Post Status Happiness Hour | Session Thirty Two

In this episode of the Post Status Happiness Hour, Michelle Frechette and Marcus Burnette introduce "Sponsor Me WP," a new platform designed to connect WordPress contributors with potential sponsors. They discuss the motivations behind the project, their collaborative development process, and the platform’s user-friendly features. The conversation highlights the importance of community engagement, transparency, and direct connections between sponsors and contributors. Listeners are encouraged to provide feedback and share their experiences to help shape the platform’s future, reflecting the hosts’ commitment to supporting and empowering the WordPress community.Top Takeaways:Sponsor Me WP was created to connect WordPress contributors with sponsors in a simple, transparent way: Michelle and Marcus collaborated to launch Sponsor Me WP—a platform where WordPress community members can share their contributions and availability for sponsorship. It was born from Michelle’s need to supplement her income after being laid off, combined with Marcus’s technical skills and his existing work on WP World. The site allows contributors to create a profile, import data from WP World, and indicate their available hours for sponsorship, while letting sponsors reach out directly—no intermediaries, no money flowing through the platform.The platform is intentionally simple, inclusive, and community-driven: The site avoids complex monetization, user gating, or financial processing. It’s designed to be lightweight and easy to use, with user control over profiles and direct sponsor-contributor communication. Michelle and Marcus emphasized that it welcomes both established and aspiring contributors, and they’ve taken steps to ensure fairness (e.g., randomized listing order) and community safety (e.g., ability to remove bad actors if needed).Michelle and Marcus are passionate about building community-first tools—and open to evolving based on feedback: They view this project (like WP World and WP Speakers) as a gift to the WordPress community. The hosting was donated, and their time volunteered. They’re also actively seeking ideas for improvement or expansion, especially from people with experience in seeking or providing sponsorships. Their approach centers on reducing friction, encouraging transparency, and enabling community members to support each other’s contributions meaningfully.Mentioned In The Show:KinstaWP WorldWP SpeakersUnderrepresented In TechSponsor Me WPGitHubSpeed Network OnlinePressable🙏 Sponsor: WordPress.comBuild and manage professional sites with secure managed hosting on WordPress.com. Beautiful themes, built-in SEO, and payment tools, and access to over 50,000 plugins. Everything you need for your business, plus 24/7 support from WordPress experts. 🐦 You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:Marcus Burnette (Creator, The WP World)Michelle Frechette (Director of Community Relations, Post Status)Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)The Post Status  podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