docs(blog): add blog post on empowering non-code contributors

blog/2026-07-30-empowering-non-code-contributors.md

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+---
+title: 'Empowering non-code contributors'
+description: Easy governance hacks to break down barriers.
+date: 2026-07-30
+authors: [castrojo]
+tags: [community]
+---
+
+One of the nicest things about being in the CNCF is projects can generate their
+own governance. Our layperson description for how CNCF governance works is
+typically "Do what you say you do on the tin."
+
+<!-- truncate -->
+
+### Have your Governance Match your Community
+
+CNCF maintainers are Founders, CTO, CEO, Marketing, Tech Lead, VP Sales, HR, and
+every title under the book. The CNCF constantly bombards you with project
+opportunities: booths, slots for talks, etc. All of this can be overwhelming to
+maintainers.
+
+Feel free to expand your governance where it fits. Today's example is to expand
+a typical boring CODEOWNERS file to empower folks.
+
+First off is something I find myself reminding projects constantly: Your
+governance is yours to adapt! You can add a few simple lines to your existing
+documentation to bring in people:
+
+:::tip[Check out how `bootc` does it]
+
+Defined non-code contributors in
+[MAINTAINERS.md](https://github.com/bootc-dev/bootc/blob/main/MAINTAINERS.md)
+
+:::
+
+> Examples: CNCF Service Desk tickets, coordinating with CNCF Project and Events
+> teams, and LFX Administration. No code or code review rights.
+
+We're so used to the files in our repositories being only relegated to the code!
+
+### It's about trust
+
+There are five global KubeCons and tons of [KCDs](https://www.cncf.io/kcds/) -
+scaling this at the contributor level is difficult, which is why decoupling it
+from the code is a nice hack.
+
+This lets you pull in those community managers, project and product managers -
+they bring in those crucial skills that we all need. And when they are declared
+in your governance as Contributors it shows that the project is looking at its
+contributor ladder as a whole.
+
+Thanks to Kapil Thangavelu who showed me this little word hack at
+[Cloud Custodian](https://cloudcustodian.io).
+
+### Git is our source of truth
+
+The CNCF staff use the files that you put in git as THE source of truth. It
+determines your event resources, everything. It never hurts to
+[check the list](https://github.com/cncf/foundation/tree/main) for correctness,
+it should reflect the state of your project. (Note: the GitHub webui struggles
+with this file, you need to check it out of the repo or use raw mode).