Roger Williams leads community and partner engagement for North America at Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting company. In early 2025 he helped design and launch Kinsta’s sponsored contributions program, directing time and budget toward WordPress and related open source projects. This conversation explores why companies should sponsor contributors, how to get internal buy-in, and practical steps for both organizations and individual contributors.

Why sponsor contributions?
– Open source runs on passion, but passion alone isn’t sustainable as WordPress becomes infrastructure for much of the web. As companies rely on WordPress, they have a stake in its stability, performance, and security.
– Framing sponsorship only as philanthropy limits participation. To bring more organizations into the fold, conversations must include business language: strategic, operational, and second-order benefits.
– Strategic: For hosting companies, a healthier WordPress ecosystem lowers support costs, improves product reliability, and aligns with business goals.
– Operational: Contributing helps reduce technical debt. By investing in upstream fixes and features, companies can offload maintenance burdens and influence priorities.
– Second-order: Networking, recruiting, knowledge-sharing, and goodwill are harder to measure but valuable. Sponsored contributors can mentor others, raise project visibility, and create long-term benefits.

A spectrum, not a binary
Roger stresses this is a spectrum: purely philanthropic efforts still matter, but talking business opens the project to organizations that otherwise wouldn’t participate. The aim is to expand engagement without turning open source into merely a commercial venture. Sponsorship should be respectful and centered on contributing to the project first.

Who and what to sponsor
Kinsta’s approach is deliberately broad. While core contributors who write code are vital, many roles deserve support:
– Documentation authors
– Polyglots (localization teams)
– Event organizers (WordCamps, contributor days)
– Content creators (podcasts, tutorials) who help onboarding and usage
Sponsoring people who mentor and onboard newcomers multiplies impact. Kinsta’s program also supports non-core open source projects that affect its product and customers.

Practical advice for companies
– Start: Don’t wait for a perfect system. Set a modest budget executives are comfortable with and begin learning through action.
– Define organizational priorities: Identify where sponsorship aligns with strategic goals (performance, security, localization, documentation).
– Create simple processes: An intake form for applicants, tracking spreadsheets for results, and clear expectations (e.g., willingness to do a short blog post or podcast appearance) help demonstrate value.
– Be cautious with marketing: Treat sponsored contributions as branding; expect indirect benefits and community visibility, but avoid heavy-handed promotional demands. Low-effort visibility (a blog post, podcast interview, or mention) is reasonable; sponsorship should focus on project benefit first.
– Be ready and patient: Internal approvals can take time. Have candidate contributors and processes lined up so you can act quickly when budget appears.
– Prepare for objections: Expect leadership to question spending on software “we get for free.” Use strategic and operational arguments tailored to the decision-maker (CTO, product lead, CMO).

Practical advice for contributors
– Pitch with impact: Donors are more likely to respond if applicants explain what they work on, how it benefits the sponsor, and what outcomes they expect.
– Ask targeted questions: “Do you have a sponsorship program?” or “Would you like me to help set one up?” open useful conversations.
– Don’t cold-beg widely: Start by reaching out to companies whose products or users align with your work (hosting companies, plugin/theme vendors).
– Be prepared for modest asks: Sponsors may request a simple write-up, an interview, or participation in a podcast. These are small and can be mutually beneficial.

Models and coordination
There are existing initiatives—like the WP Community Collective—that act as central mechanisms for distributing funds and coordinating sponsorships. Roger sees potential for consortiums of companies pooling resources, but warns such structures can complicate and slow action. He recommends individual companies start directly to build momentum, while remaining open to wider coordination later.

Measuring and surfacing impact
Companies should track sponsored outcomes: what contributors did, measurable improvements (security fixes, performance changes, translations), and visibility activities (podcasts, posts). Allow community awareness to spread organically—sponsorships get noticed—and use lightweight content to surface work rather than aggressive marketing.

Internal buy-in checklist
– Align sponsorship goals with company strategy (what will this improve for our customers or product?)
– Prepare a simple budget and timeline
– Create intake, tracking, and reporting processes
– Clarify legal/contractual expectations (non-disparagement, scope)
– Anticipate common objections and prepare tailored responses
– Be ready to show early wins (podcast, blog, contributor metrics) to sustain funding

A final note on culture
Roger acknowledges the tension between long-standing philanthropic contributors and newer business-driven participants. His view is that expanding the conversation to include strategic and operational benefits brings more resources into the project without replacing the core volunteer spirit. The goal is to grow the community and sustain the ecosystem while remaining respectful and supportive of volunteer contributions.

Where to follow up
Roger recommends reaching out via LinkedIn to continue the conversation and share ideas about sponsored contributions. He and colleagues across regions (Europe and APAC) are actively engaging with contributors and organizations to refine processes and expand participation.

Roger Williams, Kinsta’s partnership and community manager for North America, joined the Jukebox Podcast to discuss rethinking how companies sponsor contributions to WordPress and other open source projects. He helped Kinsta implement a sponsored contributions program in early 2025 and presented “Figuring Out Sponsored Contribution” at WordCamp US. The conversation explored why companies should sponsor contributors, how to get internal buy-in, and practical steps for connecting organisations with individuals doing valuable community work.

