About a month ago I was augmenting a client site with some added functionality that, while technically out of scope, I was able to add quickly thanks to a plugin. For whatever reason on this particular instance, I was really struck by how much value I was able to add to a client site thanks to that  plugin. There was relatively little effort on my part to make the client happy due to a significant level of effort by the developer that built the plugin. Regardless, it didn’t cost me, or my client anything more than a little time.

Because I realized how much more I’ve been able to do with almost every site I’ve built in the last two years thanks to plugins, I decided to try to start a movement, not out of guilt or self interest, as I have never released a plugin, but rather out of gratitude to the plugin developers who give us their code and in most instances get nothing in return. They do so of their own free will and (in my opinion) should not “expect” anything in return when they do (and most of them don’t), but that doesn’t mean that our thanks aren’t appreciated and won’t go a log way toward keeping things going, to our benefit and theirs.

So I’m asking anyone that has ever gotten even the slightest benefit from a WordPress plugin to say thank you on March 1st by making a small donation, $5 (more if you like) to the plugin/developer of your choice.

I’ve personally committed to $100 to 20 different developers.  If you have little extra money in your Paypal account, or can simply find a way to reach out and say thank you I’m confident it will be appreciated.

Almost as importantly, we need your help spreading the word! Help us to do so by blogging about it, tweeting it or promoting the idea anyway you can think of.

This isn’t intended to make anyone rich. It’s simply intended to say thank you and celebrate the often unsung friends who enable our websites to do so much more than just be blogs.

Twitter Hastag: #wppdd

If you choose to make a donation on March 1st be sure to tweet it and let us know what plugin you donated to help spread the word, I’ve got some suggested language on my original post about WordPress Plugin Developer Day.

Hopefully this will make you feel as good as it does me, they deserve our gratitude.