Meet Will Huggins — Candidate for the 2025 Drupal Association Board Election

Balancing Commercial Momentum With Community-First Principles
Will Huggins: Balancing Commercial Momentum With Community-First Principles

TDT[1]: You’ve worked with digital agencies and have seen firsthand the relationship between the maker community and Drupal’s growth. What specific steps would you take on the board to balance the commercialisation of Drupal through the DCP framework with the need to keep the core community involved and engaged in decision-making?

Will Huggins: I believe there is an interdependent relationship between successful DCPs and a healthy and engaged community. Often this relationship is very direct, for example ,where a community member works for a DCP, but it can also be through contribution sponsorship and event sponsorship. This provides a mix of impacts across all the different types of contribution from code to cash; however, it does not necessarily provide a sustainable commercial strategy that is aligned with the growth of Drupal.

The specific steps I would take as a board member include:

  • Facilitating active communication between DCPs, community members and the DA to define a commercial strategy that provides sustainable revenue growth for DA, incentives and rewards for DCPs, whilst ensuring decision-making transparency and engagement with community members.
  • Establishing clear and comprehensive ‘conflict of interest’ policies and guidelines (something that was started several years ago but still requires review and completion) to ensure decision-making transparency where competing interests exist.

TDT[2]: You’ve raised concerns about the need for improved collaboration and transparency between paid team members and community volunteers. How would you approach improving communication across these two groups, ensuring that decision-making remains inclusive without overwhelming volunteer contributors?

Will Huggins: The growth of paid team members within the DA is an important step to ensure a sustainable future for Drupal, relieving pressure on volunteers and bringing in new skills to enable Drupal to compete against commercial alternatives. In order to build a ‘one team’ culture across paid employees and community volunteers, I aspire to give the wider community a voice in the mapping of this evolution, so that updated roles and responsibilities, ways of working and processes are transparent, collaborative and efficient.

TDT[3]: With your background in both client-side and agency roles, what do you think Drupal could do better to help agencies and commercial partners generate sustainable revenue, while ensuring that this doesn’t lead to an over-commercialisation of the platform?

There are two priorities I would focus on as a member of the DA board:

  • Further integration of marketing efforts between DA and the DCP community in order to channel the demand for Drupal through DCPs.
  • Champion the community and contributor interests to ensure the evolution of a ‘marketplace’ that promotes and rewards community input.

TDT[4]: You’ve been deeply involved in the Drupal community in the UK, Spain, and Brazil. How would you advocate for the needs of these diverse regions on the board, ensuring that Drupal’s growth isn’t just concentrated in one market, but is truly global?

Will Huggins: Whilst I am already engaged in the Drupal communities in these regions and have much to offer in terms of developing these markets for greater Drupal penetration, I am also very passionate about nurturing under-represented markets, for example, in Africa. Having already been engaged with DrupalCamp Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) this year, I want to build on this to help develop these communities and support them to achieve greater participation.

In Brazil, I am working with colleagues in Zoocha to build momentum around Drupal contribution events. The team have already held one successful ‘Drupal Contrib Day’ in Brazil, and we are working towards organising a DrupalCamp.

Drupal Contrib Day, Zoocha, Brazil
Will Huggins

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