Episode 3 Se Reed  ## Metadata - Author: [[Community & Code]] - Full Title: Episode 3 Se Reed - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#wordpress, #community, #open-source, #nonprofit, #ospo] - #wordpress - #community - #open-source - #nonprofit - #ospo Author: Chris Reynolds (host), Se Reed (guest) Source: Community and Code Podcast, Episode 3 Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M date created: 2025-07-02 16:17 --- # Title: Community and Code with Se Reed (WP Community Collective) ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging) Assessment](#-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-belonging-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis Prompt](#-darvo-analysis-prompt) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) --- ## 📝 Summary This episode of Community and Code features Se Reed, CEO of The WP Community Collective (WPCC), who shares her journey through the WordPress ecosystem, reflects on the evolution of open-source communities, and discusses how privilege, compensation, and organizational structures impact contributor sustainability. The conversation digs into why volunteer-driven projects need new funding models and legal structures, how WPCC is responding to the collapse of Open Collective Foundation, and the ongoing challenge of ensuring diverse, equitable community participation in WordPress. The episode offers insights and lived examples relevant to anyone working in open-source governance, onboarding, and contributor support. --- ## 📖 Main Content Se Reed and Chris Reynolds explore the WordPress community’s evolution, highlight the impact of privilege on contributor participation, and critique the sustainability of pure volunteer models. Reed recounts the founding of WPCC in response to the WordPress Foundation’s refusal to pay contributors and describes the legal and financial hurdles in keeping nonprofit, open-source projects alive under US tax law. They dissect issues of community governance, the loss of independent voices as corporate sponsorship increases, and the need for collective, focused project funding. --- ### 🗒️ Notes > All notes below are **timestamped links** to the episode for direct YouTube access. - [00:23 Welcome & Introductions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=23) - Se Reed’s background: 12 years on WP Watercooler, WordCamp speaker, WPCC CEO. - Podcast origin: inspired by a sticker from DrupalCon, “Come for the code, stay for the community.” - [02:46 Community as Storytelling & Belonging](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=166) - Storytelling is central to building genuine community bonds. - WordPress stands out for inclusivity of non-developer roles. - Hybrid “tech culture” enables broader participation. - [07:40 Governance, Inclusion & Funding](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=460) - Drupal & WP have different governance legacies; both now iterate for inclusion. - Reed highlights “legacy community” challenges—how old practices can inhibit growth. - Funding contributors is essential for sustainability, but pure volunteerism isn’t viable for scale. - [10:08 Volunteerism vs. Compensation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=608) - Leadership roles require time; those with financial sponsorship dominate. - Loss of independent contributors as labor requirements increase. - Only those with privilege or corporate sponsorship can afford to lead. - [14:56 Naming, Culture & Collective Action](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=896) - Critique of tech product names as community artifacts. - Community structure determines whether collaboration or chaos emerges. - Contrast with paid corporate teams: open-source lacks central authority. - [17:34 Capitalism’s Cost & Contribution](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=1054) - The capitalist need for income crowds out unpaid open-source work. - Contributors face a “time vs. energy” tradeoff; economic realities reduce community involvement. - Cycle of privilege—only the privileged can afford to contribute “for free.” - [22:06 Professional vs. Volunteer Contributions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=1326) - Professionals (company-sponsored) shape community priorities and direction. - Layoffs and shifts reduce the number of active contributors, worsening diversity. - [24:23 Real User Needs & Research](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=1463) - Hobby/demo sites by insiders don’t represent real user pain points. - Lack of effective, ongoing user surveys undermines responsive development. - [28:38 Reed’s WordPress Origin Story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=1718) - Early love for CSS, built bookstore site in 2003, shifted into freelance web work. - Discovered WP community at WordCamp Phoenix (2012)—highlighted importance of network. - [34:43 Onboarding, Small Business & Growth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=2083) - Small business onboarding is neglected in WordPress growth efforts. - Participated in the Consumer Growth Council to advocate for non-corporate users. - [36:49 Founding WPCC: From Frustration to Action](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=2209) - WP Foundation’s refusal to pay contributors led to creation of WPCC. - WPCC now faces heightened urgency after recent WordPress community challenges. - [41:03 Legal Structure & Nonprofit Hurdles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=2463) - Collapse of Open Collective Foundation forced a search for new legal homes. - US tax law excludes open source as “public benefit”; WPCC seeks 501c6 status (industry/membership org). - Parallel drawn to OpenAI’s legal structure switch. - [43:03 Funding, Scramble & Survival](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=2583) - Last-minute fundraising scramble to preserve funds. - Transitioned to self-managed nonprofit with increased administrative responsibilities. - [46:52 Voice, Agency & Collaboration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=2812) - WPCC’s mission: amplify individual/community voices vs. corporate dominance. - Need for “humans before software” ethos in open source. - [49:04 Project Funding Models](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=2944) - Pooled micro-donations or sponsorship can fund focused projects or fellowships. - Inspired by Drupal Association and microlending models. - [52:55 Project Alignment & Impact](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=3175) - Smaller, defined projects increase engagement and achievable outcomes. - Collective determines which initiatives to fund, rather than relying on outside crowdfunding. - [54:44 Collective Action vs. Patreon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M&t=3284) - Patreon and GitHub Sponsors provide value, but lack direction for project goals. - Structured, member-driven funding leads to real progress. --- ## 📖 References - [Episode 3: Community and Code with Se Reed (YouTube)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M) - [The WP Community