Who is Roger and what does he do?
Roger works at Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting provider, where his role is to connect the company with the wider WordPress community, agency partners, and technology collaborators. In 2025 he helped start Kinsta’s sponsored contributions program, deciding who to sponsor, which projects to support, and how to channel resources back into open source.

Why sponsor contributors?
Open source historically ran on volunteer passion, but WordPress now powers a huge portion of the web and many maintainers lack funding. Roger frames sponsoring as a spectrum between pure philanthropy and business necessity. To bring more organisations into the conversation, he argues we must talk business: explain return on investment (ROI) and show practical benefits, not only appeal to altruism.

Three audience groups
Roger identifies three groups that need different messaging:
– People inside the project: they already understand why contributions matter.
– Organisations close to the project (e.g., hosting companies): they need a nudge and clear ROI to participate.
– The general public: often unaware of how open source maintenance works and the need for funding.

Framing contributions as business benefits
To persuade executives, Roger recommends framing sponsoring in three practical buckets:
– Strategic benefits: Align sponsorship with core business priorities. For hosting companies, a healthier WordPress (better performance, security) reduces support costs and improves customer experience.
– Operational benefits: Sponsoring helps address technical debt; contributing upstream means the broader community helps maintain and improve components companies rely on.
– Second-order benefits: Networking, talent development, brand goodwill, documentation, community events, and mentorship. These are harder to quantify but meaningful.

Who to sponsor and what counts as contribution?
While core code contributors are an obvious target, Roger emphasises a broader view. Valuable contribution areas include:
– Core development and ticket work
– Polyglots (translations and internationalisation)
– Documentation teams
– Event organisers and contributor day volunteers
– Content creators (podcasts, tutorials) that grow WordPress adoption

Sponsoring individuals can be an easier entry point for organisations than allocating internal engineering time. For many companies, giving budget to established contributors is simpler than asking managers to free employees for external work.

Practical advice for companies getting started
Roger’s main recommendation: don’t wait — start small and iterate. Practical steps include:
– Set a modest budget executives are comfortable with.
– Create a simple internal process: intake forms, basic criteria, and tracking spreadsheets.
– Identify organisational goals (performance, security, localisation, documentation) and align sponsorship choices with them.
– Ask sponsored contributors for low-effort visibility (a blog post, a podcast appearance) but step lightly on marketing. The primary goal is supporting the project, not aggressive promotion.
– Be ready when budget arrives: have candidates pre-identified and materials prepared to show quick wins and demonstrate value.

Advice for contributors seeking sponsorship
Contributors should approach companies with a clear, business-oriented pitch:
– Explain what you work on, what you plan to achieve, and how it benefits the organisation’s priorities.
– Ask whether the company has a formal sponsorship program; if not, offer to help set one up or explain a simple pathway to engagement.
– Present concrete examples and be prepared for a dialogue — speaking business language helps.

Balancing community concerns
A frequent concern is that introducing more corporate funding might alienate volunteer contributors or turn open source into a commercial enterprise. Roger acknowledges this risk but argues that expanding the conversation beyond pure philanthropy brings more organisations into the project who otherwise wouldn’t participate. By talking about strategic and operational benefits, companies can be brought into the fold and then encouraged to appreciate the second-order, community-minded aspects of sponsorship. He stresses humility and respect for the longstanding volunteer culture and encourages measured, community-sensitive approaches.

Coordination and larger mechanisms
Roger notes existing mechanisms and groups, like the WP Community Collective (WPCC), which can act as intermediaries. While centralised funds or consortiums could distribute sponsorship, he cautions that larger structures add complexity and slow action. His pragmatic advice is to start within each company and build processes that work, while staying open to collaboration with broader initiatives.

Internal buy-in and long-term management
To get executive approval and make sponsorship sustainable:
– Understand and frame sponsorship against your organisation’s strategic goals.
– Prepare for objections with operational and strategic arguments.
– Be patient but ready: conversations can take time, and funding windows may be short-lived; be prepared to show results quickly.
– Track outcomes carefully (who’s sponsored, work delivered, public engagements) to report back and justify continuation.
– Consider contractual basics: payment mechanisms, expectations, and any necessary non-disparagement language, while keeping agreements lightweight when possible.

Marketing and ROI expectations
Treat sponsorship as part of branding and long-term goodwill rather than immediate performance marketing. Indirect benefits include community visibility and one-on-one influence within contributor networks. Roger suggests gentle promotion: invite sponsored contributors to speak on company channels or guest on podcasts, and allow community word-of-mouth to amplify sponsorships naturally.

Final thoughts
Roger’s core message is practical: expand the conversation beyond idealised philanthropy, make the business case for sponsoring contributors, start small, create straightforward processes, and be respectful of community norms. Sponsoring contributors is a way for companies that benefit from WordPress to invest in its continued health, while also gaining strategic and operational advantages.

