In addition to our group's home at groups.drupal.org/portland, we also have a group on meetup.com. This is a paid service and currently an individual member of our group (christefano) pays for the service. meetup.com's prices have recently gone up quite a bit and we need to make some decisions about how to move forward. We discussed this at the DUG last night and arrived at some recommendations, one of which was to open the discussion up to the community as a whole for those who couldn't attend.
What we discovered/discussed:
- The service is about $100/6 months or approximately $200/year.
- A paid meetup.com subscription at this price point includes 3 groups.
- Christefano already had a paid subscription with an opening for another group and that is why he has been paying for it.
- It would be preferable for a local agency to adopt the cost as a sponsorship rather than continue with an individual paying for it.
Actions:
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Christefano was charged $98 yesterday for a 6-month meetup.com subscription that includes our group. If you would like to help with reimbursing him, his Venmo ID is $christefano and PayPal id is paypal@addressarmor.com.
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We decided in the group discussion that there is value to the meetup.com service. Do you agree? How do you feel the meetup.com service brings value to our group? Please comment on this post.
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Is there any opposition to continuing to use meetup.com to promote our group's events? Please leave a comment on this post.
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Assuming that we continue with meetup.com, do you know of a local agency (not individual) that would be willing to adopt our group on their meetup.com account as a sponsor? We would acknowledge the sponsorship on the meetup.com page and during announcements as with our venue/pizza sponsors.
Comments
Was there any discussion to
Was there any discussion to switching to Facebook? It's free, and nearly all the groups I frequent (mostly outdoors related) all ditched meetup in favor of Facebook years ago.
Jesse Nicola -- Shredical six different ways to Sunday! -- My Portfolio
Not sure if if this was
Not sure if if this was discussed, though I’m personally experiencing a lot of Facebook fatigue. I’m not a fan of making a switch to Facebook, though the least we could do is set up a Facebook page with basic info and a big “Visit Us” button that points to either the Meetup group or GDO/Portland group.
If pointing to GDO/Portland, I suggest pointing to a welcome page on GDO (like I did with https://groups.drupal.org/la/join) that explains how GDO works — and sometimes doesn’t work.
Tell me about your outdoors groups! I do a lot of things with ClimbPDX and helping make climbing and the outdoors more inclusive and accessible to everyone. Feel free to check it out if you’d like: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ClimbPDX
Facebook...
Honestly, I haven't even logged into my Meetup account in years, but I'm on Facebook all the time. I think it would be good to duplicate the info there for all of us who never go to Meetup.
I can't ever make it to the Meetups thanks to the time/date/location, but would be happy to help out with Facebook. Then those who like Meetup can stay there, but we can also grab all those like myself who are on FB all the time, but never Meetup.
Jenni Simonis
http://www.forwardsupport.com
@Jenni If you are
@Jenni If you are volunteering to be the admin of a Facebook group, I don't think anyone will object. I believe Facebook does allow recurring events now, I'm not sure if there would be a way to just automatically re-post events from GDO or Meetup to Facebook. There used to be, but FB keeps changing the rules.
Also, we talked about live streaming from our meetups, but our most recent experiment in that failed, and we have not tried a second time.
Ryan Price
DrupalEasy Podcast
Facebook...
Sure, I'm happy to do whatever needs to be done on Facebook to get us more folks and such. :)
Jenni Simonis
http://www.forwardsupport.com
Jenni, I just sent you a
Jenni, I just sent you a message. I'd love to work with you on setting up a Facebook page and linking it to the group!
I just went through the
I just went through the technical steps of setting them up today. While I don’t have much time for being a community manager in yet another Facebook group, I’m happy to help with the infrastructure and technical side :)
Portland Drupal group
https://www.facebook.com/PortlandDrupal
Portland Drupal page
https://www.facebook.com/groups/PortlandDrupal
Shoot me a message on FB (I sent you a message via FB chat earlier today), and I’ll make you an admin of both!
Facebook...
I've got the upcoming events added to the group, just need access to do the same to the page and I'll get those up. If folks have additions/changes to the text to put up for them, just let me know. I used the text from the posting about events for Brewpal, but there's not much for the meetup. Also, if folks have suggestions for an image(s) for the events, please let me know.
Do we also want to create an ongoing post where we cross-post the list of jobs and such? Something else that could potentially bring visitors to the page and/or group and therefore more people participating with us?
Jenni Simonis
http://www.forwardsupport.com
When you search for "Drupal
When you search for "Drupal meetup" on Google, the actual Meet Up events appear in the results. This makes the group super easy to find.
OTOH, if the concern is outreach, you have to be searching for "Drupal" to find the meet up. If you're looking for local Drupal people, you're already invested enough to eventually land on the Groups page (which is how I found the group).
If you're interested in expanding membership, it might be more fruitful to directly reach out to other community organizations and find opportunities for collaborative events (like inviting a bunch of student groups to attend a introduction to "Drupal and development" talk). Once those people know what Drupal is, they'll be able to find the group again with or without a Meet Up page.
You can't deny that Meetup is
You can't deny that Meetup is an effective channel for getting the word out, reminders, scheduling, sharing, discovery, etc. I know many people have left facebook due to privacy or other concerns, so while it is still a good way to reach a large number of people, I don't think it's the only way.
Also, if you stop hosting a meetup group they will still get to keep the Google rankings, so it's kind of a protection racket, but their tool is so useful I'm happy to pay for it.
I agree reaching out to other groups is a good growth strategy. I have tried to cross-market with a few other groups, my initial efforts revealed that their events were the same night as the DUG.
I donated $30 to Christefano today.
