Celebrating 15 Years

Lynn Root

May 12, 2026 | Tag: » Finances, Global, Governance, PyLadies, Transparency

Celebrating 15 years of PyLadies: Building for the next Chapter

This year, PyLadies turns 15.

For 15 years, PyLadies has been a place for people to learn Python, find community, build confidence, organize locally, speak publicly, mentor others, and become leaders in the Python ecosystem. That legacy exists because of tireless volunteer work from chapter organizers, event organizers, speakers, mentors, sponsors, and community members around the world.

A 15-year milestone is a reason to celebrate. It is also a good time to ensure that PyLadies has stable footing to continue for the next 15 years.

The organization we are stewarding today is larger and more complex than the one that began in 2011. PyLadies now spans many countries, chapters, events, funding needs, infrastructure needs, and relationships, including our fiscal sponsorship relationship with the Python Software Foundation. With that growth comes a responsibility to be clear about how decisions are made, how funds are handled, how community input is gathered, and how we protect the long-term sustainability of PyLadies.

Over the past several months, the PyLadies Global Council has been working on a governance charter as part of that effort. This post shares an update on the charter, our financial position, and the work ahead.

The charter work is one part of that larger stewardship effort. As PyLadies enters its next chapter, we want our governance to be clear enough to support trust, and flexible enough to support growth.

Charter update

In last year’s transparency post, we shared that one of the Global Council’s major priorities was developing a governance charter for PyLadies. Since then, we have prepared a draft charter and shared it with the PSF Board and a small group of PyLadies advisors for early review before opening it to broader community feedback.

Our original goal was for the charter to serve as a high-level governance framework: a document that defines the Global Council’s role, the basic structure of PyLadies governance, and the relationship between PyLadies and the PSF. We expected some operational details, such as election procedures, workgroup processes, and financial workflows, to live in separate policies that could be updated more easily over time.

The PSF’s feedback helped clarify that some topics need more detail in the charter itself, especially where there are financial, legal, or community trust implications. In particular, the PSF recommended adding more specificity around:

• The practical boundaries of the fiscal sponsorship relationship;
  
• membership eligibility and voting rights;
  
• election mechanics;
  
• Code of Conduct responsibilities and escalation paths;
  
• the relationship between PyLadies, the PSF, chapters, and events such as PyLadiesCon;
  
• contingency plans for situations where governance or financial responsibilities need to be clearly defined.

We agree with this feedback. Our next step is to make targeted revisions to the charter that provide stronger guarantees and clearer accountability, without turning the charter into a full operations manual.

Because of this additional review and revision cycle, our original election timeline may shift. We believe that is the right tradeoff. It is more important to get the governance foundation right than to rush into elections under a framework that still has unresolved questions.

What happens next

The Global Council is working with the PSF to align on what belongs in the charter itself versus what can live in separate policies. Once we have incorporated that feedback, we plan to publish the revised draft for broader community review.

Alongside the charter, we expect to develop or update policies covering areas such as:

• elections and eligibility;
  
• transparency and communications;
  
• financial approvals and event budgets;
  
• workgroups and committees;
  
• chapter good standing;
  
• infrastructure management;
  
• Code of Conduct escalation;
  
• conflicts of interest.

Our goal is for the charter to provide a stable foundation, while policies give us enough flexibility to adapt as PyLadies grows.

Financial overview

PyLadies operates as a fiscally sponsored project of the Python Software Foundation. This means PyLadies does not have its own separate legal entity or bank account. PyLadies funds are held by the PSF, and the PSF provides accounting, tax, legal, invoicing, and compliance infrastructure.

A note on accuracy: These numbers reflect our best accounting as of publication. Some invoices may still be outstanding, and figures have been rounded for readability.

In 2025, PyLadies had a strong financial year overall:

Where the Money Comes From

PyLadies is funded through three main channels: corporate sponsorships secured for our events, proceeds from the annual PyLadies Auction at PyCon US, and direct donations from the community. In 2025, sponsorships were the single largest source of income, driven by strong support for PyLadiesCon.

*In-kind auction items represent donated goods recorded at fair market value. This is offset by an equal expense entry and has no net effect on the balance.

Where the Money Goes

The majority of PyLadies spending directly serves our community: funding event programming, financial aid for attendees who could not otherwise participate, and physical swag and materials.

Our two largest expenses in 2025 were travel grants and financial aid ($35,000) and catering for the PyLadies Auction dinner ($30,744). The PyLadies Luncheon catering ($8,555) was also a significant event cost.

Travel grants & financial aid. In 2025, $35,000 was released to PyCon US 2025 to fund travel grants and financial aid. In previous years we have been able to give even more, $50,000 in 2023, and $73,000 in 2024. We would love to grow this number again, both for PyCon US and for regional PyCons around the world.

PyLadiesCon. PyLadiesCon is our own community-run virtual conference. In 2025 it raised ~$53,000 in sponsorships and donations, and incurred ~$3,900 in direct operating costs (design services, speaker equipment grants, conference software, stickers, and fees).

Swag & merchandise. The ~$3,200 in swag costs covered t-shirts, stickers, and other PyCon-related items distributed and available for suggested donation to attendees and community members at PyLadies events.

