Springing forward! A quick update on the WP Community Collective!
Published on April 15, 2023 by Sé Reed
Hello dear contributors and fellow collective members!
It has only been two months since our last update, but somehow it feels like years! This is a quick update just to check in, as we will hopefully have a more robust update and exciting news for you soon.
Courtney and I have been working continuously behind the scenes to forge some really amazing partnerships for the WPCC. Our third board member, Katie Adams Farrell (who hopefully some of you will get to meet at WCUS!), is on family leave for a bit, so it's just the two of us right now. That has slowed down our pace a bit ... which was already not super quick! However, our role model here is the tortoise, not the hare. :) We are building the WPCC to be on solid and strong footing as an organization in order to be a strong support for the WP community. Slow and steady!
What we REALLY want to do with this update is acknowledge the folks who have joined us in the last month or two. We are so grateful and excited to see folks joining us who we don't directly know. That is a real vote of confidence, and, in our minds, a testament to the need for the WPCC across the global WP ecosystem!
We are also grateful and excited for some unexpected and extremely generous donations. The Automattic PDARG (Physical Disability Automattician Resource Group) contributed without any ask from us. They donated $2,000 directly to the Accessibility Fellowship, which is exciting for too many reasons to list here. We also won't list out individually all the awesome folks who have joined us, because even though each person that joins brings us great delight, you can go directly to our contributors page and see for yourself! Complete and total financial transparency is one of the best parts about being hosted by OCF.
Thanks to every single one of you who have joined us. We would not be able to attempt this leap of faith without YOUR faith in us. We have so much to do (all of us) and we are so glad to have you to do it with!
Accessibility Fellowship Update: We have another large donation coming in soon, which will put us about 75% of the way to funding the Accessibility Fellowship. All funds raised right now, no matter how they are donated, are being directed to the Accessibility Fellowship. We will always raise the full funds needed before we start a Fellowship, so thanks are also due to Alex Stine for his understanding and patience while we get this ship moving! Alex will be the first recipient of the Accessibility Fellowship, but even without funding he continues his dedicated (and difficult!) work to make WordPress accessible. Thank you, Alex!
Stay tuned for more WPCC news soon: Some partnership announcements, and some GitHub-based organization work we'll be asking for your help with! :)
If you ever have questions, comments, or ideas about the WPCC, just let us know. We are truly eager to answer your questions and hear your ideas. You can find us on WordPress Slack, WordPress GitHub, PostStatus Slack, Twitter (despite the carnage), Mastodon, and basically everywhere else online. And Courtney will be at WCEU if you want to connect in person!
Thank you for being here and supporting the WP Community Collective. Please invite your friends and colleagues and let's #FundWordPress together!
Openly,
Sé and Courtney
Founding executive board peoples
It has only been two months since our last update, but somehow it feels like years! This is a quick update just to check in, as we will hopefully have a more robust update and exciting news for you soon.
Courtney and I have been working continuously behind the scenes to forge some really amazing partnerships for the WPCC. Our third board member, Katie Adams Farrell (who hopefully some of you will get to meet at WCUS!), is on family leave for a bit, so it's just the two of us right now. That has slowed down our pace a bit ... which was already not super quick! However, our role model here is the tortoise, not the hare. :) We are building the WPCC to be on solid and strong footing as an organization in order to be a strong support for the WP community. Slow and steady!
What we REALLY want to do with this update is acknowledge the folks who have joined us in the last month or two. We are so grateful and excited to see folks joining us who we don't directly know. That is a real vote of confidence, and, in our minds, a testament to the need for the WPCC across the global WP ecosystem!
We are also grateful and excited for some unexpected and extremely generous donations. The Automattic PDARG (Physical Disability Automattician Resource Group) contributed without any ask from us. They donated $2,000 directly to the Accessibility Fellowship, which is exciting for too many reasons to list here. We also won't list out individually all the awesome folks who have joined us, because even though each person that joins brings us great delight, you can go directly to our contributors page and see for yourself! Complete and total financial transparency is one of the best parts about being hosted by OCF.
Thanks to every single one of you who have joined us. We would not be able to attempt this leap of faith without YOUR faith in us. We have so much to do (all of us) and we are so glad to have you to do it with!
Accessibility Fellowship Update: We have another large donation coming in soon, which will put us about 75% of the way to funding the Accessibility Fellowship. All funds raised right now, no matter how they are donated, are being directed to the Accessibility Fellowship. We will always raise the full funds needed before we start a Fellowship, so thanks are also due to Alex Stine for his understanding and patience while we get this ship moving! Alex will be the first recipient of the Accessibility Fellowship, but even without funding he continues his dedicated (and difficult!) work to make WordPress accessible. Thank you, Alex!
Stay tuned for more WPCC news soon: Some partnership announcements, and some GitHub-based organization work we'll be asking for your help with! :)
If you ever have questions, comments, or ideas about the WPCC, just let us know. We are truly eager to answer your questions and hear your ideas. You can find us on WordPress Slack, WordPress GitHub, PostStatus Slack, Twitter (despite the carnage), Mastodon, and basically everywhere else online. And Courtney will be at WCEU if you want to connect in person!
Thank you for being here and supporting the WP Community Collective. Please invite your friends and colleagues and let's #FundWordPress together!
Openly,
Sé and Courtney
Founding executive board peoples