Ryan Price
DrupalEasy Podcast
Agreed on all the points you
Agreed on all the points you make here. I think joint meetups with other groups a great ways to cross-pollinate and grow organically.
Thanks for chipping in with the Meetup organizer fees! That helps a lot.
Meetup.com is valuable, let's find an agency sponsor
I've been convinced by the value of hosting our group on meetup.com. My present concern is that we should properly fund the subscription via an agency sponsorship instead of through (an albeit generous) individual sponsor.
Amber Matz
Is the DA holding any moneys
Is the DA holding any moneys for the Portland DUG? Are there any available grants you’re aware of?
I’m definitely open to finding an agency sponsor. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, my preference is to either keep the Meetup group on my account or transfer it to another organizer (I can go either way) and then pay for it via donations.
Transferring the Meetup group to a corporate sponsor is my least favorite option since that would give the impression on the front page of the Meetup group that the sponsor owns and runs the the group rather than us volunteers and individuals.
Hi All I second Ryan's
Hi All
I second Ryan's comment.
I donated $30 to Christefano as well.
Thank you, Sarah! This helps
Thank you, Sarah! This helps a lot.
Thank you, Sarah! This helps a lot
Thank you, Sarah! This helps a lot
Editing to add: Looks like GDO’s having some caching issues ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Great conversation. Thanks
Great conversation. Thanks all, and my apologies for the slow reply. I’ve had my baby daughter solo for the past week, and I’m still catching up on my messages.
Meetup is a great way for us to keep growing and get the word out about our events and what we’re about. Their SEO and recommendation engine are stellar, and we’ve had 154 new members join on Meetup since May, 2018, when I volunteered to add it to my account the group to my Meetup account.
154 members in 15 month isn’t really that amazing, IMO, yet it’s way better than the 13 members who've joined our GDO/Portland group in the same time frame.
The only downside I can think of is the cost. Is 154 members worth $200? I think maybe, and I’d give an enthusiastic yes if we had a plan for utilizing Meetup more effectively — sending out a monthly newsletter, posting meaningful updates in the discussion board, etc.
My preference is to either keep the Meetup group on my account or transfer it to another organizer (I can go either way) and then pay for it via donations. Transferring the group to a corporate sponsor is my least favorite option since that would give the impression that the sponsor owns and runs the the group rather than us volunteers and individuals.
ps. Thanks so much for chipping in, Sarah & Ryan! With Meetup's new $16.49 / month pricing, you’ve helped pay for the Meetup group for the next 3.638568 months. That helps a lot!
nothing I do stops emails from this group
hey guys, I have unsubscribed, left the group, done everything I know to do, and I STILL get email notifications. On the notifications, there is no one to contact. HELP!
I am not even a member of this group, yet I am able to comment.
I reached out outside of GDO,
I reached out outside of GDO, and I think this is resolved.
If anyone else is having issues with getting too many emails from this site, check out the “notifications” tab on your profile if leaving the group doesn’t work. In fact, it would be great if everyone could remain a member of the group and fine-tune the notifications instead! :)
My pleasure Christefano. Glad
My pleasure Christefano. Glad I could help.
There is a case for gathering
There is a case for gathering the funds in an Open Collective - it is the fiscal sponsorship model the Drupal Association used to offer to camps and projects. With the DA downsizing they moved all the nonprofit fiscal sponsorship to Open Collective.
It would be a matter of creating a Portland Drupal collective through their site, and anointing some officers who could move funds or pay the bills.
Similar to Patreon or Kickstarter, you can set goals and collect monthly donations. There is a percentage fee for administrative overhead.
The whole entire project is open source, and they have their own slack.
Also if we wanted to host other events, or wanted to sponsor other open source projects, we'd have this account and the managers of the collective could decide to use any additional funds for other reasons. If a local agency wanted to cover our meetup fees for the year, we could accept that money and that company could get credit.
I wasn't there for the discussion last week, so I don't know if this came up, but it's certainly an option.
Ryan Price
DrupalEasy Podcast
I'd be interested in Open Collective
I think this would be a great way to go. It offers the best of both worlds. I'd like to stay with meetup.com as it gives us a lot more visibility than either d.o or facebook. I think we should make donations voluntary, rather than imposing some sort of dues structure. I'm sure we can come up with the ~$200/year from the generosity of the "regulars". Or potentially from a corporate sponsor.
One potential issue with Meetup is that there is one primary individual designated as the owner, who is responsible for paying for the group. We'd need some mechanism for smoothly transferring ownership should that individual drop out. God forbid they should get mad and just close the group. And the Meetup fee allows up to 3 groups. Would we potentially be subsidizing somebody's other groups?
Open Collective could also help grow the local community.
As a 4 time meetup attendee over the past 7 years or however long I’ve lived here... I guess I can provide some input here.
I’ve been an Open Collective (https://opencollective.com/how-it-works) user and their most active community member pretty much from their start about 3 years ago. While the primary Drupal benefit at some point will be as a tool to help sustain contrib, several camps and few user groups have also been testing the waters.
Orgs and projects outside of Drupal like Women Who Code, SustainOSS, Open Source Community Africa (OSCA) and even WordPress might provide better examples of how Open Collective could be used for local Drupal events and meetups. Knowing Drupal is currently a small fish in a sea of diverse projects and communities, might provide another reason to use the platform and join the community.
Gus Austin
Here you can see other Drupal
Here you can see other Drupal user groups and camps that use the platform, as well as projects and companies who donate:
https://opencollective.com/search?q=drupal
Ryan Price
DrupalEasy Podcast
Meetup Sponsorship
Amber,
I sent you an email via your profile contact form in regards to Meetup Sponsorship.
Peter...