Drupal Elections: The Drupal Association Board and its responsibilities
Michael Schmid
Wed, 03/04/2015 - 17:18

Voting for the Drupal Association Board’s Director At Large position opens this Monday, March 9th. My two main reasons for seeking this role, why I feel I am a qualified candidate, and a discussion on the responsibilities of this position are outlined in the following post.

My Main Reasons For Running

First, the “Director At Large” position is representing the whole Drupal Community inside the board. Therefore the person holding the board position should need to know and understand the community in all its facets. I believe I am one of those individuals who reaches across a wide spectrum of the community and can offer a higher representation. I help organize DrupalCons and Camps, speak at different Drupal events all over the world, give trainings, along with mentoring new users at sprints. I meet with other CxO’s and interested high level business associates to teach them how to contribute back to Drupal, and still maintain steady code contributions to core via the Drupal 8 Multilingual Initiative and contrib modules.

Second, I feel there is a very real and urgent need for more representation and support of the European Drupal Community within the board that I feel I could fill. In meetings with other European event organizers, I’ve been told multiple times the sentiment that there is a feeling of no support from the Association. While this is troubling, what is also a concern is realizing through conversations, that many of these organizers simply don’t understand and realize how the Association could possibly support them. Just last week I attended the CxO event held at DrupalCamp London where there was more than 100 Drupal CxOs in one room. Out of that entire audience, only a couple of attendees knew about the great “Supporting Partners Program” run by the Association. There is a real disconnect between the Association and the oldest non-North American faction of the Drupal Community which must be alleviated as we look to grow further in other regions.The urgency on this continental disconnect is driven even more by the semi-recent attempts to initiate a European specific Association by some European Drupal users who clearly feel a loss of representation.

A Note Regarding Board Responsibilities

One really important piece of information I want to stop and make sure is understood, is what it REALLY means to be on a board of this nature. The Drupal Association Board is a strategic board, meaning the Board defines the strategic direction and policies of the Drupal Association. The execution of these goals is then in the hands of the Executive Director (Holly Ross) and her staff within the Drupal Association. My personal experience with this structure comes from being on the Board of Amazee Labs Zurich, where we define strategies and directions for the CEO. I feel I should explain and offer further definition of the role of a strategic board member. Often on a strategic board you are faced with wonderful ideas you would like to execute immediately or at times even execute yourself as the board. It is important to keep the responsibilities clear however, that you are there as a strategic guide and must let the company executives figure out how best to pursue and execute strategies.

This same distinction of responsibilities applies to the Drupal Association Board, and its candidates are signing onto a role within a structured system. The ‘Director at Large’ role gives an insight into the Drupal community’s general needs and stress points. The role does not include actions like the power to give direct orders to Drupal Association staff. While many may understand this distinction, it is important to make sure voters expectations are managed and candidates are reminded what they are stepping forward to take part in. This might sound overly structured (especially for a volunteer based community), but in the end the Drupal Association is a nonprofit with goals and budgets to follow. In fact budgets are more important than many realize. The Drupal Association Board is actually responsible for the financial oversight of the Drupal Association. What does this mean? It translates in legal terms to direct financial responsibility by all board members should the Association financially fault. That responsibility translates to a great deal of deep budgetary spreadsheet analysis conducted by members, both a very important and very tedious task. It’s like the issue queue: Someone has to review the code and mark it RTBC!

Thank you for taking the time to read where I stand on important issues and my public service announcement around what the responsibility of this candidacy truly means. I’m really looking forward to the upcoming vote beginning March 9th and ending March 20th. Until then, I strongly suggest everyone in the community check out all the passionate Drupal candidates keeping in mind not only their vision but experience in this type of role.

Should you have any further questions for me, I will be conducting a Reddit AMA this Thursday March the 5th starting at 5pm CET (11am ET).