We often chat with people that see our posts on social media about WordPress, community, meetups, and WordCamps. They want to know more about what WordPress is, what being part of a community means, if we get paid for what we do.
There we go…
For some unidentified reason, people nowadays do not understand the meaning and practice of the word “volunteerism”. We probably live in a world where everything has a price counted in money. However, this is not the case. As we can be paid with sentiments, smiles in people’s faces, acquaintance of knowledge, learning by experience. This is what we earn, getting wiser and full of tastes and feelings.
What does being member of a community mean…?
Hmmm… this should not be a tough question as we are social beings and we are not meant to be alone. Community to me means a variety of people sharing a common characteristic. In the case of the WordPress global community, we all share the same passion for WordPress. It is a part of our daily life since we either work using it (and that means also making ends meet) or we use it as a hobby like me when I am blogging.
You do not need to be a professional as you can see, in order to be part of the community. The will to contribute – any way you are able to – is enough and of course, you always need to be respectful and cherish openness, stay away from discriminative acts or words, and love people.
Why do we volunteer?
I can explain right now. We are offered a project – or I would say a tool, that makes our life easier while using it and this tool is free. It is free but you can sell the projects you make using it.
How can you keep this tool alive, not let it get old and useless when technology is growing every day?
And how you can keep alive the projects you have created using it (and your customers and yourself happy)?
The answer is by keeping alive the community that supports WordPress.
Keeping alive a community means contributing and volunteering. We are donating our time and energy in order for the benefit of other people in the community. However, at the same time, we do benefit ourselves, by sharing knowledge, opinions. We build strong bonds within the community with people that share the same interests. There’s networking. We have the opportunity of attending conferences in order to expand all the above. We evolve not only as specialists in the work field but also as personalities.
Everyone in a WordPress community is a volunteer. You are an attendee of an event or you are organizing meetups. You can be a speaker or a WordCamp organizer. Either you are answering issues in a forum or submitting a new plugin. In case you are helping in the translation of WordPress or offering your services as a volunteer in an event. It is possible you deal with accessibility issues or contributing to the WordPress core. You are among the people attempting to grow this community bigger or you occupy yourself of marketing and content. Either you are a photographer, a videographer, a designer, or you are teaching people how to use WordPress.
Everyone is needed. Everyone is welcomed.
Come and find your place in the WordPress community!
Get involved!
WordPress is all about the people!