Collective](https://www.wpcommunitycollective.com/) - [Open Collective Foundation announcement](https://blog.opencollective.com/open-collective-foundation-winding-down/) - [WordPress Foundation](https://wordpressfoundation.org/) - [Drupal Association](https://www.drupal.org/association/) --- ## 🗣️ Paraphrase > Original (on privilege & contribution): "In order to actually contribute yourself, your time, your skills to some kind of an open-source project as all-encompassing as WordPress or Drupal, you kind of need to be in a place of privilege [...] So like it's exclusionary by default." **Paraphrase**: Meaningful contribution to large open-sou - Summary: I sat down with Sè Reed, the CEO of the 501(c)(6) non-profit WP Community Collective. We talked about Sè's introduction to WordPress and the community as well as the beginnings of the WP Watercooler podcast, her time on the WordPress Consumer Growth Council and the sustainability of contribution in WordPress and open source more broadly and the importance of compensation for those contributions. If you have wondered about the WP Community Collective, check this episode out. Intro music: nqt provided by mobygratis. Outro music: Conspire provided by mobygratis. - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PIQIbP_8M [Music] [Music] Welcome to Community and Code. I am your host, Chris Reynolds. This is the podcast where we talk to the humans behind the commits. I'm here today with Seed who you might know from a lot of places if you're in the WordPress ecosystem. Uh Se has been involved in a whole lot of things. Uh WP water cooler was a thing for a long time a million years ago. 12 years. 12 years of the water cooler. Really? Really? Okay. um and and various word camps uh speaking doing stuff and is now CEO of a thing called the WP community collective. Say welcome. Uh tell us about yourself for those of you who have not met you. Hi. Uh thanks for having me on. I'm excited about your podcast. Um, me too because I feel like it was inspired by um well I I feel like it was inspired by a sticker first of all and I love that and then I also love that I like like I sat next to you at Presscom and I saw your sticker and I was like that's a great sticker and so to be on the podcast that you just started after press conf is very um I don't know it feels really good. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. The sticker in question, the sticker in question, sorry, the sticker in question uh is uh is a sticker I picked up at Drupal Con. Um, and I've written about it in a couple different places. And the thing that that jumped out at me and I've been I'd been playing with the idea of of getting back into a podcast for for probably a couple months, but I was having trouble I was having trouble figuring out like what I wanted it to be about. Um, and I picked up the sticker at Drupalcon. Uh, and it spoke to me because that the sticker it says come for the code, stay for the community. Um, and that was the reason why I was in the WordPress ecosystem. And so it felt like really homey to me to see that in the Drupal uh the Drupal con. Um, and then you yeah, you saw it and we talked about it and it like and then also Pressconf itself kind of had this sort of more storytelling and more personal stories and I I sort of had like the epiphany is like, yeah, this thing this thing right here is is what I want uh what I want this to be about. I think that's great. Um because the I also believe that community is a really important uh part of what we're doing here. Um the this is actually something I'm going to be talking about um not at Word Camp Europe but at the alt control or conference that's happening um in in uh in adjacent I don't I don't know what the right word is. um on the free night, the night that's not the speaker sponsor party and the night that's not the afterparty. So in there shoved in there is a is a really interesting conference basically like a mini conference um with some really interesting speakers and myself. Um and I'm really excited about that. I I think that um yeah, so I'm going to be talking about community a lot. I don't want to I don't want to, you know, give too much away, but obviously I like community. I co-founded an organization called the WP Community Collective. Um, so I I appreciate that and I think that um WordPress's community is special. I I know that it's like exceptionalism, right? I'm I know the Drupal community is is special to Drupal as well. Um, but as someone who is um like half in and half out of dev, right, I I I used to do so much more dev and I still do do dev. I still do do dev. Um, but it's so different now than it used to be when I was hard coding themes. And um the WordPress community seems like it's always really had a lot of room for people who were not just devs. Although that's controversial and it's, you know, it's caused lots of problems. But I, you know, that that's something that I've always really has really resonated with me. Um because I was never like a a like a a dev head, right? like I've never worked as a software engineer. So, it was like a it's like not my my particular culture. And so, the WordPress tech culture is sort of like this hybrid hybrid culture um that really really works for me. So, I'm I it's not that I'm like it's I I think Drupal is awesome and I think that they're they have, you know, especially they've made some interesting choices. um in their governance uh well they've made I don't know there have been interesting choices in their governance um they have you know different approaches to things that I think honestly I wish we were all talking more like the larger community and I think there's some folks yourself included who are really bridging that gap um but that's that's only ever been kind of my um like my barrier to Drupal is but it was so much more dev heavy and I um you know so I think that's changing not that this is about Drupal but I do think it's I mean I don't want to this not a we're not going to get into a a Drupal versus WordPress podcast uh necessarily but I I do think like I I I was very much the same. Uh, I feel like, um, whenever I opened Drupal, I felt intimidated by just the interface as opposed to WordPress where like I don't know, it felt simpler. It felt like it made sense. Like I was also super intimidated by like Jumla and like Magento and stuff too back in the day. Oh my god, Magenta. I thought about Magentto in a long time. Too many menus, too many things, too many like clicks. Um, and Magentto I built some carts in Magento. Yeah, me too. Yeah, that was a long long time ago in a galaxy far. I I I do feel like I do feel like uh Drupal is getting a little bit better uh particularly with their latest version and their their emphasis on Drupal CMS which is sort of like a layer on top of Drupal that just makes it seem easier menu system a lot more visually pleasing and and sort of like a a recipebased system that like sort of like tunes the site for what you want it to be. I think all those things are really interesting ideas. Um but uh but they're also doing they're also doing some really interesting