Drupal Innovation in 2024: the Contribution Health Dashboards

2023 has been an eventful year, full of ideas, discussions and plans regarding innovation, where Drupal is heading, and, in our case, how the Drupal Association can best support. On top of that, you may have already heard, but innovation is a key goal for the Drupal Association.

Drupal is nothing but a big, decentralized, community. And before we can even think of how we can innovate, we need to understand how contribution actually happens and evolves in our ecosystem. And one of the things we agreed early on was that, without numbers, we don’t even know where we are going. 

For that reason in 2024 we want to introduce you to part of the work we’ve been doing during the last part of 2023 to make sure that we know where we are coming from, we understand where we are going and how the changes we are doing are affecting (or not) the whole contribution ecosystem. I want to introduce you to the Contribution Health Dashboards (CHD).

The CH dashboards should help identify what stops or blocks people from contributing, uncover any friction, and if any problems are found, help to investigate and apply adequate remedies while we can as well measure those changes.

One thing to note is that the numbers we are showing next are based on the contribution credit system. The credit system has been very successful in standardizing and measuring contributions to Drupal.  It also provides incentives to contribute to Drupal, and has raised interest from individuals and organizations.

Using the credit system to evaluate the contribution is not 100% perfect, and it could show some flaws and imperfections, but we are committed to review and improve those indicators regularly, and we think it’s the most accurate way to measure the way contribution happens in Drupal.

It must be noted as well that the data is hidden, deep, in the Drupal.org database. Extracting that data has proved a tedious task, and there are numbers and statistics that we would love to extract in the near future to validate further the steps we are taking. Again, future reviews of the work will happen during the next months while we continue helping contributors to continue innovating.

You can find the dashboards here, in the Contribution Health Dashboards, but keep reading next to understand the numbers better.

Unique individuals and organisations

Jumping to what matters here, the numbers, one of the most important metrics to understand in the Drupal ecosystem is the number of contributions of both individuals and organisations.

As you can see, the number of individuals has stayed relatively stable, while their contribution has been more and more significant over the years (except for a slide in the first year of the pandemic). In a way this is telling us that once a user becomes a contributor, they stay for the long run. And, in my opinion, the numbers say that they stay actually very committed.

The number of organisations on the other hand displays a growing healthy trend. This shows that organisations are an important partner for Drupal and the Drupal Association, bringing a lot of value in the form of (but not just) contributors.

It definitely means that we need to continue supporting and listening to them. It’s actually a symbiotic relationship. These companies support and help moving forward, not just Drupal, but the whole concept of the Open Web. And their involvement doesn’t end up there, as their daily role in expanding the reach, the number of instances and customers of every size using Drupal is as well key.

In practical terms in 2023 we have been meeting different companies and organisations, and the plan is to continue listening and finding new ways to help their needs in 2024 and beyond. One of the things we are releasing soon is the list of priorities and strategic initiatives where your contributions, as individuals as well as organisations, are most meaningful. This is something I have been consistently asked for when meeting with those individuals and organisations, and I think it’s going to make a big difference unleashing innovation in Drupal. I recommend you to have a look at the blog post about the bounty program.

First year contributors

The next value we should be tracking is how first time users are interacting with our ecosystem.

While the previous numbers are encouraging, we have a healthy ecosystem of companies and a crowd of loyal individuals contributing to the project, making sure that we onboard and we make it easier and attractive for new generations to contribute to the project is the only possible way to ensure that this continues to be the case for many years to come.

That’s why we are looking at first time contributions, or said differently, how many users make a first contribution in their first 12 months from joining the project. During 2024 I would like to look deeper into this data, reveal contribution data further on time, like after 24 and 36 months. For now this will be a good lighthouse that we can use to improve the contribution process.

Although last year’s numbers give us a nice feeling of success, we want to be cautious about them, and try to make sure that the trend of previous years of a slight decline does not continue.

That is the reason why my first priority during the first months of 2024 is to review the registration process and the next step for new users on their contribution journey. From the form they are presented, to the documentation we are facilitating, to the messages we are sending them in the weeks and months after.

The changes we make should be guided as well by the next important graph, which is the Time To First Contribution. In other words, the amount of time a new user has taken to make their first contribution to Drupal.

You’ll see that the Contribution Health Dashboards includes other data that I have not mentioned in this post. It does not mean that it is not equally important, but given the Drupal Association has a finite amount of resources, we consider that this is the data that we need to track closely to get a grasp of the health of our contribution system.

For now, have a look at the Contribution Health Dashboards to get a grasp of the rest of the information that we have collected. If you are curious about the numbers and maybe would like to give us a hand, please do not hesitate to send me a message at alex.moreno@association.drupal.org