Setting the stage for growing the Drupal project and community
Published on December 22, 2023 by Gus Austin
Quick update after almost exactly one year as a OCF project.
What did you accomplish during 2023? How did you use money?
Soon after OCF accepted our project we realized it was going to be difficult to keep a team together without a budget. Hence we scaled back our 2023 goals and used any budget we had on planning and strategy for 2024 and beyond.
What challenges did you face during 2023?
Aside from not having enough budget to sustain a team, we realized Drupal supporters didn't really understand (or like) the Open Collective platform. They also didn't understand why Open Collective was necessary when the Drupal Association already had a system for collecting funds and crediting sponsors and donors.
What did your Collective learn? How did you change or grow?
To address our challenges (and grow) we looked for ways to use Open Collective to complement and extend the Drupal Association strategy. We decided to team up and maintain a top-level Drupal collective rather than use multiple collectives (including ours) to manage the core project and community. To accommodate we moved the projects to the Drupal collective and pivoted to sustaining independent core and community contributors.
What are your plans for 2024? Anything exciting coming up?
Several Drupal Contribution team members are currently contributing to Open Collective adoption and integration (into the Drupal project and drupal.org). While work started soonafter Open Collective launched, the efforts of Drupal Contribution team members over the past year will not only validate Open Collective as a viable tool to sustain, but OCF as an entity that creates career opportunities for contributors of one of the largest, most diverse open source projects in the world.
What did you accomplish during 2023? How did you use money?
Soon after OCF accepted our project we realized it was going to be difficult to keep a team together without a budget. Hence we scaled back our 2023 goals and used any budget we had on planning and strategy for 2024 and beyond.
What challenges did you face during 2023?
Aside from not having enough budget to sustain a team, we realized Drupal supporters didn't really understand (or like) the Open Collective platform. They also didn't understand why Open Collective was necessary when the Drupal Association already had a system for collecting funds and crediting sponsors and donors.
What did your Collective learn? How did you change or grow?
To address our challenges (and grow) we looked for ways to use Open Collective to complement and extend the Drupal Association strategy. We decided to team up and maintain a top-level Drupal collective rather than use multiple collectives (including ours) to manage the core project and community. To accommodate we moved the projects to the Drupal collective and pivoted to sustaining independent core and community contributors.
What are your plans for 2024? Anything exciting coming up?
Several Drupal Contribution team members are currently contributing to Open Collective adoption and integration (into the Drupal project and drupal.org). While work started soonafter Open Collective launched, the efforts of Drupal Contribution team members over the past year will not only validate Open Collective as a viable tool to sustain, but OCF as an entity that creates career opportunities for contributors of one of the largest, most diverse open source projects in the world.