WordPress is the world’s most widely used CMS. According to W3Techs, as of August 2025, WordPress is used by 43.3% of all websites, with an astonishing 60.8% of the CMS market share.
There are many factors behind this success, which we have discussed extensively on our blog. Today, we want to focus on one particular factor: the WordPress community.
The community is an integral part of the WordPress ecosystem. Thousands of professionals and enthusiasts worldwide contribute to the growth of the CMS by bringing diverse, cross-cutting skills that make the WordPress community unique in the global development community landscape. Whether you’re interested in marketing, content creation, SEO, or frontend development, there’s a place for you in the WordPress community.
However, maintaining an active community can be a daunting challenge. That’s why the commitment and dedication of WordPress contributors who organize events such as WordCamps and meetups, provide support on official WordPress channels, and promote and raise awareness of WordPress are so important.
It is evident that without a steady stream of new members, a community is bound to lose its energy over time. Therefore, one of the biggest challenges of the WordPress community is encouraging young talent to join and bring new energy, ideas, and skills.
WordPress Credits and WordPress Campus Connect are two new programs for educational institutions that aim to help students learn WordPress and encourage new talent to contribute to the WordPress community. They allow participants to become part of a dynamic ecosystem where they can find inspiration, career opportunities, and meaningful connections.
WordPress Credits: A contribution practice program for students
WordPress Credits is a contribution-based practice program promoted by the WordPress Foundation, aiming to give students worldwide a unique opportunity to contribute to one of the world’s most popular open-source platforms, working under the guidance of expert mentors.
Through the WordPress Credits program, students can learn about the WordPress content management system (CMS) and contribute to the project by participating in activities and events organized by the international WordPress community.
Shaping the next generation of Contributors
The WordPress Credits Program is a great opportunity for students worldwide to enjoy a truly international experience and become part of a community that allows them to engage with an open and inclusive global ecosystem of professionals and enthusiasts.
The WordPress Credits program covers all areas of contribution, including coding, localization, accessibility, documentation, content creation, community management, and communication.
The program consists of six steps:
- Onboarding: Introduction to the WordPress ecosystem and global community.
- Mentorship: Connect with a mentor who will accompany students during their internship.
- Design: Students are guided through the design of a personal WordPress project based on their specific learning interests.
- Site Creation: Students create a personal website with WordPress.
- Contribution: Students actively work on their project and share their site’s progress.
- Continuity: Students manage and fill their website with content and can continue contributing to the WordPress community.
With WordPress credits, student contributions have an almost immediate impact, with hundreds or even thousands of users in the ecosystem. By contributing to WordPress, students from any department can apply their skills in a professional, real-world setting. They can witness the direct results of their work, collaborate in real time, and build connections with a worldwide network of companies and professionals.
Who can join WordPress Credits?
The WordPress Credits program is open to all educational institutions. When a partnership is established with a university or other educational organization, all its students are eligible to participate. The program offers personalized learning activities based on each student’s degree program, personal interests, technical skills, and level of WordPress experience. Students work on these activities under the guidance of an experienced mentor.
As mentioned above, the program is open to all students worldwide, regardless of their field. However, the WordPress Credits program offers opportunities that benefit students of humanities courses the most, allowing them to use their skills beyond traditional application areas.
For instance, a sociology student may be interested in community management. At the same time, a content strategist may be a good fit for a Classics and Ancient History student, while a translator can be a perfect match for a language student.
The WordPress Credits program aims to engage a wider audience by allowing them to grow professionally and personally in an inclusive environment that rewards individuality and encourages peer communication and collaboration.
New perspectives and opportunities for diverse talents
The pilot program, promoted by Isotta Peira and developed in partnership with the University of Pisa, Italy, paved the path for its global expansion.
As Isotta explained, the WordPress Credits program offers new and amazing opportunities to students, educational institutions, and companies interested in contributing. The WordPress platform has great potential for students from all fields, particularly those from the humanities and other non-tech disciplines. Millions of students, regardless of their areas of study, can benefit from the program.
The WordPress community thrives on many skills, far beyond engineers and developers. There is a significant need for specialists in digital content creation to serve all kinds of users. Translators are needed to make software and platforms available in multiple languages. Digital marketing and community management skills also give you a great chance of finding a job in the ecosystem.
Effective platform and tool management requires project managers who plan, design, connect, and guide diverse teams and team members. There’s also a growing need to design, create, and manage programs that help WordPress reach new users and attract individuals who can contribute their skills to the project’s ongoing development and well-being.
