Engagement/Developer Engagement/Event request guidelines
This page is for people seeking speakers or sponsorship for developer-oriented events.
Contents
Developer Event Request Guidelines
Mozilla Developer Relations community seeks to help developers use open Web technologies. One way that we do this is by supporting technical conferences and meetups that bring developers together and share knowledge about open Web technologies. By support, the Dev Rel group includes financial sponsorship, help with securing Mozilla speakers, and Mozilla branded promotional items at the event.
DevRel Event Participation Policy
Diversity and inclusion are important for Mozilla, and are core to our community participation guidelines [1] and the Mozilla Manifesto [2].
We seek to foster diversity and inclusion in the technology industry because it is the right thing to do. If that isn’t a strong enough argument, then having diverse teams has proven again and again to create better products, foster a better work environment and to improve organization and team performance. For more details, see appendix below.
What kind of support does Mozilla provide for events?
Mozilla reviews requests for speakers, branding, sponsorship at developer focused events.
For hackathons, we look to support and encourage these events by providing speakers and mentors in the region.
Please use the Developer Events Request Form to request support for third-party developer-oriented events, in the form of Mozilla speakers, panelists, workshops, sponsorship, booths/tables.
For internal and external events that require a speaker, Mozilla Tech Speaker volunteers can be requested using the following form: Tech Speaker Request Form
If you are a Mozilla Rep organizing a Mozilla-oriented event, please contact a Mozilla Rep in your geographic area, for help with hosting your event, including submitting a budget request from the Reps budget.
If you are a Mozilla Community member organizing an event, please review the How To Guideline .
How can I request Mozilla support for my event?
If you are looking for support from Mozilla for your developer-oriented event, please submit a request using our Developer Event Request Form. This form gathers all the information we need to properly understand your event and evaluate your request, and taking the time to complete this form thoroughly now will save lots of time and lots of emails asking for more information.
If you are seeking a Mozilla Tech Speaker to present at your event, please take a moment to fill out the Tech Speaker Request Form. This form gathers some basic information about your event and your specific needs, so that we can best match you with an appropriate speaker.
We ask that all requests are submitted at least 8 weeks prior to your event's date, so we have sufficient time to review the request, confirm a speaker/schedule their travel plans, fulfill sponsorship tasks, etc. If you have a question about events that is not covered by the request form, please email devsponsorship (at) mozilla (dot) com.
Who reviews my request?
Requests are reviewed weekly (unless holidays and scheduling conflicts arise) by the Developer Events Team. This team is made up of representatives from Mozilla's Developer Relations, Developer Tools, Participation, MDN, and Events teams.
How will my request be reviewed?
We have established this set of criteria by which we evaluate all event support requests:
- Alignment to Mozilla goals and strategy: It helps if you can show a relationship between your event and achieving [DevRel|Developer Relations] goals. We have a set amount of funding every year, and we need to make sure that our dollars are spent on events that are supporting the goals we have set for the year.
- Submission at least 8 weeks prior to event date: It takes time to review the requests. Please be considerate and respectful regarding this time frame to allow sufficient time for consideration.
- Mozilla participation: Money alone doesn't represent Mozilla very well, so we consider first to sponsor events where members of the Mozilla community (volunteers or staff) are participating. They could be attending, speaking, organizing, or participating in some other way, as long as they are at the event in person. Note: If you have no Mozillians involved in your event, we are happy to help find someone to speak, attend, sit on a panel, etc., but this does NOT guarantee a sponsorship. Finding Mozilla participants is judged independently of sponsorship opportunities.
- No pay-to-speak: We don't pay for sponsored speaking slots, or accept speaking slots that are contingent on sponsorship. We prefer that Mozilla speakers be invited or accepted on the quality of their presentations and the interest the attendees have in what they have to say, not because Mozilla has paid to put someone in front of an audience. We believe this policy:
- is equitable to conference organizers seeking Mozilla speakers
- is fair to other speakers who don't have the means to pay for a speaking opportunity
- helps us gauge interest in the topics and products we might propose to speak about
- maintains the credibility of Mozilla speakers with audiences
- Budget consideration: This sponsorship request process is specifically from the Dev Rel team. We are limited in resources and usually do not consider supporting requests that require significant sponsorship (in general, above $5,000 USD). However, we are happy to review the event and its purpose to help direct the request to another Mozilla division.
