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Community Engagement

Tracking Contributions

Last edited by josh
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How we recognize support

Because everyone gives in a different way, and because it’s incredibly difficult to value one contribution over another, we approximate all contributions by time spent for the past rolling 12 month period (1). Consistent with our established levels of giving (Supporting, Empowering and Sustaining), CiviCRM will recognize contributors at the following levels:

  • Supporting - awarded after contributing ~ 40+ person hours in a given year
  • Empowering - awarded after contributing ~ 120+ person hours in a given year
  • Sustaining - awarded after contributing ~ 240+ person hours in a given year

We truly value contributors and the effort they provide, and want to provide some benefit and recognition for contributions. Contributions may be credited to an organization, however all benefits are awarded on an individual basis. Contributors that achieve a minimum level of ‘supporting’ can post case studies to CiviCRM's website, and may optionally be listed on CiviCRM's experts list and receive newsletter and social media recognition.

We rely not only on contributions to CiviCRM, but also on your commitment to communicating the work you've done. This helps us reward and recognize your efforts appropriately.

What is and isn't a "contribution"

In general, contributions represent work performed for the good of the overall project. This can include a broad range of things from coding to documentation to marketing to managing an event. Where any of these are done for the primary purpose of benefitting you or your business, then they cease to be considered contributions. Some examples:

  • If you run a CiviCamp, that's a contribution.
  • If you run an event where attendees pay your company, that's not a contribution.
  • If you write a cool extension and release it, that's a contribution.
  • If you write an extension but use it only on your clients, that's not a contribution.
  • If you host a CiviCRM 101 webinar, that's a contribution.
  • If you respond to an RFP and include info on what CiviCRM is, that's not a contribution.

Tracking Contributions in Gitlab

First and foremost, capturing your time is completely optional and voluntary. It's simply a way for us to easily recognize the awesome work that you do for CiviCRM! Tracking contributions is all done within Gitlab and is super easy! There are 2 required steps:

  1. Join the group or project (ex: you can join the dev group, or extension group, but in other groups you must join the individual project). You only need 'reporter' access.
  2. Punch some time using the /spend command in a comment associated with the correct issue, and done!

Your time will flow over to civicrm.org via our time tracker and will be reflected there. Naturally your other comments, code, feedback, etc. will all already be captured through your participation in Gitlab.

A few examples:

/spend 15m will add 15 minutes of time to Gitlab and to civicrm.org.

You can use the /spend command along with a comment in the comment box:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do 
eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut 
enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris 
nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

/spend 1h

This would add both a comment and 1 hour of time to the issue.

For more information on tracking time with Gitlab as well as for using more advanced comments, check out this resource.

Importing time contributions

Some time contributions can be difficult to log on a specific ticket, or you may be using your own time tracker.

You can also use this form:
https://civicrm.org/civicrm/timetrack/import

The following categories are available:

  • civi/dev - CiviCRM development
  • civi/ci - Continuous integration
  • civi/comm - Communications (catch-all, if there isn't a better fit)
  • civi/doc - Documentation
  • civi/infra - Server infrastructures
  • civi/events - Community events, or representing CiviCRM at other events
  • civi/extensions - Used to track dev work on extensions
  • civi/funding - Fundraising
  • civi/governance
  • civi/gsoc - Google Summer of Code
  • civi/pr - PR review
  • civi/rel - Release management
  • civi/security
  • civi/support - Making CiviCRM shine by helping others on Stack Exchange, Mattermost or Gitlab
  • civi/website

Since these categories do not map to Gitlab issues, please enter a short comment to describe the contribution.

Thank you, community!

CiviCRM wouldn't be where it is today without the amazing contributions of many different people and organisations around the world. It is an amazing collaborative effort and we want to thank everyone that has participated so far. Thank you!

(1) We value all contributions and recognize that all have had an impact on where CiviCRM is today. Having said that, for the purposes of recognizing current contributors, we must apply some metric to demonstrate current commitment levels. For this reason, we have chosen to value contributions with the past rolling 12 months.