things in their community. Um yes, probably because they I I don't want to speak out of term, but probably because they didn't do as much heavy development of that side of it earlier. I feel like they're able to iterate now um sort of in the more like aware space um where exclusion is not necessarily the norm anymore or at least people are aware that it shouldn't be the norm. So I feel like they're developing sort of um they get like a little bit of a a blank slate that they've been able to start with. It's not a totally blank slate. They have their history as as do we. Um but we've really been you know solidifying these community operations for in WordPress for a really long time. And so when you get that sort of it's not even legacy code right it's legacy community right um that that it can be um yeah legacy anything can be complicated so but they are really doing some interesting things um I am particularly interested in funding contributors um just even even even the concept that that people um you know should be paid for their work when it's you know volunteer I am not against volunteering I think this can be really complicated but um I think that there has to be there that can't be the uh the well it's already the foundation of everything but it can't be built on the backs of people for a long time. You can't grow what we've grown and just be like, we're just going to extract more value from these people continually. And you know, for me and the work that I did, especially um on the marketing team in 2023, I was really active in um was was really spearheading moving the contributor, what's it called? The contributor questionnaire. It's sort of like a what team are you on like sort of an onboarding questionnaire. Um it had been created for Word Camp Europe and then we were able to like get it fixed and do all this stuff. We did it was it was a lot of work to move it through the system but we created a uh slashcontribute page on make that allowed you to look through the different things and put in some of your interests and you could get you know a little little it's like a little quiz right and here's what teams might be good for you. Um um so I've I've I've been especially invested in getting folks to to join as contributors, as volunteer contributors. So um I it it seems almost sort of difficult to reconcile that with the idea that I also believe that, you know, people should be compensated for their labor, but it's it's really more about the level of of work. Um, and it's about the the fact that if the only people who are able to put in the time that it takes to spearhead something or to uh be the rep for a team or take a leadership role on a component or on a release. Um, and if if if that time isn't, you know, someone who's been around for a while can't dedicate literally like their entire at least, you know, 20 hours a week or even, you know, the equivalent of a full-time position to that work, then they become um they they're basically like they they can't afford to take a leadership position in in the community. And so at that level what ends up happening is that o the only people who are able to take a leadership role are people who are sponsored. And if we have a situation where the only people who are sponsored are or at least sponsored in a way that's sustainable for them not like you know periodic bursts of GitHub sponsor monies. um then that becomes it's only being funded by companies who are paying their staff to contribute and then um what we lose is that independent component. So I feel like there's I mean obviously there's growing pains in all of this but I think that even though those are sort of conflicting ideologies yes volunteerism is important and yes you know people should on board and can give back and give their time and then at the same time how can we make sure that at least the foundations of this are sustainable and aren't um extracting value from its community just sucking it up. Yeah, I want to circle back to your uh Yeah, sorry. So many things I say and marketing at some point uh in a minute, but I also want to talk on touch on like the idea of of volunteer labor for an open- source software. I was for a long time, you know, uh used Linux for a while. uh like from the time that I knew that it existed was like I was interested in this idea of free and open source software uh and that there was an operating system that was just totally free and just community contributing. It was like this amazing like anarchist like uh ideological raw uh thing for me, punk rock thing. And um and then I think about something like the specific sort of products of that is like okay so you've got a you've got an application like [ \_\_ ] which is the new image manipulation program which is like the the open-source version of Adobe Photoshop, right? Um Adobe Photoshop obviously everybody knows what it is. It costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars or it's a, you know, creative uh Adobe creative license uh that you have to subscribe to. [ \_\_ ] is totally free subscription anymore. Yeah. Right. No, who can afford that? Uh [ \_\_ ] is [ \_\_ ] is totally free and you can just download it and run it on your on your computer, but the uh the interface is not as easy to use. It's not as pleasing. It's it's a little bit I don't know janky. Uh and and like legacy. Yeah, the the reason why is because Adobe can hire like tons and tons of very talented uh UX engineers and like you know all sort like have AI built into the thing and if you're just doing a a open-source thing it's always just going to kind of be at that level of almost like there's there's a level I don't want to call it hobbyist but like it feels like if you compare apples to apples [ \_\_ ] versus Photoshop like [ \_\_ ] feels like okay somebody threw this thing together. Yeah, it I don't think I'm supposed to say that anymore. Probably probably I don't think that's appropriate to say actually. I apologize. Um I've always, you know, not to get on a tangent, but I think that some of the names in tech are just like so clearly like they're really awful. Like we've changed some of them, you know, like Well, whatever. I think [ \_\_ ] is is still pretty bad. Gulp, I'm just like can we stop? just like Gulp is is yeah really just not a fan. But yeah, it's I think that um it doesn't have to be like that. It doesn't seem like it does. Yeah, it it it could be different. I think it could be different. I think that um man, there's so many reasons that things like that happen, but community dynamics are a big part of why things don't flourish. And because because it takes it takes I don't want to get too far into my I'm going to give my my whole talk away about all control. Um but the how do I say this without saying this? Basically the the important part of the community in general is that we are working together, right? It is that like like that that that that's a big part of it, right? have have all these people and if those people can't get along or if there isn't a structure for those people then everyone kind of does their own thing flails around um