- Code of conduct: In keeping with Mozilla's culture of inclusiveness, we require event organizers seeking sponsorship or speaker to create, publish, and enforce a code of conduct for their event participants. You can find examples and guidance for writing a code of conduct on the Geek feminism wiki. Our Mozillians are awesome, and they all deserve to be treated with respect.
Sponsorship Follow-up
Here's the general timeline (subject to change and exceptions): We review requests that are three months out from current date (for example, if it's currently January 2016, we are generally reviewing requests Feb, Mar, April of 2016. The DevRel Events team meets on a weekly basis to review requests submitted through the events bugs form. Email requests will be redirected to the form, and all communications will be followed up on the form. Sometimes, the team takes additional time to re-direct the request to the appropriate team, or to wait for replies that are dependent to the request submitted.
If Mozilla sponsors your event, please be aware that we will ask you for follow-up information after the event, such as number of attendees and social media reach. The purpose of this follow-up is to help us track the effectiveness of our sponsorships and make decisions for the future. You're probably collecting this information anyway.
More Details to our DevRel Participation Policy
Mozilla promotes inclusion by making our support for events contingent on the following:
Code of conduct: All events we host, participate in or sponsor must have a published code of conduct and a clear plan to enforce it. Diversity: We will only speak at or sponsor an event where organizers have demonstrated a commitment to enhance the diversity of their speakers and attendees; specifically including those from underrepresented groups. Panels: Mozilla will only participate in panel discussions of two or more people where there is at least one member of an underrepresented group (e.g. woman, person with disabilities, non-binary person, person of color) on the panel, not including the chair. Accessibility: Events with over 25 attendees need to have venues that are accessible and have an assigned point of contact for issues of accessibility.
(Note: this includes events hosted or funded by staff, representatives, or ambassadors of Mozilla and our projects.)
Mozilla will decline to provide speakers or sponsorship to events that do not adhere to these standards, and reserves the right to withdraw speakers, funding or visible sponsorship (logos, booth, etc) from any event that demonstrates an unwillingness or inability to provide an inclusive and safe environment. This includes falsely claiming diverse attendees or speakers, continuing to allow inappropriate or harassing conduct and content, and not adequately responding to abuse or COC violations.
There may be cases when it will be a struggle for event organisers to meet the above rules, especially with smaller scale events or meetups. We are always willing to discuss these on a case by case basis and provide assistance and guidance on how to implement practices that will help your events meet these guidelines. However, we are unable, and frankly, unwilling, to bend the rules regardless of the event, organizer, or ongoing relationship with Mozilla and the tech community.
Events are a highly visible part of our industry. Events build community and grow expertise, and encouraging broad participation in tech events and communities depends on an inclusive and welcoming experience for all, no matter their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, disability or any other factor. Speakers at events serve not only as representatives of their respective companies and technologies, but as role models and highly visible faces of the tech industry and beyond. It is therefore vital that speakers and the content they present represent the diverse range of people working in technology today and who will be working in technology tomorrow.
In addition to the rules above, we highly encourage the following practices:
Offer diversity scholarships (free or discounted tickets for underrepresented groups and where necessary, financial help towards travel or accommodation). Staff training, Live captioning, assistive listening devices, hearing or induction loops, Braille and tactile signage, and food options, with signage, available for participants with dietary restrictions/allergies. Providing ability for remote attendance and engagement, such as live streaming or telepresence. Development of events that cater to specific underrepresented groups as a way to foster inclusion and diversity in our industry. Including questions about Code of Conduct in post-event surveys. Inclusive language: We encourage, and will always use, inclusive language at events and in online communities surrounding events. This includes, but is not limited to, discouraging the use of gendered or ableist language and content.
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Good Code of Conduct examples: Mozilla View Source conference Code of Conduct [3] Rust code of Conduct [4] O'Reilly Code of Conduct [5] JSConfUS COC [6] Crowd-sourced conference code of conduct [7]
Code of Conduct Response: PyCon Attendee Procedure for incident handling [8] PyCon Staff Procedure for incident handling [9] Post-event COC survey questions used by Mozilla [10]
Accessibility Standards: Americans with Disabilities Act [11] Creating inclusive spaces at your event [12]