Community grants & awards. Beyond PyCon US travel grants, PyLadies directly funded community initiatives in 2024 and 2025. We would love to fund more requests like these, and at higher amounts, in future years. Here is a summary:

2025: PyCon Namibia grant for Global Council member to attend ($1,400); PythonHo Regional Conference in Ghana ($500); PyLadies BR Conference in Brazil ($500); Nairobi PyLadies community event ($250); speaker equipment grants to four PyLadiesCon speakers ($200 each); award plaques for Outstanding PyLady Award 2025 ($282).

2024: PyCon US 2024 travel grants ($71,800) which includes two 2024 Outstanding PyLady Award recipients; speaker equipment grants to four PyLadiesCon speakers; 2024 Outstanding PyLady Award financial grant ($1,000); PyLadies contribution to a pre-PyCon Chile PyLadies event hosted by Asociacion Python Software Chile ($100).

Many of our PyLadiesCon sponsors are also PyCon US sponsors who generously extended their support for PyLadies programming and activities. Without them and our strong base of community donations, we would be unable to do this work.

We are grateful to everyone who sponsored, donated, organized, volunteered, and participated. These funds directly support PyLadies programming, access to events, community building, and the operational infrastructure that keeps the organization running.

At the same time, the program-by-program view shows that not all funds are interchangeable. Some funds are raised for specific purposes or events. Others are unrestricted. Some programs may show a surplus while others show a deficit. In 2025 alone, over $46,000 in grants and operational expenses were charged to the General fund against over $8,000 in incoming donations. The surpluses from the Auction and other programs currently offset this, keeping the overall balance healthy at ~$130,000, but it is something we are actively working to bring back into balance.

This is one reason financial oversight matters: having money “somewhere in PyLadies” does not mean every request, event, chapter, or initiative can spend freely from the same pool.

Why approvals and financial process matter

We want PyLadies to support chapters, events, volunteers, and community initiatives. We also have a responsibility to protect PyLadies and the PSF.

Because PyLadies is fiscally sponsored by the PSF, financial decisions are not just internal community decisions. They can involve nonprofit compliance, donor restrictions, contracts, tax rules, trademark policies, international sanctions requirements, and the PSF’s legal and fiduciary responsibilities.

That means some activities need review or approval before they happen, including things like:

• raising funds under the PyLadies name;
  
• selling merchandise using the PyLadies logo;
  
• signing contracts or committing to vendors;
  
• spending funds for PyLadiesCon or other events;
  
• accepting sponsorships or donations;
  
• starting new chapters in jurisdictions that may raise compliance questions;
  
• using PyLadies or PSF infrastructure for chapter-level fundraising.

These processes are not meant to block community work. They exist so that PyLadies can continue operating responsibly, legally, and sustainably.

For example, when an event plans expenses before sponsorship funds are fully secured and received, PyLadies and the PSF may still be responsible for those costs. When a chapter raises money using the PyLadies name, those funds may have implications for the PSF’s 501©(3) status and accounting obligations. When PyLadies logos are used on merchandise, trademark policy compliance may apply.

These details can feel bureaucratic, but they are part of what allows PyLadies to exist as a global organization with fiscal sponsorship, tax-exempt donation pathways, and community trust.

Transparency and capacity

We also want to acknowledge where we can do better.

The Global Council has published monthly meeting notes on GitHub since its inception, and we have shared updates through the website and other official channels. Still, we know that meeting notes are not the same as proactive communication. Not everyone knows where to look, and not every decision is easy to understand without context.

We want to improve this by publishing clearer updates, making policies easier to find, and giving the community more visibility into governance and financial decisions.

At the same time, it is important to be honest about capacity. The Global Council is volunteer-run. Council members are not paid, and much of the ongoing work is carried by a small number of people. Governance work, financial review, chapter support, event coordination, policy writing, and PSF coordination all take time.

Part of the purpose of the charter is to make this work more sustainable: to clarify responsibilities, create better processes, and make it easier for more people to contribute without relying on informal knowledge or individual burnout.

How the community can engage

As we continue this work, we ask the community to engage with care and good faith.

Questions are welcome. Feedback is welcome. Accountability matters. At the same time, PyLadies governance has to balance many responsibilities that may not be visible from the outside, including legal compliance, fiscal sponsorship requirements, donor intent, financial risk, chapter needs, event needs, and long-term sustainability.

We are committed to building a structure that supports PyLadies not just for the next event or budget cycle, but for the next decade and beyond.

In the coming months, we plan to:

• revise the charter based on PSF and advisor feedback;
  
• publish the updated draft for community review;
  
• share clearer information about financial processes and approvals;
  
• continue publishing Council meeting notes;
  
• develop supporting policies for elections, transparency, finances, and workgroups;
  
• grow the travel grant program and expand support to regional PyCons worldwide;
  
• develop a chapter starter support program - including an annual allocation for supplies like stickers and banners - and create a path for chapters to fundraise and manage their own funds;
  
• invite community participation in ways that are structured, sustainable, and accountable.

Thank you to everyone who has helped PyLadies grow, organize, fundraise, mentor, teach, sponsor, and build community around the world. This work exists because of you, and our goal is to make sure PyLadies has the governance, transparency, and financial stewardship it needs to keep going.

Fifteen years of PyLadies is an extraordinary community achievement. The best way we can honor that history is by making sure PyLadies has the structure, transparency, and financial stewardship it needs to thrive for the next 15 years.