and doesn't work to a singular purpose and doesn't you know if there's the reason that it works for Adobe is because Adobe says hey person whose paycheck I am signing whose employment and life life I some fun um do this and that person says yes I will do that right um that's not and we I think that we actually right now in the WordPress community well over the past year and a half um we have really seen that come to a head in WordPress where um what the community wants and what is being paid for is not is diverging, right? And that's been happening, one might argue that's been happening since Gutenberg. Um, but one could make that argument. Uh, I will not make that argument right now. I I'm not, you know, we are where we are. But it's um it's really it's it's really about what we value, right? like but because I don't know I if we value having this access then we need to prioritize that but it's hard I think for us people human beings in the now to imagine um just the timeline of those things going away right so we don't necessarily see the immediate value of contributing to let's just say [ \_\_ ] right as opposed to just buying Adobe. So I if we can't see that value then the you know the daily cost benefit that we're all doing in our in our daily lives of time versus energy output. Um you're going to be like well I could you know work to make this better or I could just pay Adobe and go on my way. Um and ironically I think as we have less and less time in this latestage capitalism era that we are in right we have to we have to work harder and hustle to make rent to make our basics to pay freaking health insurance. Um at least here in America I don't know how it is in other countries where they have like free healthcare and stuff. I don't know. Anyway, um but here, you know, we really have to we really have to hustle and so that costbenefit analysis, you know, really starts to skew and it's it's ironic because it's like it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? It's like, well, we could all work on this and make this better together, but because of capitalism, we don't have time. So, we're going to put more money instead over here to fund the capitalism, which then makes it like keeps going and now we still don't have time and they raise their prices and you know, whatever. So, it's this weird cycle that I mean, honestly, we're we're sort of stuck in. Yeah. I've I've thought about that uh recently too about the the idea that in order to actually contribute yourself, your time, your skills to some kind of an open- source project as that is as all-encompassing as a WordPress or a Drupal or, you know, whatever. Um you you're kind of you kind of need to be in a place of privilege like just just to have have the freedom and flexibility and and time to even think about that because everyone else doesn't have that. So like it's exclusionary by default. Right. Yes. Exactly. And that is really that that's really the problem because then you're working with a a you know you've got this this user base this global user base and this potential you know all all of these people are using it potential devs whatever but the actual amount of folks who are able to contribute is much smaller and they are much more similar and so you lose right off the top a ton of diversity and then just in thought and approach and life and needs, right? Like even there was a a dramatic argument about um on Twitter um by some community members about the value of small business websites, small small business websites, and whether or not, you know, taking a $5,000 job was worth anybody's time. But like that's a huge world, right? That's a huge world of people who only have $5,000 or $500 to pay for a website. And then there's a whole world of freelancers and small folks out there who are like happy and making their bread and butter and on, you know, these smaller websites, but you know, because they're doing that and meeting those needs of their clients, they don't necessarily have time to invest in, you know, WordPress. And so you know it that's it the people who don't even see the value in those that world start to become the only people who are contributing and that really starts to skew. So now we have a a place of like already people are coming from privilege and then we also have the people who are able to take the lead who are able to show up to the meetings who are able to like track all the information that's happening are generally the people who are doing it as a job. So then you know you have the question of are they contributing as a user are they contributing as just an individual as a volunteer or are they contributing on behalf of their company and I don't begrudge a single person who works for their company even if they work for automatic by the way and they're contributing for for them to you know meet the needs of their employer is makes sense. like that is that's their job and I am not mad like but and that's fine but we just have to accept that. We can't like sit there and pretend that that doesn't exist. Just like pretending that volunteering like is something everyone can do. It's not. And you know, we we've definitely we've definitely lost plenty of contributors who have passion and talent and um wonderful perspectives because they they have to go, you know, make their money and pay their rent and do the grind. And especially when we have companies in the WordPress world who are there's lots of layoffs, you know, they're like, "Oh, go chase the AI, you know, we lose those people even more." So now we're even losing people who who weren't necessarily even um being sponsored full-time, but we're in an in at least in a company where being a part of it was good for their job, right? So we're losing people out of the WordPress industry altogether. And it's the it starts to become what what product are we actually making, right? Like and who are we making this for? We ask this a lot. I've I've been asking this a lot. Everyone asks this all the time. Who is WordPress for? Um, and as we if it's being made for the people who are this small small small sliver of of folks, unless they're doing some super duper research focus group, like inquiries, like really getting in there and talking to people about their needs, there's there's just not a possibility for them to understand the scope. Right. Yeah. And I've seen that a lot in some of the folks who uh are sponsored, let's just I'm just gonna say it by automatic. Um who are like, "Well, I'm making a hobby website to see what it looks like or just test this out." And I'm like, "Turns out that's not generally the websites people are making. Like those that's a blog. WordPress is really good at making a blog just like right on out of the gate. just you just turn it on and you got a blog, right? But it's all the other stuff, you know, like format, custom post format. We're we're getting there with, you know, blocks and whatnot. But I think part of the reason it's been such a slog is because the people who are able to build it, able to show up, empowered to show up, paid to show up are I didn't I