What Matters to Drupal People?

The Drupal community’s got heart. We partner with organizations that do work that matters, and we champion web accessibility, higher education and nonprofits in our events. This year at BADCamp we wanted to shine a light on this aspect of the community and do something different with our sponsor booth. Instead of giving away schwag, we gave away pre-paid charity gift cards that BADCampers could spend on causes they care about. See how the community spent the cards, and get a little background on how this charity donation booth came to be.

Why a Donation Booth?

Whether we’re in the office or dialing in remotely, we talk often about the news and what’s going on in our respective cities. At one point and in one way or another, each of us has acknowledged that current events on the national stage invite us, as individuals and as a company, to take a stand for what we believe in. We wanted to do something that would help us—and others—concretely act on our values.

Who BADCampers Gave To

Overall, we shepherded 122 charitable donations through our booth, sending about $1,000 to nonprofits around the country. Check out these pics of just five of the nearly 100 BADCampers who made colorful donation announcements.

Thanks @juaneclark for giving to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Thanks @SegerAdam from Site Improve for giving to Genesis Works.

Yes to education! Thanks @SKRossa for supporting Mount Holyoke College.

Thank you @TheJimBirch for giving to @PAWSChicago

Thank you Bob from The Marsh Theatre for donating to the Redwood Empire Food Bank.

Yes to health! Thanks @KnownComment for donating to Planned Parenthood.

Most Popular Organizations

The most popular beneficiaries were the Redwood Empire Food Bank, which is helping the Northern California fire victims, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends civil liberties in the digital sphere, and Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive health care. The chart below breaks down who BADCamp gave to by cause type.

Putting our Money Where our Mouth Is

To unite our "Wall of Force," our social media posts and our overall presence at BADCamp, we created the “Be a Force” campaign umbrella. We thought about how to execute on it at our BADCamp booth, and at first we imagined a 3D, interactive set of drawers visitors would open to discover unique prompts on how to “do good.” But after recognizing the production hassle of a bulky, 3D installation, and feeling we were coming up short on “offering value,” we pared it back to a 2D wall that would, literally, “offer value.” This direction got us to the notion of giving much of our promotional budget to charity. And then someone asked, “Maybe we can buy charity gift cards online and give them away.”

Frontend designer Josh Walker graces The Wall of Force at our BADCamp 2017 booth. Behind him, each square holds a prepaid charity gift card.

Josh plucks off a prepaid charity gift card to give to a booth visitor.

BADCamper Matt Cheney redeems his card at our BADCamp booth.

Matt replaces his card’s wall space with the name of the nonprofit to which he gave.

Matt gave to Oxfam America, a global organization working to end poverty.

The Oxfam America sticker helped transform the wall.

By the end of the conference, we’d made a big beautiful wall with lots of colors.

Outcomes

As technologists, designers, and business leaders, we attend conferences to network and hone our skills—skills we put to the service of causes. Headlines are all about the How, and rarely do we discuss the Why. The Wall got people talking about causes people in our community care deeply about. It revealed our better nature, but it was also just a drop in the bucket compared to the challenges that a better tomorrow asks of us. 

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Wall of Force. Special thanks to @BADCamp for providing a forum for this to happen. We hope our action inspires folks to keep doing work for causes that matter to them.