Governance Taskforce Recommendation "Improve Collaboration Between the Drupal Association and the Community"

The Drupal Association (DA) should represent and support the project globally. There are unrealized opportunities throughout the globe to build and develop the community and increase Drupal adoption. Many express a belief that the DA now looks inward, with its focus narrowed to the US to the detriment of other established and emerging regions. Placing community growth and presence at the center of the DA is an important part of reestablishing trust that the DA can serve the varying interests of Drupal’s global network.

What we heard:

There are gaps between the DA’s scope, the community’s understanding of what the DA does, and what the community would like the DA to do — and this creates tension. We heard people say that the limitations of the DA’s charter add to the tension.

Community members in multiple forums express frustration, believing the DA should be doing more to support the community. We also heard that people don’t feel empowered to create change in the community without DA permission or approval. This creates tension, as the DA maintains community resources (e.g. legal and fiscal).

We heard trust as a key theme when people spoke about the DA: that trust between the community and the DA had broken down. A key cause of the breakdown of trust is the feeling that the DA increasing focuses on the United States, as community members witness the DA’s withdrawal of activities from other regions such as Europe.

It should be recognized that the DA is already serving the community in critical ways. For instance, Drupal adoption helps create jobs for community members. The DA already runs DrupalCon which is primarily a community targeted event. It raises money from these events, which it then invests into the resources and technology running Drupal.org throughout the year. While such things help the community and not just the business ecosystem, trust can be gained by being more deliberate and open about how the DA is serving the entire community.

The community is telling us that, in their experience, our community is not doing enough to build inclusion, and that they feel the DA could help. Promoting access to the community is critical for sustainability.

Community members also tell us they perceive the DA to function principally in the service of Drupal’s business ecosystem. Recent DA decisions, such as terminating support for camps (in the US) and increasing costs associated with attending DrupalCon (globally), have alienated community members even if such decisions help the DA to maintain community-related services and remain solvent.

We did not hear anyone talk about the Community Cultivation Grants program, not one person raised this program as an important way to incubate new communities and capture knowledge.

We heard that without the Drupal Association support, ideas originating in the community were difficult to implement and could not be scaled. We also heard that enabling community ideas is not a core role of the DA. It puts progress and community building into conflict, neither side has the assets and abilities to be able to act. There is great work being done or wanting to be done in the community, our community is full of change makers and innovators, we are simply not doing enough to enable them.

The Drupal Association is at a crossroad, if it cannot facilitate and support global community capacity building. It needs to ensure that, if a Community Governance Group is established, it can share assets, strengths and resources for both movements to thrive. The community expects the Drupal Association to fully support and enable community action.

What we recommend:

The DA must be more proactive in focusing on making sure that as many community members have as much opportunity to participate as possible. Community members do not like to see people miss out, or opportunities unfairly distributed.

We recommend the DA evaluate their current charter and expand it. We heard the community and the DA say they would like the DA to do more to serve the community, we strongly encourage the DA to pursue this change.

There is a genuine threat to the DA’s membership — and ultimately, to its sustainability — if balance is not restored. It would build trust if the DA helped invest additional funds at the discretion of the community. Members care a great deal that their membership dues are used to support the global community.

The Community Cultivation Grants program should become a community managed program where learnings, tool kits and support are captured. This program is an ideal opportunity for the DA to partner with the community on community action. Stewardship of this program should be managed by the Community Governance Group.

Community members often identify communication from the DA as a tension point. To rectify this, we recommend that all public DA communication should clearly identify the reasoning behind decisions, who was involved in the decision making process, and the projected consequences of not acting.

The Community Liaison role is positively regarded by members, valued as a strategic partner, and a source of information. We recommend that the Liaison continue to prioritise community presence and engagement. (*Please note: this was a unanimous recommendation from the Taskforce based on community feedback. Rachel Lawson recused herself from discussions on this issue.)

Attending DrupalCon is a large part of community participation. Ticket pricing, scholarships, and ticket discounts should be continually reviewed, and the community must be consulted in new ways to ensure that people are not missing out due to cost. While we recognize that many people have organisations that sponsor participation, Drupal should remain loyal to the small businesses and independent contractors that contribute. We also caution that inequality of participation in the community and in employment means that there are groups that are disproportionately affected by cost.

The community needs to have a stronger voice in the overall vision and prioritization of the DA. We recommend adding two more community elected board members. Even though several appointed board members are from our community at large, additional elected members ensure the community can vote for people representing their shared interests.

It is our understanding board members only serve as strategic consultants. According to this video on community elections, “agenda items are determined by the executive committee” and “it is important to keep in mind that the community elected board member is participating in the set agenda”, which could suggest a watered down role of community-elected board members to help influence the actual priorities of the DA. The DA must clarify how priorities are determined and ensure board members are able to represent community needs. This could be as simple as clarifying board member responsibilities or it could motivate operational change that empowers community-related representation.

Community board members are elected for two years in staggering cycles. It is our recommendation that a community board member(s) be elevated to the executive committee to help represent community interests for the DA’s overall agenda and priorities. This would rotate each year and strengthen the role of these board seats.

We further recommend that the new Local Association Working Group (recommendation 3) group be given responsibility of establishing the process around the creation of local groups, for defining the relationship to the DA, and for creating best practices. The Local Association Working Group would recommend a set of services and operations local associations can offer, work with the DA for support, and provide guidelines on how to best to promote Drupal and local events.