almost said I almost said something that probably wouldn't be nice. It's not that they're laring is is that sounds wrong, right? They're not like not totally laring, but if you are making a demo website to test it out like not not just for testing purposes, but to like you know I I don't know. It's just not a real world example. And yeah, it's it could be solved like there could be, you know, let's say let's take for example the annual survey that is no longer done. Um that was already controversial. You know, that that survey had every opportunity year after year to really find out like about features, about the software, like about what people were using it for, to really ask questions, to understand not even just what the community, the the contributor community of users was saying they need, which I still think we should listen to those people also, uh, but also even just the bigger bucket, Right. But that was not that was never even on the docket. So I'm I I I think that's probably really frustrating for me in general is just like if it's just being made I mean that's really the impetus for this, right? If it's just being made by the small sliver of privileged people who are just being employed and to do this thing and aren't in the real world solving the problems, then what what is this? What is it? What are we doing? you know, then it's what what's the difference between that and proprietary software at that point. Right. Right. Let's rewind uh a bit a while. You can interrupt me, by the way. I It's fine. No, I I I'm going to let you roll. Um No, let's rewind um to uh to what what sort of got you started thinking about this? Where what it what drew you to WordPress in the first place? That's sort of like what's what's the trajectory from say like starting even knowing what a WordPress was into building this uh yeah what a WordPress was into building a word a a nonprofit organization uh around this. Yeah. Well, that's quite a journey actually. Um I my WordPress origin story which is on my bio by the way um which uh on my WordPress uh profile which you can now go see because if you have a I think it's right now you're activated your bio is available unbanned we can see our our origin story because yeah see my origin story it's so anyway uh so essentially um I have a a super geeky brother and I had a super geeky best friend in high school Um, and uh, I I uh, my super geeky brother told me I would like CSS, and he was right. So, I got really into CSS um, when it when it first started. Just ye old original CSS. And then, um, I had a bookstore. I opened my own bookstore in 2003, right after I graduated college, um, here in Long Beach. And um you know I I had um covered I was into tech the whole time. I I had covered tech as my like journalism beat. That was my major. Um so I you know 2003 was still pretty early on. I've been making you know HTML websites since geo cities. So I needed a website for my um business right for my for my bookstore. Super fancy. Um, and my fabulous bestie um, made uh, a WordPress site for me. she had a hosting company at the time and uh basically was like here you know we got the set up and then I just started using it and then of course I because of my CSS background you know an HTML background I was like oh um I actually remember the first I was trying to do something in it and um I kept calling my friend her name's Brianna kept calling her and like asking her what to do and um finally she was like oh get this developer tools thing like I I think it was like in Firefox still like I don't even know what browser it was in and I was like oh my lord the world the world has opened up to me um and that was my I was like oh wait I can do this and I you know PHP is very language based um and I was able to like learn to speak PHP um I already knew HTML and CSS so again this is me coming from it not from like a s like I didn't come from C C++ or like you know whatever like I came from it from a a language place a place of language and and design I guess from CSS so um really that's that's where that started and then all the small business owners in my in the city needed websites and I was just helping them because they were my friends and fellow business owners and then they were like well let me give you some money for this and I was like well okay um And I it just turned into a thing because I'd always made websites and I was like, "Oh, this is easy." Um, you know, I'd done lots of marketing, had lots of marketing experience. At the end of the day, a website is marketing. Um, and I I really just got into it um as as a user um as a and to build it and to use it. Um, it wasn't until 2012 that I found the community. I had gone to a really boring business conference and I was like that was boring and maybe there are other conferences that are interesting like for things that I like and I was like oh I really like WordPress. Um and I looked it up and there was word camp Phoenix was happening in like a month and I was like you know I'm just going to go to that. No kids. I don't think I had a dog at the time. I was just like bye-bye going to Phoenix. Um, and I there I actually, and this is actually funny, I was just telling this story to Aaron Campbell or recounting the story with Aaron Campbell because he was there uh about that that fateful Word Camp Phoenix. I just sort of stumbled into like I just met the community and there uh there was this awesome WordPress contributor named Sarah Cannon who's I don't know, she's not really involved anymore at all. Um, she did this awesome presentation that I actually still have parts of it printed out. It's just been on my wall for a long time. Uh, be the unicorn. Uh, and uh, what is the other one? Trust your instincts. Those are very important things. They stay with me forever. Um but anyway, she invited me to dinner and her friends just happened to be, you know, Aaron Campbell and Mark Jacquith and Helen Busandi and um just literally those were her friends. So I just went to dinner with them on literally my first night in the WordPress community and I was like, "Oh, I did not know that this was like I was suddenly like knew all the people who were like in the inner circle of WordPress." So that I just kind of kind of jumped into the middle and I worked my way out that way. Um the SoCal WordPress community was super active. There was a really, you know, we had Phoenix there. There was Word Camp LAX. No, it was LA at the time still. Word Camp LA, Word Camp Orange County, which just, you know, was going for like so long. Um there just so many little word camps that were happening all over the place because it's very, you know, tight-knit place here. And so I found my people and hung out with them and then we started uh those that group of people led by Jason Tucker started a podcast because he wanted to start a podcast and he was like, "Let's start a podcast." And it was like, "Okay, let's let's do it." Um, and then you know it was just we just did it and then we just kept doing it and I spoke a lot. I love teaching. I love talking to people. I was started to teach small business owners