By Drupal Association on

Over the past few months, the Drupal Association has been independently verifying companies that have qualified for the new Drupal Certified Partner program. The goal of this program is to recognise companies that not only support the Drupal Association’s operations and infrastructure financially, but contribute code to the Drupal open source project and volunteer time and expertise to drive innovation for the Drupal project and community. 

As a result, we’re making some incremental changes to the Drupal.org marketplace that you’ll see now and in coming months:

  • Drupal Certified Partners are now recognised with an official badge based on the partner tier they have qualified for. This is a combination of their financial contribution, volume of contribution credits and verified case studies. Please contact partnerships@association.drupal.org if you want to know more about how to qualify.
  • Partner profile page have been refreshed to focus on case studies and contributions. 
  • Contributor roles are a new way to recognise individual community contributions such as volunteering and conference presentations.
  • The Office locations filter has been updated to ensure that companies operating in their local region can be found there.

In the coming months, the following changes will start taking effect:

  • More public detail on the way that contribution credits are earned and weighted. 
  • Drupal Certified Partners will have prioritized listings on the Drupal.org Marketplace, followed by Drupal Supporting Partners. Organizations who are not part of a partner program will be deprioritized from listings under this approach.
  • Drupal Certified Partners will receive increased visibility in their region and referrals from the Drupal Association.
  • The Drupal Organization Member program will be discontinued, meaning companies will need to transition to the Supporting Partner Program as a bare minimum to maintain a prioritized Marketplace listing.
  • Organization profile pages will remain free to create and maintain on Drupal.org, but eventually only Certified and Supporting Partners will be featured in Drupal.org Marketplace listings.

We understand that changes like this can be a source of confusion, and the Drupal Association is committed to ensuring that we’re transparent about the goals and open to feedback on the proposed approaches before they’re implemented. 

In the meantime, some common questions that we’ve already received include:

  • Question: My company is a strong Drupal code contributor but not a Supporting Partner. It does not seem fair that our profile will be lower in the Drupal.org marketplace.

    Answer: Our analysis of the biggest contributors is that the vast majority are already in the Supporting Partner Program. This recognizes that without a sustainably funded Drupal Association, the infrastructure that facilitates code contribution would not exist in its present form. 

    Code contribution is vital to the health of the Drupal project. The marketplace changes we are rolling out are designed to increase code contribution.  Specifically, code contribution is a key requirement for any Certified Partner.  If you are already making code contributions, you will probably qualify to become a Certified Partner for a minimum USD$1,000 per year.

  • Question: The Drupal Certified Partner Program seems designed to favor large companies in the higher tiers with its fees and contribution thresholds?

    Answer: The program has been designed so that a smaller company with an established contribution policy can qualify for a higher certification tier. Of the current Top 10 companies (March 2022) listed on the Drupal.org Marketplace only three have more than 100 staff and the majority average 50 staff with a few substantially smaller than that.

  • Question: My company is very small. How can I maintain a Drupal.org Marketplace listing?

    Answer: Any company can join the Community Tier of the Supporting Partner Program for USD$1,000 per year. Attain more than 150 weighted contribution credits annually and you will qualify as a Bronze Certified Partner. This could be accomplished with roughly 15 core contribution credits, or 30 contributions to a highly-used contributed module.