Plone Foundation Sponsorship

Information on becoming a Plone Foundation sponsor

Plone is 100% powered by the Plone community.  We have no corporate backers, no venture capital, no lucrative advertising deals with Google.  And yet, we are among the largest, most successful and most vibrant open source projects in the world, thanks to you and the thousands of other people who are Plone.

Become a sponsor of the Plone Foundation, and help us continue to protect and promote Plone.

Plone Foundation sponsorship is currently open to Plone consulting firms and consultants.  The Foundation also accepts

individual contributions

.

What your sponsorship dollars will support

The mission of the Plone Foundation is to protect and promote Plone.   Since 2004, the Foundation has operated on the initial $100,000 startup grant from Computer Associates, supplemented by a modest stream of individual contributions. Foundation expenses have primarily been related to:

  • An aggressive spending campaign to

    support regional sprints, conferences and marketing

  • Paying the Plone release manager a stipend of ~US$5000 per major release and US$2500 per minor release.

  • Registration of Plone’s trademark in countries around the world.

  • Legal work to secure Plone’s intellectual property in the Foundation’s “software conservancy”

In order to continue this work, the Plone Foundation relies on a reliable stream of income that grows along with the community. For 2013, have an approved sprint budget of $25K, and a marketing budget of <TBD>. This will allow us to fund professional marketing materials as well as sponsor sprints to drive forward the completion of Plone 5. We hope to recoup these costs over the year so that 2014 can be even more productive.

Sponsorship rates and benefits

We have two tiers of sponsorship: Standard and Premium.  Each tier is priced according to the number of billable FTE (full-time equivalent) people doing Plone work in your firm*.

Premium sponsors

Benefits

 

  • Priority listing order in Plone.org provider search
    results.

  • A banner on your highlighted Plone.org provider listing
  • A Plone Foundation sponsor badge you can display on your website
  • Recognition in the Foundation section of Plone.org
  • Pride in supporting the work of the Plone Foundation to protect and promote Plone.
  • We are currently considering putting premium sponsor banners on the front page of plone.org, where there is significantly more traffic. If you are holding out on becoming a sponsor and this would push you over, please contact board <at> plone.org. With significant interest, we can make this happen faster.

Premium sponsorship rates

  • Small Firms  (2 or fewer FTEs ): $125/month ($1500/year)
  • Medium Firms  (More than 2, up to 7 FTEs):  $375/month ($4500/year)
  • Large Firms (More than 7 FTEs):   U$625/month ($7500/year)

standard sponsor banner

Standard sponsors

Benefits

Standard sponsorship rates

  • Small Firms  (2 or fewer FTEs ): 41.67/month ($500/year)
  • Medium Firms  (More than 2, up to 7 FTEs):  $125/month ($1500 year)
  • Large Firms (More than 7 FTEs):   $208.33/month ($2500/year)

Questions?

If you have questions about becoming a Plone Foundation sponsor, please email the Plone Foundation board of directors: board <at> plone.org.

Sponsor Buttton

Become a Plone foundation sponsor

 

The Fine Print

Firm size is based on billable FTE (full time equivalents) doing Plone work.  A firm with one full-time Plone consultant and 8 half-time contractors would thus have 5 FTEs. We will not verify a firm’s size (number of FTEs); however, we will display the size of firm that a sponsor claims to be (small, medium or large) on their Plone.org listing, to promote transparency and honesty.

We are currently considering a separate rate tier for firms located in developing countries. If this is affecting your sponsorship, please let us know how important this is by contacting board _at_ plone.org. The more noise we get, the quicker we can respond.