um you know how to I used to teach people how to how to install like you know here's a go to your quick install and do all this stuff before before managed hosting or hosting for WordPress that is managed or whatever we're supposed to say. Um, you know, so you know, I was making themes. I was I was, you know, showing people how to hard code stuff. I just got I got So that's how I was involved in the community. Um, in 2018, I uh applied for Matt Mullenwig put out a little, hey, if anyone wants to, I'm thinking of putting together a growth council, talk about the future of WordPress. And I had so many thoughts about small business owners. I knew all of their pain points for onboarding, which I talked about a lot and is still being talked about. Um, onboarding, uh, usage updates, like just all of the things, right? And I really, you know, I think small business and small businesses have been are continue to be like the lifeblood of the internet in general. Um and I really wanted to espouse that perspective because I did not see it being reflected even then even in 2018. Um so I was nominated or I was accepted I guess to the uh growth council consumer the consumer growth council um where I met bunch of other sort of leaders and thought thought leaders whatever in the community like Yoast um uh you know just just you know some of the it was a lot of executives so you know I'm just showing up but we all have the same ideas about that. It was it was a not necessarily the most fruitful of um exercises, but got more involved with that and just continued to get involved. I actually took a took a long break after I had a baby in 2020 and also was co so there were no word camps. Um and then I got back involved um at the same time that I basically like um actually I got more involved and then attended Word Camp San Diego. And it was after Word Camp San Diego that I realized I'd always always recognized this problem like from back in the Consumer Growth Council days. But I always thought that the foundation could solve this problem and I always thought that the foundation should and would solve this problem. Like you know I understand that there are 501c3 like I work and have done a lot of like strategy development. I've just worked in nonprofit world a lot. So, you know, I know what is possible, what isn't possible. Um, and at that um at that word camp, Matt Mullen got up on stage and said explicitly that the foundation would never pay anyone to work on WordPress, would never going to hire anyone, was never going to have employees, was never going to do that. Explicitly just I was like done. And I was like, well, I guess we won't be, you know, conflicting with the foundation if we do this. Um, and so that was that was um it was really the the the culmination of many years of thinking about it and musing about it and trying to solve these problems. Um, but it wasn't until Matt said that that he was never going to do it and confirmed it that I was like, well, we can do it then because we won't be stepping on any toes. We won't be causing any problems. So that is how that started. That was a very long story I just gave you. And that's but that's the origin of the the WP community collective which I think that for a lot of people um myself included didn't realize that it was a thing until uh well shortly after September of last year for some strange reason uh when it became perhaps uh a little bit more uh more important. Um what what has changed for you for the WPCC uh in the last sixish or months or a year? Like what what's new with with like because yeah like like you said it's been around for a couple years. Um but there's definitely a renewed sort of focus I think now. Well, what what what we did was um we were a 501c3 project of a nonprofit sort of entity called the Open Collective Foundation, which is separate from the Open Collective. It was like this own thing. And in uh January or February of 2024, we got a letter that said they were shutting down. And the reason they were shutting down is because basically they had said they had brought on too many sponsored projects and they weren't being able to manage them and the IRS was like you were breaking rules. Um and so they're like okay we'd close by. Um so that's what they were doing. So starting in March of 2024, we weren't allowed we weren't able to accept any other funds and I we tried actually to get um become a sponsor project at at various other sort of these entities that sponsor different types of projects. There's there's there's a there's a a handful of them for tech, but there's lots of them for nonprofit in general where they just basically serve as like the you know the parent fiscal host and then have sort of broader like oh these are we sponsor projects that are social good and then you can write your grants or whatever and get your grants for that. So we we tried to do that but because of our desire to because of the proximity to open source everyone was like nope sorry can't touch that because the IRS has um the United States IRS has been uh very selective and and and narrowing what is able to count as public interest. Um, and so open- source software in general, basic by itself does not meet that threshold, which um, makes sense, which we won't get into, but it it really does make sense. Um, but so all of those projects were like, we can't, you know, that is not going to work. So we spent most of 2024 trying to like figure out what are we doing? Like so we we had to like stop and stop kind of working on our projects, working on fundraising, working on developing and try to like figure out where we were going to go, like are we going to continue the project? What do we do with this money? Like what and the expectations that people have given us. Um, and I did so much research, so so so much research about nonprofits and open source specifically, uh, because of the nuances there in US law, tax law, you know, like tax law that got Al Capone like arrested and stuff. They take it seriously. Um, unless you're a church, which we are not. Uh, that was not the picture. Yeah, that's the next that's the next step. Yeah, it's already a cult, so next will be a church. That's fine. Right. I didn't want to make it a cult. Uh I'm not really religious organization. That's not happening. Uh so basically we landed on the uh structure of the mutual benefit membership organization uh with our designation which we're applying for which is 501c6 which enables us to um work for the benefit of our members and our industry. So we don't have to essentially prove to anyone that our actions are benefiting the general public that you know so this is the the really narrower vi uh world for that has to be educational scientific or um I don't remember what the other one is but there there it's not just like oh open source is science like it doesn't it doesn't work like that. I think that I think that OpenAI recently switched from being a 501c3 to a 501c6 or they're they're in the process of of doing that for the same similar sorts of reasons. It's justifying it justifying Open AI and chat GPT as a public good