Launched in 2014, the WordPress initiative Five for the Future (5FTF) encourages organizations to contribute 5% of their resources to WordPress development. This benchmark, proposed by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, aims to maintain a “golden ratio” of contributors to users.
In his initial announcement, Matt highlighted the importance of this effort by emphasizing that it would help grow the WordPress community and ecosystem sustainably. He noted that web hosts, consultancies, and agencies had already stepped up their contributions, but there’s still room for more organizations and individuals to participate.
The purpose of Five for the Future is multifaceted.
Five for the Future aims to increase the number of contributors to WordPress, thereby making the platform more robust and resilient. A larger pool of contributors means more individuals are familiar with the codebase and can promptly address bugs, security vulnerabilities, and other issues.
Additionally, the initiative fosters a more inclusive and welcoming community by encouraging organizations of all sizes and resources to contribute. This inclusivity helps ensure that WordPress remains accessible to a diverse range of users and developers.
The importance of Five for the Future cannot be overstated.
By investing in developing new features and technologies, the initiative helps keep WordPress relevant and competitive in the ever-evolving web landscape. For example, the development of WordPress 6.5 involved around 700 contributors from 57 countries, showcasing the global effort needed to maintain and enhance this open-source project. Such contributions lead to regular updates and improvements in WordPress core, plugins, and themes, benefiting end-users by providing a more secure and feature-rich experience.
Participating in Five for the Future offers numerous benefits.
It helps create a collaborative environment where developers, designers, and other contributors can collaborate, share knowledge, and gain recognition for their efforts. This collaborative spirit accelerates innovation and enhances the sense of community among WordPress users and contributors. Active participation in the initiative strengthens the bonds between stakeholders in the WordPress ecosystem and encourages exchanging ideas and best practices.
To participate in Five for the Future, organizations and individuals can dedicate 5% of their resources—whether in terms of time, personnel, or financial support—to WordPress development and the greater WordPress community. Contributions can be made in various areas, including core and plugin development, documentation, security, support forums, theme reviews, training, testing, translation, and WordCamp organizing, volunteering, and presenting. Interested individuals and organizations can start by visiting the 5FTF website and signing up to contribute.
Five for the Future is a vital initiative for the continuous improvement and innovation of the WordPress platform. By contributing five percent of their resources, organizations can help ensure that WordPress remains a robust, secure, and versatile platform for years. We encourage everyone in the WordPress community to consider participating in this initiative to help build a stronger, more resilient, and inclusive future for WordPress.
Your contributions, no matter how small, can significantly contribute to the long-term success of this open-source project. Here is a sample of how our team contributed to 5FTF last month.
#5FTF @webdevstudios today and I’m heads down working on #WDSBT a #WordPress #BlockTheme 🤞 pic.twitter.com/vMuLggkEvX
— JC Palmes #WCAsia2025 (@jpalmes) May 31, 2024
Today’s problem to solve: how to version control WordPress patterns for our clients’ websites so we can keep them in our repo. The solution’s done – I just need to code it 😉#5FTF @webdevstudios #WordPress
— CMDR Mitchcraft ⚙️🎮 (@thatmitchcanter) May 31, 2024
🎉 Happy #5ftf WordPressors! 🎉 This time I am working on implementing new features for my plugin “Rearrange WooCommerce Products” at @webdevstudios. Fulfilling requests from plugin users. #WordPress #WooCommerce pic.twitter.com/LLFai8BAzU
— Aslam Doctor (@aslammdoctor) May 31, 2024
Today for #5ftf I am exploring the Block Bindings API and useful ways to implement it. @webdevstudios pic.twitter.com/TkfkwngV9z
— Jennifer Farhat (@jenniFarhat) May 31, 2024
Grateful @webdevstudios supports #5ftf and allows me time to contribute on the #MediaCorps #WordPress experiment! Excited to see our efforts develop. pic.twitter.com/o4KeEo7o7h
— Jen Miller (@JenMillerMBA) May 31, 2024
Just spent my #5FTF @webdevstudios playing with the WordPress Interactivity API! Built a basic testimonial carousel with bullet controls that uses the cover block. Big thanks to @ryanwelcher for his awesome gallery slider recipe that helped me get started. pic.twitter.com/0PZ3mQvkvJ
— Alfredo Navas (@3LPU4S) May 31, 2024
I capped off today’s @webdevstudios #5FTF with a ticket patch refresh from 14 years ago and the WordPress 2.8.1 days. Adding a “current-tag” class to the Tag Cloud markup when viewing a specific tag archive.
— Captain Macho Pirate Mick Rackham.yarr🏴☠️ (@tw2113) May 31, 2024
More 5FTF Contributions
The 5FTF contributions listed below were reported in our internal Slack channel:
I found a website that has some interesting elements that I want to convert to patterns. I also had an idea for a simple progress bar block related to what we’re doing on GCR, so I may work on that. –Lindsey Bell, Lead Engineer
I will look into core Trac or GitHub issues. I’m particularly interested in checking unit tests and how to add them to tickets/PRs. –Mauricio Andrade, Lead Engineer
BT/FSE for me. –Lauren Levin, Lead Engineer
Jumping into some BT theme and WP support threads today. –David Walz, Lead Engineer
Finalizing a PR I was working on for the documentation plugin but then jumping to BT/FSE. –Ashley Stanley, Frontend Engineer
I will retake my WP_HTML_Tag_Processor article to add some more examples and performance tests. –Ramsés Del Rosario, Backend Engineer
For now I will continue contributing to the Polyglots Team with more Spanish translations for some plugins. –Jairo Perez, Senior Backend Engineer
This is still in progress, as I’m rebuilding parts of the spotify.design website in WDS-BT, but I managed to add the Interactivity API to Core Blocks. In this case, I’m adding it to buttons. I’m doing some logic to check if the button has the class .shuffle on it, if it does, I fire off a function to randomly change the header color. –Marty O’Connor, Senior Frontend Engineer
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