WordPress Sponsors (Read More)

In 2013, WordCamp Vancouver had only 7 out of 52 speaker applications from women and other represented groups, and then only 14% diverse speakers.

Our audience was not happy. Several spoke to us privately or even wrote blog posts about it publicly.

The thing is, it wasn’t that we weren’t accepting them to speak, it’s that they weren’t applying in the first place.

There are a lot of reasons why this happens, and one of them is Impostor Syndrome. Folks feeling like they’re not expert enough to speak on anything, or that they wouldn’t know what to talk about.

Someone suggested that I hold a brainstorming session, and from there I lead the creation of a new workshop. It helps women and other underrepresented groups bust through Impostor Syndrome. It’s short, 4-hours, hands-on, and impactful. In only one year, we had 3 times the number of female applicants and 50% of our speakers were now diverse folks!

I’ve been leading a project in the WordPress community called Diversity Outreach Speaker Training (we are working on a better name) that is promoting and training our workshop all around the world.

The world is hungry for this work. In 2018 we provided diversity support to 55 Meetup organizers in 26 countries, and the 12 meetups who ran our speaker training workshop in 6 countries started at 10% or less speakers of underrepresented groups, and within months, most had 50% or more! Can you imagine? This is incredible!

Even in Italy where WordPress had very few women in their community – forget about even being speakers – after running the workshop and putting in best practises, in less than a year were able to bring up their women and queer speakers to 50%.

And things are changing at WordPress because of this. Having more diverse speakers has improved the brand and even the product itself.

We want to keep that momentum going so that WordPress is the leader, powering even more of the web. Wouldn’t 50% of the web be great? Would the growth of WordPress help your business? In order to do this, we need to reach more kinds of developers and users.

With 800+ chapter meetups around the world, we plan to serve 100+ a year by the end of 2020. There are already 40 meetups waiting for us to deliver training but we need your help.

It came to a point where I couldn’t do my freelance client work anymore, and I realized this needs to be my work. This is my talent.

By sponsoring my efforts, you will be tied in with something that is making an enormous positive impact in the community.

I look forward to discussing further how we could create a win-win together.

Jill Binder
hello at jillbinder dot com | DiverseIn.tech | twitter @ jillbinder

P.S. Want to read more? https://heropress.com/essays/accidental-activist/

pie charts: before (10%) to after (50%)
  • Testimonial

    Jill’s work has done a lot to further the diversity and inclusion effort in WordPress.

    Andrea Middleton, WordPress Community Organizer

    Jill's work has done a lot to further the diversity and inclusion effort in WordPress. I would heartily recommend her. The initiative she helped develop has already had a powerful impact on WordPress communities.

    Read full letter from Andrea

Leadership Team

Who we are

Jill BinderFounder and Chief Consultant / Trainer

Jill Binder

Founder and Chief Consultant / Trainer

Jill Binder is a Diverse Speakers in Tech Consultant and Trainer. She leads the Diversity Outreach Speaker Training working group in the WordPress.org Community Team which encourages underrepresented people to speak at WordPress events. She helped organize the first BuddyCamp and for three years co-organized WordCamp Vancouver. She was named one of the top 100 Influencers of WordPress in 2014 by Torque Magazine and one of the top 10 Women of WordPress by CloudWays.

  • Testimonial

    Jill’s work has done a lot to further the diversity and inclusion effort in WordPress.

    Andrea Middleton, WordPress Community Organizer

    Jill's work has done a lot to further the diversity and inclusion effort in WordPress. I would heartily recommend her. The initiative she helped develop has already had a powerful impact on WordPress communities.

    Read full letter from Andrea

  • Testimonial

    From underestimating my experience to becoming more comfortable and confident.

    Kirsten, Web Developer, Vancouver

    It had never occurred to me before that I had anything worthwhile to offer the WordPress community. Through the workshop, I saw that I had been underestimating my experience and perspective, and I became comfortable and confident about speaking on a topic I felt would be of interest to others.

  • Testimonial

    An unprecedented 60% growth of women speakers thanks to Jill.

    Nichole Betterley, 2017 WordCamp Seattle Speaker Wrangler

    The Diversity Speaker training workshops we ran at local meetups using Jill’s material were highly successful and helped us achieve an unprecedented 60% of women speakers that year. I highly recommend it to anyone who is conscientious of encouraging more women and other diverse groups to speak at technical events.

  • Testimonial

    Jill helped us find the strength we needed to overcome our fear of public speaking.

    Simona Simionato, WordCamp Milan Italy organizer 2018

    At WordCamp Milan 2017, we had only 4 women out of 19 speakers. After we ran the workshop as well did some personal outreach, in 2018 45% of applications were made by women and there were 11 women out of 21 speakers! One of them was also an LGBT community member. The workshop helped people find the strength needed to overcome the fear of speaking in public, and helped folks find topics – solving the “I do not know what to say” issue.

  • Testimonial

    Jill’s diversity work paved the way for the highly effective public speaking workshop at Automattic.

    Kathryn Presner, Theme Whisperer/Happiness Engineer at Automattic, Montreal

    Jill Binder’s diversity work paved the way for the public speaking workshop I developed with my colleagues at Automattic. I’m really excited to see Jill expanding her diversity work and would highly recommend it to anyone looking to broaden their speaker rosters or other professional pathways.

  • Testimonial

    I highly recommend Jill to anyone who is trying to increase diversity at their conference.

    Morgan Kay, Founder of WordPress Study Group for Women, Seattle

    I can attest that Jill’s workshops are very effective at getting a much more diverse speaker pool. I highly recommend Jill and her work to anyone who is trying to increase diversity at their conference or event.

  • Testimonial

    The impact of Jill’s speaker diversity project is highly impactful and inspirational.

    Angela Jin, Community Organizer at Automattic

    I’ve really enjoyed the work we do in the WordPress Diversity Outreach Speaker Training project, and can see its impact. It is super inspirational!

  • Testimonial

    I would recommend Jill to conferences and organizations looking to push the envelope and do things they never believed possible.

    Nicolas Demers, Web Developer, Vancouver, Gay

    Before Jill’s workshop I did not think I had it in me to speak in front of a crowd. But she gave me the confidence and tools to get on that stage and deliver a well-received presentation. I would recommend Jill to anyone looking to push the envelope and do things you never believed possible.

0
Conferences
0
Countries
0
Languages
1
Cups of Tea