History

Many local communities of Drupal users have found value in forming a local Drupal Association to organize their regional efforts, promote local business, support local camps, and to help coordinate with the global Drupal Association.

One early example of a local association that is very active and vibrant today is the local association in the Netherlands. In order to remain independent from their agency brands, whilst organizing camps and receiving sponsorship funds, a group of Drupal Shop owners and community members decided to setup the Dutch Drupal Association (Stichting Drupal Nederland), in short ‘SDN’.

The Dutch Drupal Association aims to promote and protect the brand of Drupal, organize events, promote Drupal towards potential users and brands and upcoming talent at business and tech conferences. The Dutch Drupal Association also celebrate the best Drupal projects by organizing the Splash Awards! Drupal-in-a-Day (Drupal Training Day) aims to put Drupal on the curriculum of tech universities, with a special day including students and their mentors. All in all a win-win for the Drupal community at large as both the developers and the agencies benefit!

At first SDN organized Drupalcamps (the Drupaljam). When another group of business owners and community members decided to promote Drupal at large tech events and started fundraising for this under the name SDBN, (stichting Drupal Bedrijven Nederland) Drupal Business Foundation Netherlands, SDN noticed the success and discussed the integration of these efforts. Both foundations merged under the name SDN. With combined forces, SDN became more successful. They saw the needs of marketing and PR for Drupal and became more active. They came up with the idea of organizing an award show for the best Drupal projects. This became known as the Drupal Splash Awards. They also organized several Drupal training days, Business diners and new year celebrations. With the profits made from the events, SDN decided it was time to step up the game in terms of marketing and hired a PR person to write article and press releases. They got in contact with major publishers and news magazines. With success. Drupal was presented to a larger audience.

Many local associations in Europe have been created with a similar model, but there are also local associations that already exist in other parts of the world, or that are in the process of organizing - particularly in regions like Africa, Central and South America, and India.

Why have a local association?

Every regional community will have different needs, a different local business ecosystem, and different local regulations governing non-profit organizations. That said, here are some of the most common reasons why local communities have chosen to self-organize as local associations:

  • To create a fiscal entity to help manage regional camp/event funds
  • To organize collective efforts to promote local Drupal business
  • To partner with local entities such as universities to develop Drupal talent
  • To create working groups to help develop and promote the central messaging of the global Drupal Association, by translating materials, advertising and serve as port-of-call for potential newcomers (talent, users)
  • Whatever else is important to the growth of Drupal in your region.