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Serving the Drupal project, and evolving how we fund it
I've stepped into the role of interim CEO of the Drupal Association for a limited period, expected to last six to twelve months. My job in that time is to help put the Association on a durable footing. As I undertake that task, I want to start by being direct about where we are and where I'd like to see us go next.
The Drupal stewardship the Association provides costs more every year. That includes running Drupal.org, providing the project infrastructure and putting on DrupalCon. For a long time our events paid for most of it. That stopped being enough several years ago, and we have been covering the gap from our reserves. That is not sustainable, and pretending otherwise would not serve anyone. The Drupal Association releases its financials and 990s every year. (The 2025 audit is expected to be released by the board soon.) An analysis of even just the last few years of publicly available financials tells this story plainly.
And that is only the part we actually fund. Some of the most critical work of all, like responding to security issues and managing releases, still runs entirely on donated volunteer time or corporate underwriting rather than from an ongoing operating budget.
The answer is not to ask more of the volunteers, agencies and contributors who have carried this project for two decades. The community’s generosity is the heart of Drupal, and it always will be. The real challenge is that the large enterprises and governments that rely on Drupal every day have never had a clear way to understand or pay for the maintenance they use. So the cost has been shouldered by those most engaged in the community and, increasingly, the DA’s cash reserves instead.
Changing that is my priority. Over the coming months I'll be focused on three things.
First, understanding the true cost of the work. I'm modernizing our financial reporting so we can see the full cost of every program and event, including the staff time each one requires, which our current reports don't fully communicate. That will give the board, the staff and the community real transparency into where money goes, which programs deliver the most value and where we’re choosing to invest.
Second, funding each kind of work in the way that fits it. Not every program should look the same. Our utility and infrastructure services can move toward a usage-based model for the enterprises that depend on them. Our ecosystem advocacy needs focused support, because it strengthens Drupal and the Makers who build it. Our digital-public-good work, the parts that belong to everyone, can be sustained by philanthropy, contribution and as part of the utility and advocacy work. The aim is a regenerative model, where what these utility and advocacy services reinvest into all the ongoing costs that Drupal has as a thriving digital public good, a cycle that can sustain itself rather than a subsidy running down without constant new funding sources.
Third, collaborating with open source colleagues. These challenges aren't ours alone. I want to explore a co-creating shared standard for sustainable use certification with other open source projects facing the same challenges. Working together as a broad open source ecosystem, we can make supporting the open source software that organizations depend on an easy, standardized, normal and expected cost of doing business rather than ad hoc, voluntary and charitable, as it is now.
This matters beyond our own budget. Stewarded open source is no longer just a code repository. It is critical digital infrastructure. To keep it healthy, all of open source needs reliable ongoing funding from operating budgets as a standard line item. That is how we turn an extractive pattern into a regenerative one, and how Drupal and the community stays strong, open and community-governed for everyone who builds on it. Funding our ongoing work properly is how we protect that.
Those are my thoughts. I’m looking forward to hearing yours. Over the next several weeks I’ll be inviting all parts of the Drupal ecosystem to share what you think, and I'll reflect back what I hear as we go. I intend to earn your trust through what we do over the next several months. Thank you for building this project, and for caring enough to hold the Association to a high standard.
One final note of transparency on my own situation: I own Palantir.net, a Drupal Certified Partner, and I take that conflict seriously. As of July 20, I have stepped back from day-to-day operations there. To prevent any interference and guarantee strictly arm’s-length dealings, we have built a robust and legally-vetted conflict-of-interest framework directly into my interim contract.













































































































