About W3C Membership: How to Become a W3C Member

To Become a W3C Member

Panel session at W3C Technical Plenary Week 2005

Your organization completes a Membership Application.
W3C reviews the Membership Application. If W3C approves your Application, you begin to enjoy the benefits of W3C Membership as soon as you would like.
Your organization and the three W3C Hosts (MIT, ERCIM, and Keio University) sign a customized version of the standard W3C Member Agreement. Note that (Interim) Membership Benefits only begin once W3C has received signed Member Agreements from your organization.

If you have any questions about W3C Membership, Membership fees, or the process for becoming a W3C Member, please consult one of our Membership contacts.

If you represent a current W3C Member and are looking for information about Member access, please see this information about passwords for access to the Member Web site.

Before You Start

Before you start the Member Application process, we recommend that you:

Review the standard W3C Member Agreement. This is the legal contract that your organization and W3C will sign and is the basis of your W3C Membership fees, rights, and benefits.
Review the pages about W3C Membership, especially the Membership FAQ.

Completion of Membership Application

The W3C Membership Application consists of a series of three electronic forms. Each time you submit a form, your changes are saved at W3C. This means that you do not have to complete the entire Application in one sitting.

Step 1

Provide initial contact information. In Step 1, you:

Provide your name and email address. During the application process, W3C will send all correspondence to this email address.
Identify the name of your organization and the country of your organization's headquarters. W3C Membership fees and the currencies used to express those fees depend on the country you select. More information on how W3C computes Membership fees is available.
Choose the start date for your Membership benefits. This date will be used to determine some information shown in Step 2, such as the Membership fee.

When you submit this form, W3C will send you an email with information about advancing to Step 2. Please save the email as it contains information you will use for the duration of the application process, in particular, a unique Web address (URI) for your Application.

Step 2

Provide additional information about your organization. In Step 2, you provide additional information about your organization that W3C will use to prepare a customized version of the standard W3C Member Agreement.

Step 3

Request W3C review of Application. In Step 3, you review the information you have provided (or return to Step 2 to modify it) and agree to certain conditions in order to receive interim Member benefits.

At the top of the form for Step 3, you will find a link to a customized Member Agreement. Before you complete Step 3, we recommend that you circulate it among the appropriate people in your organization, especially the person who will sign the contract.

Please note that, per the Membership Agreement, the initial term of Membership is for three (3) years.

Once you have completed step three:

W3C will acknowledge, by email, receipt of your Application and will begin to review it. If any information is incorrect or incomplete, W3C will contact you.
Your Application will become "read-only" to you. Any further changes will be made by W3C; important changes will only be made after discussion with you.

W3C Review and Approval of Membership Application

W3C will notify you by email when your Membership Application has been approved (or whether there are problems with the application). The approval notification will include:

the Web address (URI) of the customized Member Agreement that resulted from your Membership Application.
instructions for signing the customized Membership Agreement and returning it to W3C.
an invoice and instructions for payment of your first Membership fee.

Please allow 5 business days for W3C to review your completed Membership Application. If, for any reason, W3C expects any delays in processing your Application, requires additional information, or cannot approve your Membership Application, we will contact you.

Summarizing the email you will receive from W3C during the application process:

You will receive one email after you have completed Step 1, explaining how to advance to Step 2.
You will receive one email after you have completed Step 3, acknowledging reception of your completed Membership Application.
You will receive one email after W3C has reviewed your application, indicating whether the application has been approved or requires additional discussion.
You will receive one email after W3C has received signed copies of your Member Agreement.

Note: W3C Management reserves the right to review the eligibility of the Applicant for the organization type and fee level chosen in the Membership Application.

Signing the Membership Agreement

Once you have received notification from W3C that your Member Application has been approved, please print four copies of the customized Membership Agreement. Have your Contract Agent (named in Step 2 of the Membership Application) sign all four of them and return them to the address provided in the email approval of your application. One copy will be returned to you when it is fully executed by all three W3C Hosts.

Once W3C has received your signed Member Agreements, your Interim Membership Benefits will either start immediately, or at the beginning of the next quarter, according to what you requested in the Application.

Reasons for Suspension of Interim Membership

Your Membership formally begins once all parties have signed the customized Member Agreement and W3C has received payment of the Membership fee.

Your Interim Membership will be suspended (after W3C Team review) if W3C does not receive payment of the first invoice within 45 days of the start of your Interim Membership Benefits.

Now that you have reviewed the steps for becoming a W3C Member, we look forward to receiving your completed Membership Application.