AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–WP Engine, the WordPress technology company, announced today that its corporate social responsibility program, Engine for Good, exceeded 16,500 hours in contributions to advance WordPress, while also tallying 1,400+ community volunteer hours and $260,000 in largely employee-led donations, almost double the amount raised in 2018, to more than 30 charities and community organizations. Announced in June 2019, Engine for Good was created to advance WP Engine’s global impact through three key initiatives: Open Future, Open Doors and Open Hearts.
“On behalf of the more than 900 WP Engine and Flywheel employees globally, we are humbled and honored to be able to give back nearly 17,000 in volunteer hours, which adds up to almost 19 hours per employee, to the WordPress community and local communities in which we live and work across our seven offices around the globe,” said Heather Brunner, Chairwoman and CEO of WP Engine. “One of WP Engine’s core values is Aspiring to Lead and Committed to Give Back. Open Future, Open Doors and Open Hearts represents how we’re bringing that value to life by making meaningful contributions into the communities we serve—now and into the future.”
Open Future
Through its pillar, Open Future, WP Engine invests in advancing WordPress and its role as an operating system for an Open Web. So far this year, WP Engine has invested more than 16,500 hours into advancing WordPress by: sponsoring and contributing to WordPress #core and #core developers; developing freely available plugins that encourage the use of WordPress; innovating on open source Genesis, the most popular WordPress theme framework; giving a voice to, educating and inspiring the WordPress community via Torque, the leading news publication for WordPress; and sponsoring WordPress community events and meetups. WP Engine has also partnered with The Webby Awards for three years on its program, Webby for Good, a collaborative program that showcases Webby-recognized, digital experience projects, many built on WordPress, that are changing the world and driving social impact.
Open Doors
WP Engine is committed to providing an inclusive environment where a diverse set of people can come together, be their authentic, whole selves and do the best work of their careers, aligned by the company’s core values. Through its pillar, Open Doors, WP Engine focuses on advancing opportunities for all. In 2016, WP Engine committed to the White House’s Equal Pay Pledge. Currently, 66% of the company’s leadership team are women, 30% of its people do not have a college degree, 31% are of non-white ethnicity, and 8% identify as LGBTIQA+. WP Engine empowers its people to foster a diverse, inclusive workplace by supporting Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), company-recognized, voluntary, employee-led groups that are aligned with WP Engine’s mission and values. Thus far, WP Engine’s people have created ERGs such as Sheroes, which inspires women to own their paths to professional and personal success, Represents, which increases awareness of the perspectives and experiences of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups within the tech industry, and Pride, which promotes education, acceptance, and representation as it relates to the LGBTIQA+ community.
Open Hearts
Through its Open Hearts pillar, WP Engine employees around the world give their time, talents and resources to improve the communities where they live and work, primarily focusing on the areas of health, hunger, and education.
As part of this initiative, in January 2019, WP Engine made a commitment to its employees that once it crossed the 100,000 customer milestone the company would make a $100,000 donation to the causes that matter most to employees. With the acquisition of Flywheel in June 2019, WP Engine now powers digital experiences for more than 130,000 customers globally. To codify this Give Back commitment, the employees in each of the company’s seven office locations have given $15,000 to the local causes most meaningful to them (Austin: Central Texas Food Bank, Brisbane: Qendo, Limerick: Limerick Suicide Watch, London: Great Ormond Street Hospital, Omaha: inCOMMON, San Antonio: Make a Wish and San Francisco: Raphael House of SF).
In addition to the $105,000 customer milestone donation, WP Engine employees volunteered 1,400+ hours and personally donated more than $155,000 across dozens of community organizations and events globally including Central Texas Food Bank, Parkinson’s Queensland, Dam That Cancer, Qendo, Help for Heroes, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Movember, The Pieta House, The Thinkery and many others.
Workplace of Choice
Making the promise of Engine for Good a reality would not be possible without WP Engine’s passionate and talented people. As a recipient of nine Great Places to Work (GPTW) awards globally and counting, including GPTW in Technology, GPTW in the UK, GPTW in Ireland, GPTW for Women, and GPTW Leadership for All, WP Engine aspires to be a Workplace of Choice known for fostering a flexible, empowering, and inclusive environment for all. As the WordPress technology company, WP Engine is the catalyst for bringing its customer’s imagination, skills, and business to life.
For more information about WP Engine, go to www.wpengine.com. For information about job opportunities at WP Engine, check out https://wpengine.careers/.
About WP Engine:
WP Engine is the WordPress technology company that provides the most relied upon and trusted brands and developer-centric products in WordPress, including WP Engine, Flywheel, Local by Flywheel, StudioPress and Genesis Framework. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, WP Engine provides WordPress solutions for 130,000 companies and agencies of all sizes through more than 900 employees in seven offices across four countries.
Contacts
Eric Jones
VP, Global Communications
press@wpengine.com