Drupal for Non-profits

Drupal is a good fit for non-profits for several key reasons:

• Financial - because Drupal is open source, community-driven software, it can offer significant cost savings compared to proprietary CMS packages.
• Extensible - with a world-wide community of developers and over 4,400 contributed modules, Drupal can meet the current and future needs of any non-profit organization.
• Web 2.0 - other proprietary CMS platforms are trying to adapt and become more socially interactive and "Web 2.0."  Drupal is already Web 2.0 from the start.  As the web continues to evolve with social networking and user generated content, non-profits are finding it effective to transition from using the Web to share information to engaging their consituents and building community.
• Support and Continual Improvement - non-profits are not tied in to a single source for training, support, and enhancements (and having to pay for it each time).  As one Drupal convert said, "I have a global team of developers working today to solve my future problems for free!"
• Shared Values - the values that the Drupal open source community embraces are very much in line with the core values of many nonprofits, such as sharing, transparency, and the importance of giving back to the community.

Drupal Association Board Member Kieran Lal provided this summary of a recent NTEN report comparing Drupal with other CMS platforms:

Drupal received high scores in a satisfaction report by NTEN, a major Non-profit Technology organization. Drupal was evaluated in five categories, and had the highest number of responses, and the highest number of respondents that indicated Drupal is their primary CMS.
Drupal received the following scores:

NTEN CMS Report

* Quality and reliability: A
* After sales support: B+
* Delivers on promises and deadlines: B+
* Usability: B+
* Value: A

The report is available to members of NTEN for free. It is available to non-members at a discount, $25, with the discount code: "Drupal".

A special note on the success of open source content management cites the following reasons for success:

* No fees for acquisition.
* No maintenance fees if it is a low to medium traffic site.
* Low hosting costs.
* Solid software: for most organizations, as good, or better than a system they would pay for.
* Active development and communities mean lots of improvements and new features, plus lots of help.
* Generally easy installation and maintenance.
* Very customizable - easy to add custom functionality.