Myself and other members of the WordPress community are in the process of launching a site that will help crowd fund WordPress projects.
After tweeting about the idea, a huge amount of community support has already been garnered for the project and a lot of prominent members of the community are interested in the project.
The goal of the site will be to provide a means for WordPress projects to find and obtain needed funding for getting off the ground.
You can think of something similar to Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, but specific to WordPress projects.
We’re talking about providing the means for developers, designers, writers, etc, the means to work on projects that enhance the WordPress community.
This will not only be for themes and plugins; it will be for all WordPress projects, whether they be contributing to WordPress core, writing WordPress documentation for the codex or handbooks, writing new plugins, etc. For example, fund Developer Y to take a week off from his full time job and contribute to WordPress core. Or, fund Developer J to devote 20 hours out of her normal work week to improving the WordPress codex. Another example would be to fund Business X to produce an in-depth WordPress development course on a specific topic, perhaps advanced plugin development.
The entire idea is to better improve the entire WordPress ecosystem, whether that be WordPress core, plugins/themes on WordPress.org, the WordPress codex, tutorials hosted on individual’s sites, WordPress events, etc.
This will include both free and commercial projects, but a large emphasis will be placed on projects that contribute to the betterment of the WordPress community.
There are a large number of individuals and companies that would love to contribute back to WordPress core more, but are simply unable to because of the need to feed their families and keep the lights on.
We will be most interested in helping the projects that clearly need monetary assistance, but all projects will be considered.
This project has no intentions of making money for myself or anyone else involved. The entire purpose of it is to enable those that wish to give back more than they are currently able.
One of the potentials for this project that really excites me, is to make it easier for groups to put on non-officially sponsored WordPress events, such as Pressnomics. I know that I personally would happy to help contribute to the organization and funding of developer-specific WordPress events, or events specific for theme designers. Imagine how valuable a WordPress “camp” that focused purely on beginning WordPress development would be for aspiring developers? Or how about a WordPress event that focused on introducing people to the various ways of contributing to WordPress core?
There is not an expected launch date yet, but I’d expect it to go live sometime within the next month or two.
If you’d like to read more about the discussion that went into the project, check out the entire chat log from our IRC meetup a few days ago.
We have a coming soon page up at WP Fund It where you can signup to get email notifications about the project’s progression.
Great idea as I mentioned before, I think this can really push WP to the next level in terms of quality of code and features… I’ve talked to too many devs over the years who had to drop development because of lack of funds…
YES. LOVE IT!
one can barely imagine the possibilities, I think this will truly empower the community. I’d definitely back any advanced mentoring or development course.
remember how Chris Coyier funded his incredible video series. I’d love to see something like this from an experienced developer who would build a complex plugin and record it
Grest!
Looking forward to seeing this in action. Pippin, please let me know how we might be able to help!
-AG
I’m in. How about a guest post on HuffPo? I can interview you.
Sure. Want to just email me the questions?
Wonderful idea Pippin, can’t wait to see the result.
Like the idea! Hope you guys will implement it well. All the best!
Absolutely dig this, Pippin.
great idea, cant wait 😉
That’s Great idea…
Idea of the year! Can’t wait 🙂
This would help people get their day jobs out of the way of real ‘work’…superber idea.
This is absolutely beautiful! We’ve built our company (several of them) on the WordPress/Multisite/BuddyPress “stack” and have talked about, from day one, doing it as well in order to give back to the wonderful open-source community of WordPress developers and other such good folks, and in a myriad of ways too, once we have success that is!
I was just discussing the idea of crowd-sourcing funds for an upcoming WordPress project this past weekend … how very opportune this could be.
Awesome Idea!!! Can’t wait to see the results. How do I get involved?
We will be looking for more community involvement once we get things a bit more off the ground 🙂
Really cool idea pippin.
looking forward to see the site.
Excellent, excellent idea! Love this!
Fantastic. Will support it however I can in future.
Love the idea! Count me in!
Will this being using a wordpress corwdfunding platform plugin, like IgnitionDeck? It would be VERY cool if the wordpress crowdfunding platform was itself a wordpress site.
It will be using Easy Digital Downloads with the Crowd Funding extension: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/appthemer-crowdfunding/
Nice idea!
I m in … is there a way to register somewhere and stay updated?
cheers
M
Yep, there’s a newsletter signup here: http://wpfundit.com/
Hey – what happened to this idea – the site looks like it never got off the ground?
It was shelved, sorry.
Shame – it’s a solid idea 🙂