Originally founded in September 2020 and led by @amethystanswers, the WordPress contributor working group group did a lot of great work around suggesting improved onboarding flows, and organizing online contributor day events, even as the global COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees.
Revitalized in March 2023 by @harishanker, the group pivoted its focus to build a contributor mentorship program, based on community feedback from its proposal. After several months of work, the group drafted a pilot program, put out a call for mentees, launched its initial mentorship cohort with 13 mentees and mentors each, and successfully concluded the same. Followed by a successful first cohort, the group also wrapped up a second cohort with 52 mentees and 28 mentors out of whom 44 graduated.
As of June 2024, the group is working on creating the third iteration of its mentorship cohort (currently planned for Q4 2024 alongside WordPress 6.7).
The group's current focus is on the following tasks:
- Brainstorming and building a structure for the contributor mentorship program
- Recruiting mentors and mentees to the program
- Offering support and guidance for mentors and mentees in the program
- Creating and improving learning content for mentees
- Running at least one pilot version of the mentorship program in 2023 (complete)
- Running the second edition of the mentorship program in Q1 2024 (complete)
- Running the third edition of the mentorship program in Q1 2024 (complete).
- Create an ongoing culture of mentorship in WordPress.
- Create a culture of mentorship in WordPress
- Improve the WordPress contributor pipeline.
The group uses this GitHub repository to track its projects, especially the upcoming Q4 2024 cohort of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program.
The group has a dedicated private channel in the Make/WordPress Slack which is used for sensitive communication and coordination. However, the group works in the open with monthly chats being held in the #community-team channel in the Make/WordPress Slack. The group has also created a #contributor-mentorship channel to facilitate mentorship in public spaces.
The group meets at 07:00 UTC (Add to Google Calendar) and 16:00 UTC (Add to Google Calendar) on the third Thursday of every month in the #community-team channel.
Anyone can join the contributor working group! You can start by participating (even asynchronously) in one of our mentorship chats. In addition to joining our chats, you can also support the group's work by joining one of our upcoming cohorts, as a facilitator or a mentor. We are currently working on providing mentorship badges for group members.
Here are some links to follow updates from the mentorship program:
- Program updates (#WPContributors on the Make/WordPress Community Team)
- Chat recaps