Ivan Boothe
Fri, 01/11/2008 - 04:56 — quixoticlife
What is your motivation for being a member of the Drupal Association?:
I have been inspired by Drupal's potential to facilitate effective, community-building websites and online campaigns for nonprofits and social change groups. As a full-time employee of a nonprofit, the Genocide Intervention Network — http://www.genocideintervention.net — I regularly advocate Drupal as the leading CMS and online organizing tool for social change. Quite simply, I want to be a Drupal ambassador to nonprofits and organizations working for social change.
What are the primary goals you would like to work on?:
Helping to document the possibilities Drupal holds for nonprofits and agents of social change. Fleshing out case studies of my own organization's successes with Drupal, and encouraging others to do the same. Advocating for "Drupal for Good" issues within the community, and promoting Drupal as an effective tool to nonprofits.
What strategy will you employ in order to accomplish said goals?:
I will readily admit to NOT being a PHP guru, and while I consider myself to be a talented web designer I am by no means a theme ninja. I am a professional online organizer with experience in a variety of areas (although the last three years were spent on genocide-related issues, I was previously involved in a student movement exposing and documenting the failures of the source code of a US electronic voting machine manufacturer, Diebold) — and I think I will be an effective ambassador for Drupal. Many of the needs of my nonprofit — and many nonprofits — are already answered by existing modules. What is needed is more documentation, case studies, and advocacy demonstrating how to turn those individual elements into an effective online presence. I know there are web firms like CivicSpace and initiatives like CiviCRM that often connect nonprofits with Drupal, but in my opinion they are only one piece of the puzzle. *** While discussion forums such as the Drupal for Good group exist within Drupal, it is often less of a presence in many of the more general nonprofit tech community, places like the Nonprofit Technology Conference run by NTEN, NetSquared, the Progressive Exchange, nonprofit IT Meetups and the like. Without an experienced online organizer — not simply a technical whiz — to explain the possibilities Drupal holds for social change, nonprofits will continue to gravitate toward the well-marketed proprietary systems such as Convio and Kintera. Unfortunately, many nonprofits don't even realize what they're missing out on. With some strategic thinking, writing and outreach, I think solid documentation and case studies as well as in-person advocacy will make a big difference.
What yearly budget would you need in order to accomplish said goals?:
I love jredding's method of Drupal buttons, and certainly this kind of "schwag" — which is virtually demanded at some nonprofit tech conferences — might be of use. But more important, I think, is simply some time and energy focused on this subject. I am confident I can dedicate myself to these tasks without further compensation (besides community support!). Should the Drupal Association decide a presence at nonprofit tech conferences would be helpful, and should the Association like me to fill that role, I would need to be compensated for attendance costs. However, there is much that can be done with no budget at all; I work for a nonprofit, after all — I know how to do a lot with very little!
What strengths/experience you have to help you accomplish the goals?:
As the Genocide Intervention Network's "Internet Strategy Coordinator," I am a visible leader within the "nonprofit tech" community, regularly speaking and writing on how nonprofits can best utilize web tools for online organizing, including panels hosted by the New Organizing Institute, NetSquared and the Internet Advocacy Roundtable. I developed a project for the Genocide Intervention Network that was selected by the NetSquared community as a "featured project" for the 2007 international conference, and have continued to be an active participant in the "nonprofit social commons." *** More recently, NetSquared funded my attendance at the November 2007 Lullabot Drupal trainings. Noting the lack of nonprofit participation at the training — and, in my experience, at many of the local Drupal meetups and unconferences that I've attended — I wrote up a quick article on the strengths of Drupal for nonprofits. (The article wasn't posted right away, and I fully admit to being motivated to finally clean it up and post it as a process of developing this application!) "Drupal for Nonprofits, or, How to Build Social Networks for Change" can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/225w6k
How long have you been using Drupal, and how'd you get your start?:
I began using Drupal in the summer of 2005 when I was looking for a comprehensive CMS to handle the Genocide Intervention Network's website, which until that spring had been a single page on a university-hosted website. After several years of using a custom CMS that I helped to develop (why-war.org, which encompassed the Diebold electronic voting campaign) the promise of a full-featured CMS with a strong community of developers was irresistible. After exploring the other FOSS possibilities, Drupal became the clear favorite. *** I developed one site in 4.6, which is no longer online. In 4.7, I developed the advocacy site, DarfurScores.org,which is still going strong. Our main site was developed in 4.7 by an outside firm, and my role has mostly been implementing particular modules one at a time. A third 4.7 campaign site, Time to Protect, is no longer online. I designed and developed our newest campaign site, AskTheCandidates.org, in Drupal 5. As a side project, I also recently launched an e-commerce site, Ringsforever.com, on Drupal 5. I am in the process of finalizing a launch for a community events website, and my personal site, naturally, also runs Drupal.
