October 17, 2024 – Online

Present: 

WordPress Foundation Directors: Mark Ghosh, Matt Mullenweg, and Chele Chiavacci Farley

Guests/Observers: Harmony Romo, Isotta Peira, and Sarah Glenn

Regrets: None

1. Call to Order
2. Financial discussion
   • WordPress Foundation financial overview and discussion 

Harmony Romo spoke to the current financial position of the WordPress Foundation as of today October 17, 2024 and reported on the current cash position, which is up $44,560 compared to the prior year. She noted that after challenges with Wells Fargo earlier in the year that the foundation has switched to J.P. Morgan.

WordPress Foundation Cash Position:

J.P. Morgan Commercial Operating Account	$264,680
PayPal	$0
Stripe	$0

She shared that, to date, in 2024 the foundation has received $41,417 in donations, up $12,952 compared to last year. It was noted that since WordCamp US in September 2024 there has been an increase in donations with 48 new recurring donations created and a total of $12,535 donated. 

Matt Mullenweg inquired about the sources of the increased donations to WPF. Harmony Romo shared that there are currently 174 active recurring donations, an increase of 40 over the prior year. Donations received were from a wide variety of foundation supporters, with no single donor contributing more than $5,000. This ensures that the foundation will meet the required 33.33% public support percentage.

The board, alongside a recommendation from Harmony Romo, identified that the foundation should maintain a balance of $150,000. There was further discussion as to how the current excess should be directed. It was suggested that donations could be made to non-profit organizations with similar missions (Foundation for Public Code, Black Girls Code, and Internet Archive) as has been done in the past. Matt Mullenweg requested that an agenda item be added to direct $100,000 to the Internet Archive as they are currently in need.

• Motion by Matt Mullenweg to approve a $100,000 donation to the Internet Archive : Seconded by Chele Chiavacci Farley and Mark Ghosh and carried 

• WordPress Community Support, PBC financial overview and discussion

Harmony Romo spoke to the current financial position of WordPress Community Support, PBC as of today October 17, 2024 and reported on the cash position which is up $667,076 compared to this time in 2023.

WordPress Community Support Cash Position:

J.P. Morgan Commercial Operating Account	$2,181,836
J.P. Morgan Commercial Deposit-Only Account	$0
PayPal	$0
Stripe	$0

Harmony Romo noted that ~$120,000 of our current balance does represent income received for 2025 events and that we still have significant expenses from WordCamp US, held in September 2024, that have yet to be reconciled. 

Matt Mullenweg inquired as to why the cash position is so much higher this year than in the past, and Harmony shared that both WordCamp US and WordCamp Europe ended up with significant surpluses. He requested that the programming team look to address this and suggested that we invest in local marketing for WordCamp US next year, and that the programming team works to reduce ticket prices if possible.

• Discussion of Meetup.com fees and bank strategy 

Harmony Romo shared that the largest overhead expense is $221,529 for Meetup.com fees per year. She shared that there has been some progress and testing of GatherPress, which if successful could reduce overhead expenses by more than 50%. 

Harmony Romo shared that the foundation moved their operating account to J.P. Morgan after challenges with Wells Fargo earlier in the year.

The board discussed whether or not the WordPress Foundation or WordPress Community Support, PBC should alter their banking strategy. It was decided that there is low financial risk with J.P. Morgan, and opening additional accounts with different banks is not necessary at this time. The board did identify that opening money market accounts would be beneficial for WordPress Community Support, PBC and potentially for the WordPress Foundation.

Chele Chiavacci Farley noted that interest income returns on both accounts should be 4-5% on the balances. Mark Ghosh recommended that balances be transferred to money market accounts with an option to automatically fund the operating account as needed to cover expenses. Harmony Romo will discuss this with the J.P. Morgan representatives and follow up with options and details via email.

• Discussion of tax returns

Harmony Romo shared that in the filing of the 2023 WordPress Foundations Form 990 the foundation highlighted do_action and learn.wordpress.org programs. The main difference in the 2023 filing, over 2022, was an increase in donation income from $23,744 to $36,388. 

As for WordPress Community Support, PBC, the 2023 filing reflected a loss of ($159,983). The loss was due to a large increase in total WordCamps, 71 in 2023 compared to 26 in 2022, and rising inflation that heavily impacted venue as well as food and beverage costs. It was noted that the majority of 2023 losses were related to the flagship events (WordCamp Europe, WordCamp US). Some of the income for WC Asia that was received in 2020 was reported as income for that year versus being carried forward to offset the 2023 expenses, which also contributed to the loss. This 2023 tax loss will roll forward to offset future years income. 

Chele Chiavacci Farley requested that moving forward all financials shared with the board include the prior years financials, and that we ensure a board meeting is held prior to when taxes are due. 

3. Programming discussion

Isotta Peira shared updates on the various WordPress Foundation and WordPress Community Support, PBC programs. 

do_action:

By the end of 2024, the foundation will have supported 8 do_action charity hackathons that combined produced over 21 charity websites for deserving non-profits. The do_action events are close to revenue neutral and only $1,066 was paid in grants in 2024. Mark Ghosh inquired as to how this compares to last year, and it was shared that there were twice as many do_action events as in 2023, when the Foundation only supported 4. In an effort to promote do_actions, they are now displayed on events.WordPress.org alongside other events, like WordCamps. 

