Posted by pastordavid on August 12, 2008 at 4:03pm
What are the costs of Drupal consulting, please?
I am building the technology budget for the coming year and want to try to include something for Drupal consulting.
We expect to receive approval to change our church name this Wednesday and so I will need to port over to the new URL and during that time update Drupal, PhP, SQL, etc.
I need someone to assist with doing the transition right and in getting several new features working, roughly in this order of priority:
Linked calendars (master & sub-ministry calendars)
Distributed web area updating by ministry leaders
Functional Forums
Functional Blogs
Push-mail for changes to specified areas
WDYT?
Comments
You should talk to
You should talk to Mustardseed Media. They specialize in this type of work.
I second the recommendation
I second the recommendation of speaking to Mustardseed Media
Any Others
Does anyone know of any other drupal shops that do church work? Who is Mustardseeds competition?
Matt Farina
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.geeksandgod.com
www.superaveragepodcast.com
www.mattfarina.com
not much competition
I think that there are people like myself who would be glad to work with churches in our spare time. However, it seems like Bob is the only one that I've heard of who can offer full-time services. I would love to start my own full-time business some day (thus my site... http://www.redleafmedia.com) or work for someone like Bob. It's really gratifying to build useful sites for churches and ministries.
-Mike Goodwin
Red Leaf Media
http://www.redleafmedia.com
A competition need
I've read that many churches don't have websites and I've seen that many churches don't have a good web presence. But, that doesn't really constitute a need. Are enough churches looking to have killer websites that there is a need for much competition to Mustartseed?
Matt Farina
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.geeksandgod.com
www.superaveragepodcast.com
www.mattfarina.com
Competition is a good
Competition is a good thing... so while I'm not sure there's a need in the market right now, I'd argue that even without a need it's good to have some competition just to introduce other points of view into the equation.
That said, I'm not technically aware of any. :-) Sorry.
You could choose to look at competition more from an "outside of Drupal" standpoint. There are a host of firms willing to build websites for churches, and there are a host of CMSes that can deliver similar functionality to the end user. Even if we all think that Drupal is the greatest thing since sliced bread, there are a myriad of shops that could make similar cases for other CMSes (especially things like Expression Engine and Plone where you have many of the same tools available).
There are also a number of
There are also a number of "Google Pages" like sites that provide someone with a cooking cutter theme to add some text and a picture gallery. I've noticed several churches using these sorts of services, including Google Pages.
Sadly, I think an education
Sadly, I think an education campaign would be needed before most churches would consider looking past their secretary who has FrontPage running on their Pentium 2 or the kid who said, hey, I can do that with this cool flash thingy and it'll whizz and bang too!
As a missionary raising my support, I have the chance to interact with a lot of church websites and secretaries. I've noticed most churches have a website, but most are in need of some attention. Either they have a nice brochure site or they have a nice brochure site made by the pastor's son. I'm surprised that some churches don't even have answering machines or the answering machine message is "leave a message at the beep". This may be a somewhat regional issue, I don't know.
That's where a lot of my "big ideas" come from. Feasability though, that's another story.
You've brought up a good question
The web has brought with it huge gains in the potential to teach, interact with others, explore tough questions, and more. But, you are right that feasibility for most churches to take advantage of this stuff is hard. Most churches don't have the skill to do such a thing. Sure there are companies but your average church in American, for example, is already struggling for money and only a couple hundred people in size. On top of that, according to reports I've read, the idea of teaching and working through those though questions is not something we see happening in those churches in the first place.
All this makes me wonder how we can increase the feasibility.
Matt Farina
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.geeksandgod.com
www.superaveragepodcast.com
www.mattfarina.com
New Discussion?
:-) Maybe this should be the start of a new discussion. I'm hoping we could chat among ourselves at great length on this!
I still need a $ number ...
