Choosing a Partner for Non-profit Drupal Support

Care.org - The Journey to Drupal

As an international non-profit, CARE does amazing work around the globe. As you can imagine, CARE's web properties play an immensely critical role to help carry out their mission "to serve individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world." They leverage their sites to support humanitarian relief efforts that need immediate fundraising and marketing oriented campaigns. There is no margin for error. The ability to raise awareness and funds is literally saving lives.

Prior to working with Mediacurrent, CARE abandoned their proprietary content management system and adopted Drupal 7. The deliverable was a significant improvement but CARE still needed a partner with a high degree of Drupal expertise for ongoing support and strategy. Initially, CARE formed an alliance with Mediacurrent to address incomplete requirements and standards. They later transitioned into a long-term Support agreement that has been extremely valuable.

Choosing the right partner for post-launch support

In evaluating options for Drupal Support Services, CARE sought a partner who could meet the following criteria:

A well-rounded developer team with high-level Drupal expertise
Sufficient bandwidth to provide on-demand support
Cost-efficient services

Ultimately, CARE needed a strategic partner who understood their business goals, and Mediacurrent was up for the challenge. We felt that the project would be best shared in CARE's own words and were fortunate for the chance to film a short video Q&A with two members of the CARE web team.

We needed someone to go to for long-term support to take our website to the next level. Rather than, 'just us give us your tasks, and we’ll knock it out,' [Mediacurrent] said 'let’s partner and figure out the best long term strategy.'

-Dan Fava, User Experience Manager at CARE

For more, check out our latest Drupal Support Services case study.

The Value of a Drupal Support Team

As CARE learned, a successful website— whether it's developed using an open source or proprietary platform— is not a one-time capital expenditure. The "car" analogy is often used in the Web 2.0 world, but it is germane. When one makes a major purchase like an automobile, the expectation is that a certain amount of ongoing maintenance and support comes with the territory – oil needs to be changed, brakes replaced, tune-ups, etc. However, the "build and forget it" approach taken by some is a recipe for disaster. The most highly trafficked, award-winning, content-driven, user-friendly sites are regularly refined to ensure peak performance.

Moreover, ongoing maintenance is an essential part of security. As an open-source technology, Drupal is supported by a passionate community of international developers who quickly find and fix security vulnerabilities. Keeping your site's code current mean you are taking away the tools of potential hackers. To better focus on improving Drupal, the community only supports the two most recent versions of Drupal. With this in mind, waiting too long to

To summarize, it is great to see organizations like CARE, that are truly making a difference in the world, leveraging Drupal to achieve long-term success.