Hi, it's Laura Whitehead here, live-blogging at the N2Y3 conference. This session is about how Drupal can be used to create community with Matthew Saunders. Matthew is the Operations Manager at pingVision, a Drupal Web Development company.

Matthew asked the audience the differences between web 1.0 (flat, static, bulletin boards etc) and web 2.0 (user generated content, interaction, collaboration etc).

So what do we think of when we talk about 'social networks?'
How long have social networks been around?
What has the Internet done?
What can it do for your nonprofit?

What's Drupal?

It's an open source content management system based on PHP, a framework for building websites of all sorts and other crazy things and represent a huge vast community. It's free to use and licensed under the GPL (General Public LIcense) and is part of a 'commons' and is 7 years old, with a community of people that are constantly improving and developing along with and by its community. Find it at: www.drupal.org

Matthew explained more about Drupal, what a Drupal 'module' is, and also about Open Source. Open Source is a philosophy - using shared resources, common good, create and share and create. Drupal is part of that mindset, it's free, leverages several million dollars in development and is part of a social network for good.

Drupal, open source and nonprofits have many similarities - The more you give, the more you get back.

Drupal can allow you to blog, set up forums, do ecommerce, create communities. It has a robust and supportive community too. Matthew sees Drupal as a chameleon, it can be almost anything.

Some Examples of Drupal Sites for Good

• Nonprofit Commons (of course!)
• Amnesty International
• TechSoup Blog
• The Resource Centre
• Spectrum Magazine
• Greenpeace UK
• OpenGreenMap
• Netsquared

Lots of the audience participants are using Drupal in their own orgnizations too.

Interesting questions came from the audience, 'How do you know how to make the right choice with your CMS as a Nonprofit? Everyone is biased or passionate about their own choice, how can I know if it's right for my needs?''

Some links were suggested for looking into what open source CMS are available such as www.cmsmatrix.org and www.opensourcecms.com so that organizations can get an idea of what is available.
The best way to find out the right choice is to talk directly to developers and other organizations, get their feedback, knowledge and experiences to help you to make your own balanced judgement. If you find a CMS that suits your needs but doesn't have the plug-in or module you need, again, talk to a developer they can help create what you are seeking, and maybe others are also seeking to create the same tools that you are seeking to build too.

Advice was given for working with volunteers, try to ensure that they have the skills and experience that you need. Allow the time for development as an average basic site can take 100+ hours to build, and increases in time on complexity of site.

Further resources:

• drupal.org
• #drupal
• #drupal-support
• groups.drupal.org

Slides from the presentation are available at: http://www.dogstar.org/drupal/netsquared