Inspired by awsamuel's "stirring first person narrative" on the Telecentre.org's reasons for choosing Drupal, I was compelled to share the experience of choosing Drupal for Greenpeace Canada's Kleercut campaign.

Even though our exploration was mostly in the area of e-advocacy tools and the biggest decision was whether to build on Civicspace or Drupal, the Kleercut camapaigners and I felt that documenting our story would be helpful for the Drupal community at large. The campaign started in November of 2004 with a small budget and big ideas ... and it has steadily grown over the last eight months to include a network of over 10,000 activists and steady on-the-ground wins for this anti-corporate campaign.

Now, faced by the loss of our action tools provider, we are again looking to the Drupal and Civicspace communities, as we start to investigate options for a bilingual advocacy system. Recent announcements and releases certainly point to a movement of passionate developers that are making powerful tools available to progressive causes. However, as our case study about Kleercut campaign explains, it took a lot more than tools to help make the campaign a success.

I hope that there are other people here with similar stories to share and that if you're doing similar work that you'll let us know. The open-source advocacy community that I've personally been able to access over the last few years has been an inspiration and helpful beyond words -- if you're excited by these ideas, please take the time to get involved in this important movement in some way.

You can find our case study in the handbook. And, we've posted an original version with photos and illustrations on the Kleercut.net site.