Have you made existing community contributions, and if so, what?:
I have been socially active since high school (secondary school). Beginning in college, I began to study nonviolent social movements, and earned a major in peace and conflict studies, with a thesis focusing on third-party nonviolent intervention and peacekeeping. After graduating, I and several other students who had started the Genocide Intervention Network "took it professional" and I've been serving in a variety of roles involving web development, online organizing and public relations since then. *** As a part of Drupal, I helped get the Philadelphia Area Drupal group off the ground, but have largely ceded leadership to another fantastic community member, Nate Gasser. (Part of leadership is knowing when to step back!) I have attended numerous Drupal meetups and unconferences in DC, New York and Philly, as well as the Lullabot training last fall. As I noted above, however, my nonprofit's needs often don't lead to me needing to do much module development myself, so most of my Drupal work has focused on theme development. I see myself more as a community activist than a Drupal coder.
How much time can you invest in your Drupal Association work?:
11-15 hours/month
Apply for Board of Directors membership:
Apply for Permanent Membership only
Statutes:
I have read and understood the Statutes of the Drupal Association. I am prepared to participate by following those statutes.
Comments
Added some hours
After fleshing out the answers to Angie's questions below, I realized the ideas I was proposing would require a larger share of human-hours and, after thinking carefully about my commitments, I increased my proposed time commitment from 8 hours/month to 11-15 hours/month.
If the Association would like to only consider my pre-deadline application, of course, I can certainly work fewer hours :)
Nice portfolio of non-profit/activism work
In reading through your goals, the ones that seem to be repeated are documentation and case studies, aimed directly at non-profits to help "sell" them on the idea of using Drupal. But since this type of documentation/marketing work is something that can be contributed by anyone in the community at any time, could you explain more about how you feel a role in the Drupal Association will help you get the word out to non-profits and get them on board?
Representation
Sure Angie, that's an excellent question.
In my experience the nonprofit world -- and especially the nonprofit tech world -- revolves a lot around vendors. Because nonprofits often don't have the time or internal expertise to make a full review of every available option the way a for-profit company would, they rely significantly on the proposals they receive from vendors, as well as the "market penetration" of particular vendors. In other words, they know that their friends at the other nonprofit use Kintera and they're doing OK, so hey, why not go with them?
These proprietary vendors are a significant presence for nonprofits -- not only responding to RFPs, which Drupal developers can do as well, of course -- but also publishing "tips for nonprofits" newsletters, regularly performing "industry benchmarks" comparing their product against other proprietary systems in the context of nonprofit needs, sponsoring nonprofit tech conferences and being present to answer questions and give out "schwag," etc. These proprietary systems aggressively market themselves to nonprofits, and -- especially due to their existing market share -- "accidental techies" in nonprofits and nonprofit boards/EDs are often swayed by their arguments.
Compared to this, Drupal right now can come off as a gamble. Even with published case studies, without more systematic advocacy and marketing toward nonprofits, Drupal will always seem like a less-professional option. Boards and EDs, in particular, want to see that the community responds to and is supportive of the specific needs of nonprofits.
So, my specific idea would be to build on the Drupal for Good group and create a separate website, Drupal for Nonprofits (or something to that effect). This would have four major components:
Beyond that, I think establishing an Association presence at nonprofit and nonprofit tech conferences might be beneficial, but in terms of time-efficiency, a centralized Drupal nonprofit portal would give us the most bang for the buck, in my opinion.
The short answer: EDs don't want to hear from some blogger that Drupal is cool. They want to see metrics, they want to see its effectiveness in the context of a nonprofit's needs, and they want an "Official Drupal Representative" to sell them on why it's the best choice. Insofar as the Association can establish Permanent Members to advocate for the project, I think it would be useful to have some of them focused on this particular area.
2008 wishlist
Oh and, in terms of the 2008 wishlist -- I'm not sure if "reaching out to nonprofits" is actually an identified priority, but I think this would fall under "provide visibility for interesting Drupal projects," "Organize a presence at major conferences," and perhaps "Attract more people to help improve the infrastructure." I'm not sure if this last one is in regards to technical chops, funding, or features. It seems to me that the more nonprofits are going with Drupal developers, the more their needs in terms of particular features/modules will be furthered within the community.
tickbox error?
Are you applying to become a permanent member or also a board member? If you want to become a board member can you tell what position you are applying for?
Permanent member only
Sorry about that -- I had thought for sure I unticked that box -- it's fixed now.
I hope it's not too long!
I hope it's not too long! I tried to break it up a little bit with the ............ since line breaks didn't seem to be acceptable...