Ideas for Mentorship Projects

[naokomc]

Since the beginning of our program, we've been exploring the exciting possibility of incorporating projects into our mentorship program (initially suggested by @Glekler and @tobifjellner). Observations from various other mentorship programs such as GSoC and Linux show that including projects for mentees has been highly effective. Projects engage mentees actively and provide them with tangible results to showcase at the end of their mentorship, offering a sense of achievement. We already have several project ideas in mind for our mentorship program.

We already have several project ideas in mind for our mentorship program.

Building Community Themes (Theme and Design Teams)
A project to have a group of mentees come together to build Community Themes (proposed by @MaggieCabrera, who has kindly offered to be a mentor in that project as well)

Creating Learn WordPress Tutorials (Training Team)
A Learn WordPress Tutorial on a high-impact topic created by a group of mentees, dividing work around script writing, video & audio recording, editing, and subtitles, as proposed by @courtney-pk - who has also kindly agreed to support the idea.

Ideal projects would be:

• Completable in four to five weeks
• Something you and/or someone else can mentor
• Benefits WordPress projects at large rather than specific individuals or organizations only
• Required skills are relevant for beginner- to intermediate-level mentees

[naokomc]

I'm making notes on other ideas that came up during the Contributor Working Group meeting on December 21.

Online Meetup Organization (@tobifjellner)

• Hackathon (extended version of do_action) - @gusa
• Updating existing WPTranslation Day docs to make organizing the event easier @naokomc

[gusaus]

@naokomc Thanks for referencing the hackathon format above. While we're a ways off from having training resources that organizers, mentors, and nonprofits could use for their own hackathons, creating/improving some of those resources could make for good projects and could provide an entry point to multiple teams.

Few examples below:

Extending the do_action hackathon format (Community, Training, Documentation, and Sustainability teams)

• Improve and extend existing guides and documentation
• Create/extend teaching curriculum (see this comment for additional detail/context)
  • Define and document new contributor roles
  • Create learning pathways for each contributor role
• Explore and document options for sustaining
  • Enable ways for experienced organizers, mentors, and other key contributors to get paid
  • Improve how do_action uses Open Collective

[gusaus]

Even without DIY resources, it's already possible use the do_action format to build a few handpicked websites as a learning project.

• This upcoming do_action is a good example of a series revolving around a site build for one nonprofit.
• With resources for do_action formats focusing on enabling organizations and contributors in specific interest areas or industry groups already being planned, we could potentially build a few sites as a way to provide training while getting a better feel for the resources we need to create.

[naokomc]

Even if a mentee has no direct experience organizing do_action events, they can help us improve the hackathon format if they have organized other successful hackathon events.

[gusaus]

Leveraging and Extending the FundOSS Democratic/Quadratic fundraising format (Community, Training, Documentation, Marketing, and Sustainability teams)

I think this event format (which we already proposed as a NextGen event) could also lead to further innovation and experiments with fundraising to sustain and grow the project and community.

Also could be a vehicle for creating/contributing solutions because it would require new and improved docs, policies, tools and collaboration between multiple teams.

Referencing in this thread as a realistic goal for this cohort would be to create the structure and resources needed to run such a program (which would be very similar to extending do_action).

[gusaus]

Referencing this comment from an somewhat related issue WordPress/Marketing-Team#347 revolving around marketing team guidlines and policies.

The remaining questions regarding general fundraising practices for the project, and possible campaigns, seem best suited to new discussions, possibly within the Sustainability team.

Improving/creating fundraising guidelines and policies are goals of both ideas in this thread and could be spun off into smaller mentoring projects.

[gusaus]

Help set up and sustain the Mentorship program (Community, Training, Documentation, Marketing, and Sustainability teams)

Since the beginning of our program, we've been exploring the exciting possibility of incorporating projects into our mentorship program (initially suggested by @Glekler and @tobifjellner). Observations from various other mentorship programs such as GSoC and Linux show that including projects for mentees has been highly effective. Projects engage mentees actively and provide them with tangible results to showcase at the end of their mentorship, offering a sense of achievement.

One difference is that many other open source mentoring programs offer stipends/scholarships/grants to mentees and sometimes mentors and organizers.

Several (like Google Open Source Program Office) use Open Collective to manage the stipend flow for their programs like Summer of Code and Season of Docs.

• https://opencollective.com/google-ospo/projects/2022-google-summer-of-code
• https://opencollective.com/season-of-docs

Considering setting up an Open Collective Fund) is a goal on WordPress/sustainability#24, this could be something Sustainability Team (members) could help make happen (if there's interest).

[naokomc]

Yes, the LGBTQ+Press Empowerment Grant is a specifically targeted fund.

What I meant but not clearly stated was that the LGBTQ+Press Grant is a third-party/non-official funding, and the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program does not have 100% funding to pay for all mentees right now.

the ideal would be to create the mechanism where funds can be pooled and grants/scholarships could be distributed to all contributors/participants in a uniform fashion

I agree this is the ideal if/when all requirements are met, including community consensus, cooperating organizations, documentation, legal check, etc.

