Hi! I'm Joe Dolson, and I'm a contributor to WordPress, the creator of several WordPress plugins, and lead maintainer for Able Player, the accessible media player. I've been working to help make WordPress accessible since 2012, and am hoping for additional support to keep contributing without burning out.
In the last eight years, I've helped WordPress move forward on many accessibility points, including:
- instituting the WordPress theme accessibility program,
- helping push WordPress to a commitment to follow WCAG 2.0 at level AA
- help review new project and provide accessibility advice for major initiatives such as Gutenberg
- lead the first WP Accessibility Day, a 24 hour event to talk about WordPress and Accessibility
But as a freelancer, my time is unfunded, and that causes an ongoing struggle to manage to contribute as effectively as I can without having to choose between burnout, bankruptcy, or no longer being able to contribute to the project.
Having some portion of income targeted directly to support my work on WordPress would make this process considerably more manageable. Thank you for any support you can provide! In addition to working on WordPress directly, I'd like to be able to dedicate some time to some of the accessibility-focused side projects I've worked on that don't have any income tied to them, such as WP Accessibility, WordPress Accessibility Day, and Able Player. These can provide valuable services for the WordPress community, but I have limited availability to spend time on them.
I took over the maintenance of Able Player in April 2025, which is a free, open-source media player that offers incredible accessibility. Your sponsorship can help make sure that this amazing project can modernize and move forward.
Thanks to the generosity of GoDaddy and Kinsta, my goals for contributing to WordPress core are already met. But those sponsorships don't cover my work on WP Accessibility Day, Able Player, or my educational efforts through WordPress Accessibility Day. My goal is to earn enough to fund steady progress on all these projects.
Featured work
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WordPress/WordPress
WordPress, Git-ified. This repository is just a mirror of the WordPress subversion repository. Please do not send pull requests. Submit pull requests to https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-devel…
PHP 20,159 -
joedolson/wp-accessibility
WP Accessibility
PHP 51 -
joedolson/access-monitor
Plug-in to check WordPress site accessibility using Tenon.io
PHP 18 -
joedolson/accessible-video-library
Add WordPress UI for adding captions and transcripts to MediaElementJS videos
PHP 1
$2 a month
SelectAnything you can give is helpful, and I sincerely appreciate it.
$5 a month
SelectThat's almost half a pound of coffee, since I brew my own at home - and that can keep me going for almost a week!
$10 a month
SelectIt all starts to add up: if a few people are giving me $10 a month, it starts to feel like I'm really being paid for open source work.
$25 a month
SelectIf somebody gave me $25 once in thanks, that's awesome. To commit to it monthly is pretty spectacular!
$50 a month
SelectReally? You're amazing. Thank you!
$100 a month
SelectAt this tier, you're making a significant impact on my ability to move projects forward. Thank you for your support!
$500 a month
SelectI honestly don't know what to say. If you're willing to support me at this level, that is truly amazing, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.