#DrupalCares Drupal 9 module challenge

When I announced the Drupal 9 module porting challenge two weeks ago, I did not fully understand what was gonna come. I offered to donate €900 to the Drupal Association #DrupalCares campaign for 100 projects newly ported to Drupal 9. Then more funders started to appear. Ron Northcutt offered another €900, Ofer Shaal put in another €450. QED42 offered to match Ron's €900. It certainly grew much bigger than I anticipated so it was time to step up the game.

So last week I announced and started organizing Drupal 9 porting day for April 28, 2020 to not let our funders keep their money. While my funds were almost gone in the first week, there was still the rest of the funds to get donated. The idea of the porting day sounded good because we raise funds for the Drupal Association, we get people together to do their first Drupal 9 releases, we help others' projects out, drive the tools to their boundaries, do Drupal 9 core quality assurance and grow the ready module pool before Drupal 9's launch all at the same time. Some people would learn how to get ready for Drupal 9 for the first time, so we would spread some know-how and confidence in the release as well. That is like a win-win-win-win-win-win.

I launched the Drupal 9 Module Porting Challenge a week ago, and wow it is going well! I pledged to donate €9 for each newly Drupal 9 compatible drupal.org project to the #DrupalCares campaign up to a total of €900. Since then Ron Northcutt joined on April 20 with another €900 and Ofer Shaal joined on April 21 with another €450, so the challenge now goes to a total of €2250! Our donation will potentially be matched by Dries and Vanessa Buytaert and then a group of organisations will match it again for a potential total of €6750 donated.

The #DrupalCares program is all around the Drupalsphere. Project lead Dries Buytaert broke the news on March 25th, that the Drupal Association needs our financial help to overcome challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I almost immediately donated and if you have the financial means, I would suggest you do so as well. However this is a tough time for many, and even without COVID-19, unfortunately not everyone is financially privileged to have money to spare.