History of Drupal in Non-Profit and Political Communities

In 2003, Drupal began to be adopted as a platform of choice by groups looking to leverage the power of the Internet to affect social change. Since then, the use of the platform has expanded exponentially, with political, non-profit, NGO, academic and even commercial organizations turning to it as a tool for conducting online operations.

This session focuses on the history of Drupal as a tool for political and non-profit organzations. We will examine a number of high-profile installations that have grown over the years understand how they are building online communities. Fundraising, community building, online activism, empowering users to self-organize - these are all features that make Drupal special, and this session will focus on the context behind how they are being used.

Beyond specific web sites, socially active organizations have previously used Drupal distributions as a tool for building online networks. We will look at a number of Drupal distributions that have been employed previously to allow people to create their own sites, and discuss the strategic use of the platform and how it relates to current efforts to build Drupal distributions.