What is Drupal?

Drupal is software you can use to operate your union's website. While there is no shortage of website software these days, Drupal is the ideal choice for labor unions for several reasons:

• Drupal is free/open source software, thus giving unions control over their website software in several key ways. (You can learn more about the huge advantages of free/open source software over proprietary software here.)
  
• Drupal is easy to use. It has built-in "content management" features which give non-technical users the ability to post material to the website with little training.
• Drupal is flexible. Many unions will want to customize Drupal to suit their specific needs. Drupal is built from the ground up, so even large changes to the looks and functionality of the site are easy to make--and affordable.
• Drupal is extensible. This feature means you can easily give your website new capabilities through the thousands of plug-in modules available for Drupal.
  
• Drupal makes it exceptionally easy--and affordable--to build online communities. This aspect of Drupal is especially important to unions because in the not-too-distant future, all unions will have web-based communities in order to communicate effectively with each other, new members, and the outside world.