Sponsor

My sponsors

All sponsors will be listed here

Monthly contribution time

20 hours/month

Themeisle

One time

Hari Shanker

You?

What

There are two ways to sponsor, either with an ongoing sponsorship for my contribution time to the WordPress project, or with a one time sponsorship to cover contribution related costs such as my travel costs for being an event organiser at WordCamp Europe.

(There is a third way, more commercial, to sponsor WPMondo, one of my professional project, as an advertisement).

You can sponsor me directly via Bank transfer or via my Stripe account, contact me and I will issue an invoice with my banking details. So I’ll access the money in a few days.

The other possibility is to process sponsorship payments via GitHub. The pros are that it is a trusted and traceable way to sponsor and that most of the WordPress contribution is done on GitHub. The money is processed from GitHub to my bank account, via Stripe. If necessary, I can issue an invoice as well. The big drawback for me is that payouts are processed after several weeks.

In both cases, a small part of the received money is spent on Geneva social taxes for independant contractors, and on income taxes (Federal, Cantonal in Geneva, and municipal in Versoix).

Why not before? And why now?

Why didn’t I choose to be sponsored before? And why it is important to support contributors to the WordPress project. Read the related blog post about sponsorship, published on 27 July 2024.

Why

WordPress powers 43% of the web and needs contributors! We are open source! We have to set example and have thriving contributors who do not give up for financial reasons. The whole project also needs people besides developers, for a lot of other tasks!

My contributions

I dedicate a large amount of hours to WordPress (it rose to about 50% of my time since August 2023), I contribute in a lot of different ways:

• Event organiser: Flagship WordCamp Europe, local and regional WordCamp events, local monthly Meetups.
• Event supporter (aka “mentor”): to support other organisers to create successful events.
• Contributor Mentorship Program and Contributor Onboarding: I take part in cohorts and planning. They are essential programs to gain new contributors for the WordPress project.
• GatherPress: to be integrated in the WordPress Community (move our meetings management from proprietary to open source).
• BuddyPress – bbPress: organisation of Contributor Day focused on those WordPress’ sister projects (TBA for Autumn 2024)
• More generally on the Community Team: meetings, ideas, proposals, Meetup groups reactivation program, etc.

Win-win for sponsors

• Recurring (sponsoring > 20 hours/month = $1000/month): you will be listed here at the top of this Sponsor page and on the Five for the Future program, and mentioned when I introduce myself “sponsored by” on WordPress related meetings (maximum 4 sponsors).
• Recurring (sponsoring < 20 hours/month): you will be listed on my Sponsor page and on the Five for the Future program.
• One time: you will be listed on my Sponsor page for supporting me.
• All: blog post about you and shoutout on Social media.

Shared values

As in all of my contribution and professional projects, I want to help bring content to people in their language and culture, there I find DEIB and Sustainability essential for thriving contributors from all horizons and walks of life, especially underrepresented and people who face difficulties contributing. We need all the different perspectives and not be a project run by privileged people only.

Furthermore, it is important for me to share values with my sponsors and I prefer to be sponsored by companies I trust and whose values or vision I share. The best is to contact me first.

Examples

• It would be strange to be sponsored by a page builder company while I’m only using and promoting the Block editor.
• Values of inclusivity must run in your company.
• I do not like shady marketing tactics.

Contribution Time – ongoing

The roughly 20 hours of contribution per week (about 80 per month) represent time I do not work on my professional projects. Bringing value by contributing to WordPress needs to be economically sustainable for me. And I bring value to WordPress! I know sponsors prefer developers but we all agree that other contributions are essential too, right?

I list an hour to be $50 (but this can be discussed and aligned to what other sponsored contributors usually get), beacuse with the exchange rate it will bring me CHF 44 (conversion rate July 2024), and taking into account social and income tax, this will bring the amount even lower. It’s way less than my professional hourly rate but this is my way of giving back to WordPress as well. It is equivalent to a lower-range salary in my area.

I’ll list all my contributions with time spent in my Contribution Board (starting August 2024, and trying to fill back all old contributions).

One time

WordCamp Europe 2024

I paid around $1850 (EUR 1700) to be a co-organiser of WordCamp Europe 2024, as we had 2 pre-event venue visits and none of our travel and accommodation costs are covered. If you want to help me recover part or all of what it did cost me, consider sponsoring (fully or partly) the one-time WCEU cost. See at the bottom of the page ↓ the detailed costs for WordCamp Europe 2024 and read here why I chose not to ask for sponsorship before the event. For this, I would prefer to be paid via Bank transfer for a quick access to the funding.

WordCamp Europe 2025

Let’s discuss!

Cost details

WordCamp Europe 2024 costs

All prices below are listed in euros. Conversion rate on 27 July 2024: 1 EUR = 1.09 USD

As a co-organiser of WordCamp Europe 2024, I went 3 times to Torino, one time in November, one time in April for venue visits and then for the event. More information on my blog post.

Travel costs

3 times Geneva to Torino, highway and Mont-Blanc tunnel tolls and gas.
See here, ViaMichelin says €105 for one way (€210 both ways) but taking a “both ways under 7 days” for the Mont-Blanc tunnel toll is about €50 cheaper (April) and in November and June, I didn’t come back through the Mont-Blanc tunnel.
Real costs: November both ways €105 + €55, April both ways €105 + €65, June both ways €105 + €55, total €490 and not €630.

Accommodation costs

• 1st visit and 2nd venue visit: 2 times * 3 nights * €67.- = rounded to €400.-
  I chose a cheaper option and was in a room with hosts present in the apartment. This allowed me to meet a wonderful couple, Rahissa and Herman who even became volunteers at the event after I told them about WordPress! I recommend staying with them on Booking. And anyway I would not want sponsors to pay for expensive hotel nights.
• June during WordCamp Europe: 6 nights for me (necessary as an organiser) and sponsoring a friend (who was a volunteer) 5 nights in the same apartment = €810.-
  I will not list additional nights and miscellaneous dinners and going out as this is out of scope and not to be paid by a sponsor!

Total travels and accommodation EUR 1700 or USD 1850.