Open source education:

So far in 2024, the WordPress training team organized one online Intro to Open Source workshop called “Shape the Future: Your Role in WordPress Open Source Contribution that received 40 RSVPs. There were also 108 participants who completed the ‘Open Source Basics and WordPress’ Learn WordPress asynchronous course, and six meetup groups that held open source-focused workshops with a combined total of 200 participants that RSVP’d. There were no direct costs associated with any of these programs as they used the Meetup.com infrastructure paid for by WordPress Community Support.

Learn WordPress

Learn WordPress, launched in December 2020, continues to grow. There are currently 502 lessons and 24 courses with 38,000 people that have registered. So far, 8,600 learners have completed courses this year, which is an average course completion rate of 21%. There have also been 107 online workshops in 2024 with an average of 33 participants.

Matt Mullenweg expressed some concern around the low number of learners (8,600) that completed courses, given that there are two full-time sponsored employees focusing on the program. He requested that the programming team work to increase the number of individuals that complete courses as that is much more valuable than the number of people that register. 

It was also noted that Learning Pathways was launched in August 2024 as a new approach to educational content, and so far, the average learner satisfaction rate is 93%, and the video retention rate for Learning Pathway courses is 59% (this aligns with technology video benchmarks that see a 40-70% retention rate). 

Mentorship Program

An update was shared on the new WordPress Contributor Working Group that aims to bring in new contributors to WordPress through active mentorship over a six-week period. In 2024 there were two cohorts, the first with 28 mentors supporting 52 mentees and the current cohort with 25 mentors supporting 100 mentees. Mentees in the Spring 2024 cohort had an 89% program satisfaction rate. 

Matt Mullenweg shared that rtCamp has 10 developers prepared to contribute to core, but they need mentorship. He will create a WordPress.org Slack channel with a representative from rtCamp and Hari Shanker.

Meetups

It was shared that as of today, there are 633 WordPress chapter Meetups in 92 countries, with over 510,000 Meetup members globally, an increase of 10,000 members since last year. 

WordPress Events

So far in 2024, there have been 56 WordCamps and WordPress Events held in 51 countries with 6 events held in the US, with another 22 events scheduled over the next two months for a total of 78 events in 2024 compared to 71 events in 2023. In total the events sold more than 18,500 tickets, which is an increase of 4,500 over the previous year. 

The board discussed the progress here and Matt Mullenweg shared that he thinks we can do much better and would like to see a larger increase in ticket sales for next year.

Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship:

In 2024 the Kim Parsnell Memorial Scholarship recipient was Cynthia Norman of Ontario, Canada who was awarded $3,000. Cynthia was a member for the 2023 mentorship pilot and has since contributed to the WordPress Training Team, and created more than two dozen lessons for Learn WordPress. 

The board was impressed with the impact the scholarship has had and decided to expand the program to offer scholarships for WordCamp Europe and WordCamp Asia in addition to WordCamp US. 

Mark Ghosh suggested that the recipient receives approximately 5 minutes of stage-time to discuss how they became involved, and Matt Mullenweg suggested that this could be built into his keynote at flagship events. Matt Mullenweg also recommended that we write blog posts about recipients and try to encourage more people to apply. 

4. Updates and new business

• New Executive Director

It was noted that Mary Hubbard will be starting as the new Executive Director of WordPress.org next week. She will also oversee educational programs in 2025 with support from teams focused on community, education, and contribution. 

• New business

Mark Ghosh suggested that WordPress Community Supports look into offering developer badges or certification as a type of learning offering. 

Mark Ghosh suggested that in order to move forward more quickly with GatherPress the foundation may want to consider a hackathon type event focused on building this plugin, as the rapid iteration available at a hackathon may help move this along quicker, since a new solution would directly reduce expenses. 

5. Next Meeting

Matt Mullenweg suggested that the foundation move from one annual meeting to two meetings annually. Mark Ghosh, and Chele Chiavacci Farley agreed this would be beneficial as it would allow the new Executive Director to provide an update and opportunities to review financials prior to tax filings being due. 

The board decided the next meeting will be in March, with the following one in August or September.

6. In-Camera Session
   • Matt Mullenweg called an in-camera session for the board at 9:35 AM PST, and the guests/observers departed. 

The In-Camera session was adjourned at 9:55 AM PST.

7. Close

Matt Mullenweg called the meeting to close at 9:57 AM PST. 

ADDENDUM

After the meeting was adjourned, it was discovered that some courses on Learn.WordPress.org were deprecated during the fiscal year reported on in the board meeting, and thus the total completed number of courses was understated by 4,087. Total completed courses was actually 12,687.

In addition, it was suggested there be an annual blog post announcing the winner of the Kim Parsell scholarship. This is, in fact, already being done.

WC Asia 2024 also ended with a surplus, which has increased the cash position of WPCS.