Onwards!

The Development Team at Mozilla has been busy. Others on the team will be posting about what we’ve been up to in detail but I’d be remiss not to take this opportunity to point at fundraising.mozilla.org. In the last few weeks of 2013, my colleague Andrea offered not just a glimpse behind the curtain, but an invitation for donors/contributors/co-workers/everyone to get involved as we worked on Mozilla’s end of year fundraising campaign.
The level of broad based support we’ve seen has been truly inspiring and lays solid foundations on which we'll build in 2014. Huge numbers of people moved from being users of Firefox to actively supporting and funding our work.

We’ll carry forward this momentum as we move into the new year as part of the newly formed Engagement Team. This team will have responsibility for finding/supporting/encouraging/cajoling those who contribute either time or money to Mozilla. At last year's Mozilla Summit we spoke about "a million Mozillans" and for many at the time, it didn't really land or was viewed as a thought experiment. The engagement we saw as 2013 drew to a close should help to raise ambitions for  growing our volunteer/contributor/donor/mentor base.

In the 20 months since I joined Mozilla, my engagement/community efforts have usually been squeezed in around the day job so it's great to be part of the team who are on the hook for rallying people to our cause. That cause is pretty broadly defined and my approach to building community has always been to operate beyond the fringe of our activity, bring people back with me and then build a bridge.

Our work so far with O2 Think Big and the BBC both follow this model and I'll be working to ensure that those relationships continue to blossom and deliver value as well as seeking out new opportunities.  I'll also continue to contribute where possible to the wider community beyond Mozilla. When Tom and I first spoke about hosting the Wednesday night meetups at MozLDN the thing that excited me most was making a contribution to the community from which the next mySociety, or the next Mozilla could emerge. Keep an eye on mySociety's lanyrd page and add yourself if you fancy joining us on a Wednesday evening soon.