Where to follow Roger
Roger is active on LinkedIn and welcomes questions and conversations about sponsored contributions and community engagement.

For more details and links mentioned in the episode, see the WP Tavern show notes for this podcast episode.

Nathan Wrigley speaks with Roger Williams, Partnership and Community Manager for North America at Kinsta, about reimagining sponsored contributions to WordPress and other open source projects. Roger helped establish Kinsta’s sponsored contributions program in early 2025 and explains how companies can approach funding contributors, why it matters, and how to balance business needs with open source values.

Roger’s role is to connect Kinsta with the WordPress community, agency partners, and technology collaborators. His interest in sponsored contributions grew into a program at Kinsta that funnels resources back into WordPress and related projects. As WordPress powers over 40% of the web, sustainable funding for maintenance and development is increasingly important.

The central question Roger explores is how to bring businesses—especially those that use WordPress but don’t yet contribute—into the conversation about funding contributors. He frames the issue as a spectrum between traditional philanthropic contributions (people donating time out of passion) and business realities (companies needing measurable returns). His goal is to reach the group in the middle: organizations that are close to contributing but need help understanding the benefits and how to justify sponsorship internally.

Roger identifies three audiences:
– People already inside the project (obvious contributors).
– Businesses and professionals who use open source but need nudging to contribute.
– The broader public, unfamiliar with how open source work is sustained.

To persuade businesses, he recommends reframing the conversation around return on investment (ROI), using three categories of benefit:
– Strategic: For hosting companies, a better WordPress means a better product (performance, security), reducing support costs and business risk.
– Operational: Contributing helps manage technical debt—offloading maintenance to the larger project can reduce internal burdens.
– Second-order benefits: Networking, hiring pipelines, brand goodwill, and developer learning are harder to quantify but meaningful.

On whom to sponsor, Roger argues that companies should not limit themselves to core code contributors. Sponsorship can help documentation teams, Polyglots (translations), event organisers, and other roles that make WordPress accessible and usable. Kinsta’s own priorities include areas that align with their business—performance, security, and multilingual support—so sponsoring Polyglots and documentation is strategic for them.

Practical steps for organizations that want to start sponsoring:
– Don’t overthink it—start small and iterate.
– Set aside a realistic budget and build a repeatable process.
– Create an intake form for prospective contributors that asks about their work, past contributions, goals, and willingness to engage in low-effort promotional activities (e.g., a blog post, podcast appearance).
– Be cautious and respectful about marketing: sponsorship should primarily support the project, not serve as an overt marketing campaign.

For contributors seeking sponsorship, Roger advises:
– Approach companies with a clear pitch: describe what you work on, how it benefits their organisation, and what outcomes they can expect.
– Ask simple questions: Does the company have a formal sponsored contribution program? If not, offer to help create one.
– Communicate in business language—frame benefits in operational or strategic terms as well as community impact.

On ROI and promotion, Roger suggests treating sponsorship as part of brand marketing. The benefits are often indirect: contributors sponsored by a company will naturally mention that support within the community, creating organic goodwill. Companies can amplify this with gentle promotion such as podcast interviews or blog posts, but should avoid heavy-handed marketing demands on contributors.

Roger discusses potential coordination beyond individual companies. Initiatives like the WP Community Collective (WPCC) exist to centralize sponsorship and distribution of funds, which can be helpful, but forming consortia introduces governance complexity. His advice is pragmatic: start company-by-company to avoid slowing momentum, but be open to collaborative models where appropriate.

Internal buy-in at organisations requires preparation. Roger recommends three internal steps:
– Understand organisational goals and align sponsorship choices to those goals (e.g., Polyglots for multilingual customer bases).
– Be patient but ready: secure budget approval may take time; have processes and relationships ready so you can act when funding arrives.
– Anticipate objections: prepare arguments around strategic, operational, and second-order benefits tailored to different stakeholders (CTOs, marketing, executives).

Operational details to decide early include how sponsorship payments will be handled (direct payments, GitHub Sponsors, contracts), and whether any simple agreements are needed (e.g., clarity about promotion and expectations). Keep asks of contributors small and respectful—sponsorship should facilitate their work, not serve as a marketing quid pro quo.

Roger emphasises starting now: getting involved in sponsored contributions is better than waiting for a perfect system. Sponsorship programs will evolve; the initial aim should be to create transparent, repeatable processes that make it easy for contributors to apply and for organisations to sponsor.

Finally, Roger notes the importance of relationship-building. Kinsta’s approach involves named contacts (he and colleagues Marcel Bootsman and Alex Michaelson) handling sponsorships for different regions, making it straightforward for contributors to reach out. He invites conversations and feedback and is active on LinkedIn for follow-up discussions.

Overall, the conversation stresses pragmatism: broaden the contribution conversation beyond philanthropy by clearly communicating business-aligned benefits, start small with structured processes, and treat sponsorship as part of brand and operational strategy while remaining respectful of the open source ethos.