In the words of Isotta,
We haven’t invested enough time in creating opportunities for students from different backgrounds and young people with fresh ideas. Now, they can engage with our environment and contribute to the WordPress project. This is an incredible opportunity.
While participation is expected to be initially modest, there is considerable interest around the WordPress Credits program, and the organizers foresee an increase in student involvement in the coming months. The people involved in the program are actively developing scalable procedures and systems to scale up, with dedicated teams working behind the scenes to ensure its success.
Universities and educational institutions can include the WordPress Credits program in their curricula by filling out the form linked on the WordPress Credits guidelines. Anyone can apply, including teachers, students, and WP event organizers.
Companies interested in supporting the program can read more in the Company Guide.
WordPress Campus Connect: Helping students learn WordPress
WordPress Campus Connect is an official global community program aimed at helping students learn WordPress in universities and educational institutions.
The program, officially launched in October 2024, hosts events around the world, including workshops, lectures, and training courses. It aims to introduce students to WordPress’s capabilities, teach them the basics of the CMS, and “help the next generation of WordPress users and developers by providing valuable, free, and easy-to-access learning for everyone.”
The events consist of half-day or full-day workshops held at educational institutions. During these events, students learn from experienced professionals how to build a website, optimize it for SEO and performance, build plugins, and much more.
Through workshops, live demonstrations, networking sessions with experts, and Q&A sessions, students explore various career opportunities within the WordPress community and develop technical skills.
Bringing WordPress to campuses around the world
The WordPress Campus Connect program hosts workshops for students of any type of educational institution. However, unlike traditional workshops, WordPress Campus Connect includes activities after the event, such as meetings, website creation challenges, scholarships, and opportunities to contribute to the WordPress community. The team describes their approach as “holistic” because it encompasses a wide range of activities that spread knowledge of WordPress while welcoming students into the WordPress community.
At a WordPress Campus Connect event, students acquire the essential skills needed to build a WordPress website. These skills include creating content, using plugins and themes, learning basic WordPress SEO techniques, and more.
But that’s not all. Students also have a chance to explore career opportunities in the WordPress ecosystem by networking with professionals active in development, design, content creation, and many other areas.
Anand Upadhyay, one of the project’s promoters, explained how the project came about and its goals:
The primary objective we want to achieve with Campus Connect is to bridge the gap between students, academics, and the ecosystem. University students don’t know much about WordPress because it’s not part of their curriculum and is not regularly taught by professors and lecturers. So we want to bridge that gap and introduce WordPress to students early on.
WordPress offers people many career opportunities, from coding to design, content, and SEO. Instead of inviting them to a meetup or WordCamp, where they can learn things, we can bring those opportunities to their campus. In that case, we can go to their campus, tell them what opportunities are available in the market, and expose them to WordPress. Then, we can fill that gap and bring more people to the community as developers or contributors, ultimately making WordPress more sustainable.
The event’s inaugural workshop, held in Ajmer, India, was a great success, reaching over 370 students. The program sparked significant interest, with other universities from different regions interested in hosting similar workshops for their students.
The organizers are working hard to respond to the growing interest shown by local WordPress communities. What can we expect in the future? The team has clear ideas: Organizing large-scale student events, establishing WordPress clubs on college campuses, and facilitating student mentorship connections.
How to host and contribute to WordPress Campus Connect events
WordPress Campus Connect events are free and accessible to everyone, and educational institutions worldwide can host a WordPress Campus Connect workshop. Fill out a form, and a team member will contact you.
Companies can contribute to the program in various ways, such as actively participating in workshops, offering networking opportunities, and providing resources. Additionally, companies can sponsor events by providing food and beverages, signage, promotional swags, or event venue rental.
You can learn more on the official project page.
Summary
WordPress’s evolution does not depend solely on its technical features, powerful PHP framework, or open license. Its success is also fostered and amplified by a vibrant global community of enthusiasts and professionals.
However, an open and free community requires new talent and energy. Programs like WordPress Credits and WordPress Campus Connect are so valuable for WordPress’s future because they are committed to bringing WordPress knowledge to educational institutions around the world. This gives students new career opportunities and, at the same time, brings new energy to the WordPress community.
By involving students from all disciplines, from technical to humanities, new opportunities open up for future engineers, content creators, marketers, translators, entrepreneurs, and hobbyists. These students can find in WordPress a powerful means of expressing their skills and passions.
Carlo is a passionate lover of webdesign and front-end development. He has been playing with WordPress for more than 20 years, also in collaboration with Italian and European universities and educational institutions. He has written hundreds of articles and guides about WordPress, published both on Italian and international websites, as well as on printed magazines. You can find him on LinkedIn.