I still need a $ number ... YESTERDAY ... for my budget proposal ... DUE TWO WEEKS AGO! :-)
Should I be thinking $100., $500., $1,000.?
http://firstbaptistchurchsh.com
Pastor David
http://thebridgechristianlifecenter.com
Pastor David
range
I would think somewhere in the $500 range would be enough since the site is already installed, hosted, etc. I guess it could be higher if you want things to be real shiny and fancy-looking.
-Mike Goodwin
Red Leaf Media
http://www.redleafmedia.com
Thanks! In general the goal
Thanks!
In general the goal will be to port over the existing site to the new URL and to add features that are technically available in Drupal but which for one reason or another I have been unable to get working:
Calendars (master and sub-calendar which automatically update each other)
Ministry-level maintenance of their pages (the interface is way too complex for the typical ministry person and too time-consuming for even the more technologically inclined ones, e.g. I only have single-image upload working instead of being able to highlight and upload multiple images at a time, auto-reformatting to a preset size is also not working correctly)
Blogs by ministry leaders (I've had problems making them visible to other users and am uncertain about access control)
Forums controlled by ministry leaders (I've had problems making them visible to other users and am uncertain about access control)
Automated push-mail when changes are made (this exists in Drupal but I haven't activated it, e.g. if the Asst. Youth Minister makes a change to the Youth Calendar or one of the Youth Pages an E-mail or text message is sent to the Youth Pastor. The Blog, Forum, and Calendar modules appeared to make this simple but due to my other problems with distributed site management I never got to even look at push-mail to notify of changes to pages and stories)
Nice-To-Have would be some more interesting backgrounds or other "bling" but those are not as critical as getting the practical tools working.
WDYT?
http://firstbaptistchurchsh.com
Pastor David
http://thebridgechristianlifecenter.com
Pastor David
maybe a little higher
I guess that it might be a little more than $500 depending on who you go with. If you would like, I can help you out for somewhere in that price range. I'm sure that we could get the site fully functional in a relatively short amount of time. My life is a little crazy right now (wife pregnant and on bedrest, searching for a post-grad school "real" job, etc.). However, I could probably find time to work with you. You can email me at mike at redleafmedia dot com.
-Mike Goodwin
Red Leaf Media
http://www.redleafmedia.com
I'd estimate $100 / hr.
I'd estimate $100 / hr. minimum... maybe folks charge less as a ministry to churches. For any one of your features, it could be a ten minute job or a 2 hour job to get it tweaked and tested to your liking. I'd say think through what you want and itemize a feature list that includes the different types of users and what you want them to be able to do. Then count an hour for every feature just to be safe to include the implementation, testing, and review stage... multiply be $100 and budget it.
If you count on paying more, you'll make sure you don't have to go for a budget development shop that may not deliver the level of service you're expecting.
Thanks! I am just looking
Thanks! I am just looking to get the features activated and the basics working - I can do most of the fine tuning.
$500. sounds like a number I may be able to get approved and one that is sufficient to get the job done.
It may be that the implementation of some of these features in Drupal 6 work better - in fact some of them were either being newly developed or re-written for v6 many months ago when I last looked at them - so when we transition it may be a simple matter of toggling on some of them and they work out-of-the-box!
Or so the prayer goes ... :-)
http://firstbaptistchurchsh.com
Pastor David
http://thebridgechristianlifecenter.com
Pastor David
A corporate number
If anyone cringes at $100 an hour it's not really that out there and it's well below biz show rates. I've seen biz shop rates for range from $125 an hour to $500 an hour for good developers.
So don't be so surprised at the number. Instead, be thankful when someone offers a lower rate for a church or ministry.
Matt Farina
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.geeksandgod.com
www.superaveragepodcast.com
www.mattfarina.com
Deliver link is down
Just a heads-up that your "Deliver" link is broken.
http://www.redleafmedia.com/deliver
What do you think of my short list of features in our upgrade?
