It’s that time of year when companies are looking ahead to next year and budgets are being negotiated and finalized. With that in mind, we want to communicate the full menu of options for businesses interested in giving back to the Drupal project, and engaging with the community to share ideas and identify potential partners, customers and talent.
I’m very excited to welcome two new members to the DA staff. These new staff members will have an immediate and direct impact on supporting and growing the Drupal community through DrupalCons, global training events and effective communication to the community and beyond. Please help me welcome them!
Last year, The Drupal Association launched the Supporting Partner Program. The program was to function as a way to crowdsource funds for strategic community initiatives; namely creating a tech team to improve the community’s home Drupal.org. We are so thankful to the 36 companies who stepped up to support this effort.
It goes without saying that Drupal.org is a big site to manage and requires a lot of resources. Resources are needed not only to maintain the site, but yes...improve it! Drupal.org needs to be upgraded to D7. Developers want better collaboration tools. Site builders want to find the right modules for the job, faster. To tackle this brain-smacking project we needed a team, the D.O Tech Team. But how to fund it?
Drupal community members are supporters of the Drupal Association because they want to support the Drupal project and DA membership is an easy way to do so. When you join or renew, you get more than just good karma, and you give Drupal more than just member funds.
The Drupal Association is pleased to announce a new Supporting Partner Program to allow a company to invest in Drupal Association community initiatives that will significantly help the overall Drupal community. Examples include funding for Drupal.org improvements, including the recent sprint that started the upgrade process of Drupal.org to Drupal 7, and hiring a web development team to make improvements on Drupal.org for web developers, site builders and businesses.
This Friday, February 24, 2012 many of our community leaders are hosting low-cost or free Drupal Trainings through a new initiative we are forming called Drupal Days. While the Drupal Association will officially launch its Drupal Days program in June, 2012, the Drupal Association is very pleased and encouraged to see trainings taking place this week all over the world. This is a key initiative for the association to promote Drupal even more broadly this year. Drupal Days are full and half-day trainings introducing people to Drupal, or those wanting to learn more.
Seven projects in five countries have been awarded almost $10,000 in grants from the Drupal Association to grow the Drupal community through camps, code sprints and open source curriculum.
The Drupal Community Cultivation Grants launched in June 2011 with the goal of transforming, supporting and educating Drupal communities around the world. The first grant cycle ended on July 31st with 14 projects applying for a total of $38,266.
Recipients include individuals, local user groups, regional Drupal Camps, and the Drupal multilingual initiative. The full list is below.
If you have a project that would help grow the Drupal Community, round two of the grant cycle is open now and the deadline is September 30th 2011. Full details of the criteria and application process are at https://association.drupal.org/grants.
The past few months have been a time of great change at the Drupal Association headquarters. We've been focusing on the future of the organization, the community and the project by adjusting our governance model. We also understood that there has been some confusion about how Drupal VZW (the Belgian nonprofit that holds our membership) and DrupalCon, Inc. (the U.S. nonprofit that produces DrupalCons) interacted, and we've been working to remedy that confusion and also increase efficiencies between the two organizations.
Drupal Association membership just got a little sweeter. The Drupal Association is now proud to offer its members discounts to some well-known retailers and service providers like Acquia, ActiveState, Varnish Software, and Zend. We're partnering with these companies in order to provide the people who support us something nice.
The Drupal Association General Assembly met on March 2 to elect new Permanent Members and select a Board of Directors. The Assembly elected six new Permanent Members from the thirteen valid applications that were received:
Following the election of the new Permanent Members, the entire General Assembly (including the newly-elected permanent members) met to select the Association’s Board of Directors. The Assembly voted for each board applicant. The position of President (held by Dries Buytaert) and Treasurer (held by Jacob Redding), were not up for election this term per the Association's statutes.
The following existing board members ran for a position on the board: Angela Byron (webchick), Tiffany Farriss (farriss), Larry Garfield (Crell), Cary Gordon (highermath), Gerhard Killesreiter (killes), and Kieran Lal (Amazon). Permanent member Laura Scott (laura s) also ran for a board position focusing on membership. All were elected.
The Drupal Association thanks everyone who ran for election this year. Look forward to hearing more about the Association’s ongoing initiatives in the coming weeks, and how all members of the community (not just those in the Association's General Assembly) can play a part in helping Drupal flourish!
It’s that time of year when companies are looking ahead to next year and budgets are being negotiated and finalized. With that in mind, we want to communicate the full menu of options for businesses interested in giving back to the Drupal project, and engaging with the community to share ideas and identify potential partners, customers and talent. 
Last year, The Drupal Association launched the 
Drupal community members are supporters of the Drupal Association because they want to support the Drupal project and DA membership is an easy way to do so. When you join or renew, you get more than just good karma, and you give Drupal more than just member funds.
