged into the third highest, and then organizing teams should  acknowledge global sponsors like all other sponsor at that level. Essentially, global sponsors should receive whatever is in their global package plus anything additional you’re providing to your local sponsors, if your local packages include additional items. If you have a question about how to work with or acknowledge your global sponsors, please just leave a comment on this post or ping Kevin or me on Slack — we’re happy to help clarify.

We’ve been talking to lots of other companies, too! We’ve responded to everyone who reached out via email all the companies who sponsored more than 5 WordCamps last year. Here’s the status on outreach.

Still in talks with:
InMotion Hosting
ManageWP
WiredTree

Have received a definite “not at this time” from:
10up
CloudFlare
GMO Internet Group
Interserver
LiquidWeb
Siteimprove, Inc.
SiteLock
Sucuri
Tucows
WinningWP
WPEngine
Yoast

Have not heard back from:
CrowdFavorite
CSSIgniter
Human Made
iThemes
MainWP
ServerPress
SiteGround
VertaMedia
WPRocket

We’ll continue to roll in additional global sponsors into the program on a quarterly basis as the year progresses, but with plenty of time before each quarter begins so we don’t put early-quarter camps in a pinch. Announcement as a Global Community Sponsors will start up 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. blog next week. If you have any questions about the global sponsorship program at all, please let us know!

#community-management, #global-sponsors, #global-sponsorship

Global Sponsorship update for mid-January

Curious about what companies have signed on as global sponsors for 2016? Here’s a list of confirmed sponsors, which I’ve broken up by region, for ease of reference.

As we receive payment for each sponsorship (all the confirmed sponsors were invoiced between Jan 7 and today), either I or @kcristiano will add these sponsors (with updated descriptions) to the website of each active 2016 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. and then send that informative intro email to each sponsor for each active WordCamp on the schedule in their region.

Western region (the Americas):

Gold sponsors: Bluehost, Jetpack, WooCommerce
Silver sponsors: GoDaddy, Pantheon
Bronze sponsors: DreamHost, WPML, Plesk

Eastern region (Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific):

Gold sponsors: Jetpack, WooCommerce
Silver sponsors: Bluehost, GoDaddy
Bronze sponsors: WPML

I’m updating the planning handbook documentation with the updated info as well. Got questions? Ask ’em in the comments!

#events-2, #global-sponsors

2016 Global Sponsorship outreach progress report

Last week we finalized our 2016 Global Community Sponsorship program, yay! Working with @kcristiano, I emailed details about the program to past and some prospective sponsors who had already expressed interest.

Here’s a list of those companies; unless noted otherwise, all of them are reviewing the program details and will get back to me when they’ve made their decisions. 🙂

2015 global sponsors have all been contacted:
Jetpack
GoDaddy
Bluehost – confirmed as Gold level for Western and Silver level for Eastern region for 2016
Dreamhost
WPML – confirmed as Bronze level for Western and Eastern regions for 2016
WiredTree – not yet confirmed; mentioned wanting to reduce their sponsorship level in 2016
Planethoster – not interested in global sponsorship for 2016

Companies that had expressed interest in the program previously have also been contacted:
Pantheon – confirmed as Silver level for Western region for 2016
GMO Internet Group
Odin/Plesk
LiquidWeb
VertaMedia
CloudFlare
CrowdFavorite
SiteGround
Tucows
WooThemes

In January, we’ll email every company that sponsored 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. in 2015 to thank them for their support and let them know about the global sponsorship program as well.

#community-management, #global-sponsors

Follow up on proposed global sponsorship levels and benefits

I’d like to move forward on this proposal so we can send out the deck to prospective sponsors for 2016. Matt expressed concern to me about the proposal that we offer discounts on sponsorship of WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. and WCUSWCUS WordCamp US. The US flagship WordCamp event. will result in less money for those events. If you have strong opinions around our dropping this proposed benefit for 2016, please share them in the comments here. If you don’t really care one way or the other, then you can ignore this post. 🙂

#global-sponsors, #multi-event-sponsorship, #wordcamps

All Deputies Action

In the post about a global sponsor that wasn’t, the company in question was Media Temple, and they should *not* be receiving sponsor benefits. Please check in with all your WC organizers and ask them to a) not thank MT for being a sponsor, b) remove them from the WC site if they are listed there.

@kovshenin or @iandunn can you take them out of any default listings?

#global-sponsors, #wordcamps