Howdy! The WordPress Foundation filed taxes for 2012 recently, and we’d like to talk about how we pursued the Foundation’s charter to educate the public about WordPress and supported opportunities for people to get involved in web publishing and open source projects across the globe.
In 2012, the WordPress Foundation provided support and guidance for a total of 67 WordCamps, organized by volunteers in communities all over the world. There were 22 WordCamps in cities or countries that had never had a WordCamp before — exciting! The WordPress Foundation supported 43 WordCamps by acting as their legal and financial entity in 2012. Not only does this provide legal protection in case an organizer is sued, but it also makes it possible for anyone, no matter what their financial situation, to organize a WordCamp, and protects organizers from getting into tax trouble with their respective governments.
Of the Foundation’s total revenue, the majority related to WordCamps that used the WordPress Foundation as their financial entity (43 in all):
- $345,020 — Corporate sponsorship donations to WordCamps (59% total revenue).
- $228,132 — WordCamp ticket sales (39% total revenue).
- $9,343 — Individual sponsorship donations to WordCamps (1.6% total revenue).
- $3,298 — Donations unrelated to WordCamps (0.6% total revenue).
- $528 — Royalty income (0.09% total revenue).
Total Foundation’s expenditures equalled $580,161, as detailed below:
- $525,361 (91%) related to WordCamps that used the WordPress Foundation as their financial entity.
- $32,741 (6%) related to WordPress.tv content production.
- $22,059 (3%) related to operational expenses.
Unsurprisingly, major WordCamp expenses were concentrated in venue and food & beverage.
|
Expense
|
Percentage of total expense
|
Average
|
| Food & beverage, including after-parties and speaker events |
$216,003 |
41% |
$4,214 |
| Venue rental |
$150,347 |
29% |
$3,348 |
| Event tees and other swag* |
$93,208 |
18% |
$2,163 |
| Travel scholarships** |
$26,952 |
5% |
N/A |
| Printing & signage |
$19,276 |
4% |
$448 |
| International WordCamp grants*** |
$7,054.47 |
1% |
$164 |
| Furnishing rentals |
$6,390.79 |
1% |
$149 |
| Insurance |
$5,280.98 |
1% |
$123 |
* Classified as advertising and promotion on tax documents.
** The WordPress Foundation occasionally provides travel scholarships to commit-level contributors who require assistance to travel to WordCamps and speak. Also, in 2012, the WordPress community organized its first Contributor Summit, which included approximately $20,000 of travel scholarships for attendees who could not afford to attend the summit otherwise.
*** The WordPress Foundation helped some 2012 WordCamps that didn’t use the Foundation as their financial entity by forwarding corporate sponsorship payments from companies unable to send them money directly.
The WordPress Foundation also supported the publishing of 431 videos from WordCamps held in 2012 to WordPress.tv by providing video camera kits to WordCamps. These kits include an HD camcorder, tripod, external microphone, SD cards, and a hard case for shipping. We covered the cost of shipping the video camera kits from WordCamp to WordCamp and added seven video camera kits to our collection: two new kits in the US (for a total of eight kits in the US), three in Canada, and two in the EU. 445 WordCamp videos were posted to WordPress.tv in 2012, almost double the number from 2011.
The total expenditure of this program was $32,741:
- Video Kit Shipping: $6,526
- Video Kits & A/V Equipment: $9,605
- Video Processing or Videography: $16,610
Major Foundation operational expenses included:
- Legal and accounting fees: $7,115
- Paypal fees: $6,648
- Meetup.com dues for WordPress meetups: $4,500
- Banking fees (which allow us to execute international wire transfers): $2,341
We hope to publish 2013 data sometime in the first half of 2014. We’re so happy with the way the WordPress community is growing!