[gusaus]

I agree this is the ideal if/when all requirements are met, including community consensus, cooperating organizations, documentation, legal check, etc.

While it will take some time to create resources (could start by focusing on certain aspects as mentorship projects) and meet all the requirements for the WordPress Contributor Mentorship Program, I'm wondering if the WP Community Collective could provide a way to pool funds (and credit sponsors and donors) for the LGBTQ+Press Empowerment Grant.

I'm not familiar enough to know if it could actually be an option, but some of the folks we pinged in this Slack discussion might have an idea!

[annezazu]

Great question. I did try over the last year to work with WP Community Collective and it didn't work out I'm afraid. It's part of what actually led to this pivot with the mentorship program instead where we could make something happen. I'd love to have something work in the future.

[gusaus]

Good to know. Realizing there's overlap with the following Sustainability roadmap (and potential mentoring project) idea!?!

Explore options for funding community projects, teams, working groups, and contributors (Contributor Working Group, Community, Training, Documentation, Marketing, and Sustainability teams)

[gusaus]

Circling back here with another recommendation to set up an Open Collective Fund with primary purpose of enabling independent/unsponsored (self-sponsored?) contributors to help Community Working Group and other leads/participants:

• create structure and resources for the program (and related projects)
• mentor and manage the program
• mentor and manage mentorship projects (for the Mentorship cohort and related programs)
• rebuild mentor and admin capacity needed to participate in external programs (Google Summer of Code, Season of Docs, etc.)

Reasons for the recommendation are

• it will enable resources to be built in a timely fashion
• provide a proof of concept for using Open Collective (and potentially GitHub Sponsors) to sustain the program
  • possibly we could start by creating a 'WordPress Contributor Fund' + targeted fundraising campaign

[gusaus]

Refine and extend Five for the Future (Contributor Working Group, Community, Training, Documentation, Marketing, and Sustainability teams)

Was on the fence about submitting this but seeing @harishankerr's P2 proposal made me think certain aspects of both (once reconciled with each other) could be good source material for mentorship projects.

[gusaus]

The following is an attempt to piggyback on @naokomc's thoughts on our collaboration opportunities based on the Five for the Future project point of view WordPress/sustainability#16 (comment) by associating project ideas referenced in this discussion along with related projects/tasks/goals.

Process Improvement (Onboarding and Mentorship)

• Improve Onboarding Processes for Make/Teams – Identifying and sharing impactful projects for teams, standardizing handbooks, simplifying team handbooks, and onboarding.
• To Provide dedicated mentoring and onboarding for Five for the Future companies and self-sponsored contributors.
• Helping companies set up contribution teams and onboarding sponsored contributors to Make/Teams.
• 1:1 or group mentorship to help self-sponsored contributors onboard effectively.

Mentorship projects

• Help connect and streamline collaboration between Make Teams and community contributors sustainability#14 (Community, Training, Documentation, Marketing, and Sustainability teams)
  • Create standardized list of Team roles, skills, and commitments
  • Provide clear/easy entry points for contributing to multiple Teams
  • Provide clear/easy entry points for paid/sponsored contributions
• Extend the do_action hackathon format (Community, Training, Documentation, Marketing, and Sustainability teams) Ideas for Mentorship Projects #7 (reply in thread)
  • Improve and extend existing guides and documentation
  • Create/extend teaching curriculum (see this comment for additional detail/context)
  • Define and document contributor roles
  • Create learning pathways for each contributor role
  • Explore and document options for sustaining
    • Enable ways for experienced organizers, mentors, and other key contributors to get paid
    • Improve how do_action uses Open Collective

Sponsorship

• Task-based or project-based contributor sponsorships, companies sponsor contributor time for a certain task or project in a Make/Team.
• Project/release-based contributor sponsorships where companies could sponsor external contributors for a limited time as they work on specific projects.

Mentorship projects

• Explore options for funding community projects, teams, working groups, and contributors (Contributor Working Group, Community, Training, Documentation, Marketing, and Sustainability teams) Ideas for Mentorship Projects #7 (reply in thread)
  • Adopt and integrate Open Collective sustainability#24
  • Leverage and Extend the FundOSS Democratic/Quadratic fundraising format Ideas for Mentorship Projects #7 (reply in thread)
• Platform improvements (Contributor Working Group, Community, Training, Documentation, Marketing, Meta, and Sustainability teams) https://github.com/WordPress/five-for-the-future
  • Create a Marketplace listing companies which provide WordPress-related services, hosting, training, books, and more.
  • Create automated crediting system to recognize the contributions of both individual contributors and their organizational sponsors, and to begin measuring the contribution ecosystem that supports WordPress
    • Recognize individual contributors for their work
    • Recognize organizational sponsors for their contributions
    • Recognize financial contributions
  • Incentive contribution by tying the crediting system to the WordPress services marketplace ranking

Visualization (Dashboard)

• Create team health dashboards for all Make/Teams, which help contributors identify impactful projects and areas that need help (Already underway).

Mentorship projects

• Contribute to the Dashboard Initiative sustainability#10