is a little bit trickier than justifying it as a a good for the people the industry or itself. Exactly. So I did the same research that Open AI's lawyers did. did not get paid for it the same way. But um we developed this whole thing and literally it was so last minute. It was really sad. Like the um last date for us to transfer our funds to be able to keep like if we didn't transfer our funds to a qualified nonprofit, if we couldn't find a qualified nonprofit to hold our funds, they were going to donate them to a nonprofit of their choosing. I was like um so we're just like scrambling. I'm like calling clients. I'm like, "So, want to spons some money for my tech product?" Um, so anyway, we finally found someone to hold the money and transferred it on the last day, the last day that we possibly could. Um, so that went over there and we're like, "Okay, now we can't touch this." And then because we had done the research and figured out we were starting the the same organization but the new structure of the 501c6 membership organization. So that uh didn't start until we actually filed the paperwork in November. And then we were also simultaneously working on our partnership with GoDaddy um because we had already been working on the partnership for the other organization but they were like okay well this is fine. we'll just, you know, they didn't, it was just the same thing for them. Um, so we were literally scrambling to get our our our bank account and all the paperwork done and everything for the end of the year so that they could transfer those funds to us because they were bookmarked earmarked, not bookmarked, earmarked for that year, right? I think the final transfer went through on December 27th. Um, so there's like literally like someone's on vacation like sending a bank wire or something. So, uh, that was wild and we really put together this organization, um, because we went from having all of the stuff made and we only had to worry about our programming to now we have to worry about all of it, right? We are responsible for all of it. Taxes, filing the taxes, all the paperwork, uh, you know, the Open Collective Foundation, they were the board, right? So, our board meetings, we didn't have to file board meeting minutes with the state. we didn't have to do any of that like administrative management and now we do and so we sort of like were like well this is what we're doing throw it all together and got that settled and then as for the past you know few months we've been working on what month is it May we've been working on getting all of that together um it's just it's a very slow process to write you know we had to we had our first board meeting where we had to first we had to write the bylaws and you have to write the articles of incorporation and fix them and then you have to approve them in a formal meeting and there's just you know we're really trying to like in addition to there being rules that we need to follow we are also very much conscious of the fact that we're setting the precedent for this organization right like like we're trying to do it right the first time so that you know as this organization grows as the processes grow beyond just like you know me, Courtney and Katie. Um that we can bring on more people that the members can be more participant in it. So um I think it's been really I think we're building something really strong and really solid. I know we are actually I don't just think we are. I know we are. Um and I'm really I'm really proud of that. But it is also very slow. So slow. And um What do you hope to uh what do you hope the WordPress community or WP community collective um like what do you what do you hope for the future like what do you what are you striving for? What do you what is the sort of the the goal or the like a mission statement? Well, I mean we have our mission statement which I should probably have memorized and be able to recite to you now but I do not. Um but I can tell you know our I can talk to you more about our ethos and our values. Um sure our ethos in terms of the community though is really we want to be able to be the voice of the community. We want to be able to have a space where the community and this means the human beings in the community are able to um communicate, collaborate, work together. uh to you know figure like like speak with a unified voice as well because this is a lot of that that the issue that's come up right is if you know you've got individuals speaking over here and then you have a big company or a big company over here you know those those things speak louder than the individuals who like you know have to go to the store to get dinner later um and don't have you know all that it's for the same reasons we were talking about earlier Um so that is really important and then you know it's it's also this the idea that together we we all especially for WordPress so we've expanded so that we are able to work with other other sort of adjacent areas open source in general so you know we can support the downstream and the upstream and also you know we could collaborate with Drupal for example. Um but our I totally got distracted because I just collaborating with group well and I wanted to say something about that. Uh but yeah, it's it's a it's at this point it is it's not just about it's not just about the voice. It really is about the humans because we it's easy to just brush off the community as this entity, right? The community does this, the community does that, but we are all a bunch of individuals in here in in this community, right? And um we're not a thing. We're people, and we need to be able to, you know, support ourselves as people, be understanding as people. So, we're really just sort of leaning into that um that we are the the community collective and not the software collective, right? So, we're not and ultimately Yeah. And ultimately, one of the things that I think that that I mean, you talked about it a little bit earlier, but just to be absolutely clear for anyone who's listening who has who hasn't had conversations with you or isn't in the WPCC Slack uh like I am, um I I know that uh an objective or a goal is this idea of like if you like actually sponsoring like in fiscal like dollar bills um people to contribute to the project as a whole like that's that's something that that as you said the foundation and Matt said that that will never happen. we have this new organization where it's built and structured in such a way that would actually support uh support that so that that that money from GoDaddy and anybody else who's like contributing to the financialness entity of the collective um what they're contributing to is potentially being able to sponsor projects like the Drupal Association is able to do for projects within the Drupal ecosystem. Yeah. And you know going back to that same like what do we have to contribute like if we don't have 5% of our time or whatever even just using five for the future as a framework sure why not um you know 5% of either my time or my money is like you know this much right and it's like I can give that to the project