The Clean Economy Network (CEN) is the national advocacy association for the cleantech and green business community. The Network emerged from the 2008 presidential election with strong ties to the CleanTech and Green Business for Obama organizations. OpenSourcery was very excited to work with an organization whose guiding principle is that "economic growth, quality jobs, international competitiveness, environmental sustainability, and energy independence are not mutually exclusive, but rather are all vital elements of a healthy, dynamic economy."

Background

To understand the work behind the Clean Economy Network's website, it's important to understand their mission. As stated on their About Us page, "The Network is a broad, nonpartisan collection of professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, workers joined by like-minded professionals and thinkers from across the economy and across the political spectrum. We work at the intersection of politics, policy and business to develop and advocate for policies and programs which meet our Guiding Principles, catalyze clean development and create green jobs."

Having emerged from the 2008 presidential election with a growing number of supporters, the Network needed a Web application that could communicate with existing supporters, deliver a strong message, and allow site administrators to easily manage content.

Key features

• Custom JavaScript slideshow on home page. No Flash required!
• YouTube video upload module to display nationally distributed video campaign
• Simple membership signup with "required" and "volunteer" fields
• Advanced "Executive" membership option that allows individuals to purchase membership onsite
• Targeted email campaigns

Challenges

The development of the Clean Economy Network's Drupal + CiviCRM Web application presented a few technical challenges. The first challenge was to provide a platform whereby the Network could quickly welcome the 7,000 existing members of CleanTech and Green Business for Obama. The Network needed a donor management system that could capture their information in a database they could use to intelligently organize members around future actions. Since one of the Network's primary goals is to "to advance policies that will promote a rapid transition to a cleaner economy," the ability to inform and promote activities among its member base is paramount.

The CEN site had to be a platform that made communicating organizational information easy. While their mission remains the same from week to week, the content itself is always changing. Multiple staff and volunteer users need the ability to manage content, whether it be to edit page content, write a newsletter, or upload a new video.

Process and Outcomes

The Clean Economy Network project is another example of OpenSourcery's Agile development process. Our project managers worked with the CEN's stakeholders to prioritize needs, iterate, and assess the project at every milestone. When pressing needs arose, as they do with time-sensitive projects, OpenSourcery was able to shift resources and address emerging challenges.

We also worked with their designers to customize a Drupal theme to fit their branding and messaging. OpenSourcery's user experience team coordinated with the CEN's themer to enhance the existing theme to increase its functionality and attractiveness. The result is an easy-to-navigate Web application that allows users to easily find the content they're looking for.

The CEN now manages the site and has seen their membership grow significantly. OpenSourcery looks forward to partnering with the Clean Economy Network as it continues to grow and increase its offerings.