A new initiative aims to make it easier for companies to financially support independent contributors to the WordPress project, without needing GitHub profiles or existing corporate connections.

SponsorMeWP, launched by Michelle Frechette and Marcus Burnette, is a free directory where contributors can list their skills, interests, and availability for sponsorship. Companies can browse the directory, find people to support, and connect directly. The platform doesn’t handle payments or take commissions, it’s simply a matchmaking tool built to serve the broader WordPress ecosystem.

“Having been laid off in February left me wondering how to build back an income,” Frechette said. “Kinsta reached out to see if I was open to sponsorship, so they are now sponsoring five hours a month of my time in the WordPress open source project. That leaves about 35 hours unsponsored. And I’m terrible about asking people for that kind of thing.”

The experience sparked an idea: what if there were a central place where others in the same situation could connect with sponsors? Burnette had already added a lightweight sponsorship field to his existing project, The WP World, after a conversation in the Post Status Slack community. Frechette reached out to collaborate on a more robust version, and SponsorMeWP was born.

The sign-up process is intentionally simple. Contributors create a profile with details like the Make teams or projects they’re interested in, how many hours per month they’re looking to have sponsored, and a way for prospective sponsors to get in touch. Those already listed on The WP World can even auto-populate their information.

“We wanted to make sure that we could create a site where anyone could be chosen and sponsored to contribute to the ecosystem, no matter what their gifting is,” Burnette said. “This is purely a gift back to the community that has been so good to us.”

The goal is to complement WordPress’s Five for the Future initiative, which encourages companies to contribute 5% of their resources to the project. SponsorMeWP highlights that companies don’t have to rely solely on in-house staff to meet their pledges — they can also fund freelancers and independent contributors.

Burnette said their focus is on sustainability — helping close the gap between individuals with time and talent and companies with resources and the desire to give back.

“Companies in the space have pulled back employee sponsorship, but there are lots of companies that want to give back, have some money to use, and are betting on the longevity of WordPress for their businesses,” he said. “This helps us close the gap between those who have the funds to further the project with those that have the talents to push the ecosystem forward.”

Frechette adds that the project also aims to improve recognition. “I hope it helps those individuals who give of themselves tirelessly an opportunity to be sponsored and recognized,” she said.

Early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with over 70 contributors having already registered. “People are excited about it and wondered why no one has created something like it before,” Frechette said.

For now, the project is intentionally lean, but Burnette said his mind was already racing with feature ideas, including letting sponsors create accounts, notifying them when new contributors match their interests, or even helping with payment infrastructure through a potential partnership with the WP Community Collective.

“We may never want to be the broker of transactions in the site, but the reality is that some contributors will not know how or have the tools to be paid,” he said. “So many ideas, so little time.”