in fits and starts but what if I combined that with yours and then we were able to make that into something that supports someone to do those things. though it's really about um it's it's not there's another it's um there's not a it's not exactly crowdfunding in this concept. It kind of is, but um there's a I think it's called is it called KA? It's like the loan I don't know if that's the right word. Yeah. But it's like microl loans where it's like you know everybody Yeah. Everybody puts in like two bucks and then they're able to give this loan to obviously we're not loaning people money. We're giving them we're paying them. But, you know, they're able to combine that money and then give that loan to somebody and then, you know, so it's like many hands make light work or a bunch of drops of water make the ocean or, you know, whatever that is, you know, I combine my time in the form of dollars and you combine your time in the form of dollars and we put those things together and we put those together with our the rest of our collective friends, maybe some sponsorships from some companies. Um, and then we're able to do things with that that we all want to do with that. And so a lot of our process has been on or a lot of our work so far has been on developing the process for our membership, our organization to be able to weigh in on that and say what do we actually what do we the collective want to do? What what do we want to fund? What is important to us? Um, and so, um, we're developing ways, we're hopefully launching those soon for, um, well, we are launching those soon, not hopefully, uh, ways that the the membership is allowed to, not allowed to, but empowered to um, discuss those and approve things like and be like, yes, we want to do this. And, um, so it's not just fellowships. So fellowships are a more long-term um investment in in like a person and their expertise. So for example, if someone was working in let's say security, right? They would want to that's an important area. They might um you know they might not just be working on the security team. Maybe PHP code sniffer needs some help with some feature that's happening, right? So they could really be sort of representing that topic, that area of need as opposed to just being funded to do this one thing. Um, so that's more of a fellowship. And then we've developed projects and the projects are much more contained and specific where we're saying, "All right, we're going to do this thing, whatever that is." And it doesn't have to be, it's not like we're doing this thing forever, right? We're doing this thing for the next, we're going to do a three-month project. Here are our goals and we're going to pay more than one person to work on this. Like it's not just they're not like a fellow. It's like we're gonna fund this project. Um and so that's I think really powerful um in terms of having that contained defined focus that we can all get behind. So it's not like we have to all agree on every philosophy of where we're going in the future. It's like if we can all agree that we should do, you know, do XYZ for 4 months and we need we want to accomplish this and we think it'll take this much time and here are some people for it, right? And we're all like, "Yes, that sounds like a good plan." And then that's how our dollars combined can actually make a change that we're not all having to do it ourselves. You know, I'm not in core dev, you know, putting patches in. That's just not where my expertise lies. Um, but I do still want to fund important things like and I want to lend my support to those things. So this is really a mechanism for us to do that and not just like a Kickstarter where someone over there comes up with something and then we fund it, right? This is we the collective are coming up with things ourselves and then funding our own things. And yes, other people can fund them, right? or they can join and fund them and fund, you know, and and it's going to actually take a lot of work on behalf of the members also to fund things that we want to do. But if we're all we all want to do it and we're all working on this together, it's really like breaking down the bigger picture into these smaller projects so that we can align because we can align and we can do things if we all have a narrow enough scope that we feel confident that it's not going to represent or do something that we don't want it to do. Like I think that is, you know, for me that's always been sort of not even a concern necessarily, but like why I don't why I don't necessarily see super value in like random like the Patreon model. Like the Patreon model is also awesome like the GitHub sponsors, but I I I can't expect to get anything out of that, right? Like on Patreon, I might get like, you know, some posts or like whatever, but but really like when you're sponsoring someone like that, it's not to get something, right? You're just you're just sponsoring someone. So that's great. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't necessarily accomplish the goal of getting the things done because you're not telling that person what, you know, you're not you're not like instructing that person. So you lose that they're working on whatever they want. You're like, "Go you." But this way we will all be able to really define what we want to work on, do sprints, you know, it's a thing. Um, and and and build things that are like small fixes, you know, small little features, you know, canonical plugins, you know, things like that that really we all want, but we don't when we're all working separately, we can't we can't make them happen. So that's that. That's my Well, thank you very much. Thanks for uh for coming on uh and talking to me uh and being one of our first uh our first guests on community and code. Um what uh what events where can people find you uh in person or online uh in the next few months? Well, I will be at Alt Control. I will also be Word Camp Europe, though not at Word Camp Europe contributor day at this point in time. Uh, you can Google that. Um, I, uh, the best way to talk to me is to join the WPCC. You just go, go to the wp communityolctive.com. Uh, click join. Just do that. We'll, we'll pop you in to the Slack. I love DMing with members. I think that that's it's really kind of exciting that like that's like my job. Like if a member wants to talk to me, I'm like your interests and what you want to talk about are actually really important to me. And so I get to talk to people. It's kind of exciting. I'm kind of I'm kind of into it. So, uh, that's really the best way if you want to talk about WordPress stuff. Or you can follow me on all the socials, say media. It's all of them. I'm on them. Whichever one you want. Well, uh, thanks a lot again, Se. And yeah, um, looking forward to the future of the collective of, uh, hearing back what happens at Word Camp Europe, uh, and Alt Control org. I think that that's a really cool, uh, sort of side thing. Um, and yeah, uh, looking forward to to chatting again. Me, too. Talk soon. Yep. Bye. [Music], Episode 3 Se Reed, Community & Code, 01jz6gmv4nfdr4mapd0qdmvb61.