What:The bones of the Mozilla Tech Speakers program, distilled for re-use.

Author: Dietrich Ayala (@burrito.space)

TL;DR: Support high-impact community activity by funding individuals on a per-event basis to do more/better of what they're already doing.

Many in ecosystem doing rad stuff - talks, events, etc

Hiring a community manager / devrel supports only a tiny few, is expensive, and those roles don't scale (are classic burnout vectors)

A reason it's *fun* is b/c it's *not* the day job!

Member code of conduct, participation requirements, and conflict resolution runbook

Periodic (quarterly or whatever) cycles of cohort application -> evaluation -> training

Graduated members are reimbursed for approved events (travel, supplies, catering, etc)

Floor defined for ongoing membership (eg three events per quarter or dropped)

Ceiling defined for per-member budget allocation (pre-approval checks this)

Dedicated program manager handling program budget, onboarding cycles, event evaluations, reimbursements, ongoing membership

Three member board for handling disputes, PM role evaluation, overall budget approvals

General outcome pattern is similar to community roles, but in dimensions and scale that would not have happened with only 1-2 ecosystem growth/support hires:

Constant presence at meetups, conferences, events

Diversity of perspectives, materials, use cases

Broad geographic representation

Materials artifacts in many languages and in the cultural context of the speaker (vs direct localization of a single perspective set of materials)

Program becomes a hiring pipeline for ecosystem companies

Program manager has a pool with which to replace themselves (repeat as needed), great for long term program stability/continuity

Program manager is overwhelmed

Members contributions are poor quality

Member behavior reflects poorly on the ecosystem

Member-to-member conflict

Members asking for funding to talk at small meetup halfway across world for no good reason etc etc

The minimum viable program is small cohort, curated membership, designed to give a bit more space/time to people already doing excellent things for the ecosystem. Could stop there.

For scale, you can do things like build cohort cohesion and amplify impact by offering the cohort trainings in public speaking, materials development, event management, etc. That opens the doors to broader participation at varying skill levels and areas of expertise.