Where the WordPress Foundation started:
In the summer of 2025, the WordPress Foundation announced the Open Horizons scholarship program The program grants scholarships to selected individuals who serve as organizers, volunteers, or speakers at annual flagship WordCamp events — conferences where WordPress enthusiasts gather to share knowledge, build relationships, and network.
The process to award these scholarships was at best, clunky. The stipend coordinator would have to book meetings with each recipient across disparate time zones (e.g., Spain → India), and purchase the necessary travel ticket live on the call. This process was time-consuming for the staff and lacked autonomy for the recipients. Sending money cross-border posed a challenge.
How Crowded’s Digital Cards Freed up Foundation Staff Time
The WordPress Foundation staff turned to Crowded’s Expense Cards to award the travel stipends to their global recipients. The hours the staff used to spend manually booking tickets and scheduling meetings were no longer necessary!
How Expense Cards streamlined their grantmaking process
- Cards can be issued digitally to users worldwide instantly
- Recipients can purchase their tickets independently
- All purchases are transparent and trackable for the foundation
- Unused funds left in the cards can be easily redeemed back to the foundation’s primary checking account
Quick Reconciliation with the QuickBooks Integration
Harmony, the accountant, can easily reconcile the expenses made on the Crowded platform with her organization’s accounting software, with the handy Quickbooks online Crowded integration. The transactions made on Crowded’s platform flow into Quickbooks, making reconciliation quick and easy!
Grantee Management
The WordPress Foundation easily keeps track of its scholarship recipients on the Crowded platform by using the Contact tagging feature. Each recipient is tagged with the relevant data – the name and date of the conference that they are being sponsored for. This way, it is easy for the team to keep their grantees organized.
Happy Scholarship Recipients
Recipients of the scholarship now enjoy easy access to their stipend. Their digital Visa card is accepted globally, with easy online or in-person payments. They can track their spending and transactions in the Crowded app, and report any fraudulent activity if it comes up.