Do they sound so complex and/or time-consuming as to be expensive to hire-out?
http://firstbaptistchurchsh.com
Pastor David
http://thebridgechristianlifecenter.com
Pastor David
sounds straightforward
I'm not certain what you mean exactly by "Distributed web area updating by ministry leaders". However, the other features seem relatively easy to implement. Do you want this in Drupal 5 or 6? You can contact me by email for pricing if you like.
-Mike Goodwin
Red Leaf Media
http://www.redleafmedia.com
Nothing against MustardSeed,
Nothing against MustardSeed, I just sent them a direct inquiry.
I did have the same question as Matt.
I seem to recall reading here that there are others who do some Drupal consulting - though they may have been the Webmasters of church sites who occasionally assist other churches for a small fee - I thought at least one or more of them were developing Drupal consulting businesses.
I really want to see a site made by a consultant that is already doing what I want to do so I am not used as a guinea pig for learning - been there done that in the past - I can do the learn-while-doing thing for free! ;-)
We don't need the consultant to be a "business" per se, just very reasonably priced, and clearly competent.
http://firstbaptistchurchsh.com
Pastor David
http://thebridgechristianlifecenter.com
Pastor David
Anticipated as much
pastordavid wrote:
I anticipated as much. The domain name change is simple enough. However those calendar modules I have not worked with, so kept "quite as a Church mouse!" ;-)
As for forums, we are thinking to develop / have developed a Drupal / UBB.threads integration module. UBB.threads seems a quality forum solution. One Drupal developer was trying to lead me down the Drupal path... I tried, set up a test copy of that site, bumped into UBB supporting forum icons, went searching and in Drupal land it seems "maybe" something they are considering for D7. That made my mind up, the Drupal / UBB integration mod has to get written... enough of this nonsense. One of this ministry's key advantages is their extensive forum system. Switching to Drupal forums would be a big BIG step backwards, and they simply can not afford that "just to be Drupal'ized."
Michael Lueck
I'm looking to handle a more
I'm looking to handle a more simple, small church sites who could use some direction with this Intarweb thingy. :-) I'm providing hosting and general site administration. So far I've only seen some nibbles among my contacts. System administration is my strength which is why I'm not looking to do big sites, but rather help smaller, maybe local, churches get their feet off the ground and thinking about the web as a "place" where ministry and community can happen.
http://JosiahRitchie.com
I have some other grand visions beyond that, but you didn't ask about that. :-)
Once I have clients lined up, I'll be looking for people with strength in themeing. I have a connection or two, but could use more as availability is questionable sometimes.
I do a lot of Drupal
I do a lot of Drupal consulting, some with churches, more for other charities, non-profits and mission-work. I actually do most of my Drupal consulting in the commercial arena. If you were talking about a corporate site, or a social-media web2.0 type site, I'd pipe right up and try to win the business. Technically, my suggestion that you deal directly with Mustardseed is done at my own expense as I could certainly portray myself as competition.
All that said, I think you'll find Mustardseed is leading the industry when it comes to Drupal-based Church websites. It's a niche... but at least it's their niche. :-)
I do Drupal by day and night!
On my day job, we are using Drupal for workflows and such....By night, I have my own clients as well. Competition? Hmmm.... we can never have enough of that. Also, I am a LInux system administrator so I am familiar with the full LAMP stack. I am no graphic designer but I can take psds and make a site out them in Drupal fashion. Also, I have done some custom modules for clients as well as ecommerce. I have several sites up and running that I maintain as well.
Contact me offline if you need more information.
Thanks,
DaveA
www.ingraftedsoftware.com
Wordpress? Awwww...
Just got pointed to a comment in this thread from another and ended up reading the whole thing. Looks like the site ended up on Wordpress with a broken theme. That's a shame. Wonder what made him give up on Drupal?
And I also need to do some serious eye rolling at the forum icons comment. I'm assuming that's referring to topic icons. Come on, are topic icons really such an absolute necessity that it's worth writing a whole bridge module for? Would have been less coding to add the icons to AF. Sheesh.
Michelle
It is interesting. The
It is interesting. The wordpress blog doesn't look like it has a forum anyway that I can see?