The Processing Foundation was founded in 2012 after more than a decade of work with the original Processing software. The Foundation’s mission is to promote software literacy within the visual arts, and visual literacy within technology-related fields — and to make these fields accessible to diverse communities. Our goal is to empower people of all interests and backgrounds to learn how to program and make creative work with code, especially those who might not otherwise have access to these tools and resources.

We do this by developing and distributing a group of related software projects, which includes Processing (Java), p5.js (JavaScript), and Processing.py (Python), and facilitating partnerships and collaborations with allied organizations and individuals, to build a more diverse community around software and the arts. The Processing Foundation is specifically invested in expanding the communities of technology and the arts to include and support those who have not had equal access because of their race, gender, class, sexuality, and/or ability. We sponsor a Fellowship Program that funds exploratory, creative, and technical research; support an Advocacy Program, which focuses on nurturing diverse communities and their specific projects; produce public events that provide platforms for collaboration between our contributors; and take part in panels and talks that spread the word about the need for diversity in these fields.

At our core is the philosophy and politics of free, libre, open-source software. We see software as a medium, something that connects two things. We view it as a means for thinking and making. We believe it should be free. We believe that learning to program is not about acquiring a certain skill set, but is instead a creative and exploratory process. We believe software, and the tools to learn it, should be accessible to everyone. We believe software literacy and an understanding of media of all kinds is essential knowledge for today.