How to create a great drumbeat project

What's in it for me?

Drumbeat can help you develop a project the Mozilla way — worldwide, transparent and participatory. We will support your project by helping you refine your idea, connect to contributors and publicize your project's needs and objectives to a broad audience. We'll even fund a handful of the best projects.

What makes a good Drumbeat project?

Your project...

• Has a more open web is its direct objective
• Uses a concise, descriptive name 
• Is built on free and open technologies, and/or licensed freely (this is flexible if your project has a good open-web goal and *reason* for not being totally open)
• Has a 'maker' attitude — is all about doing and building deliverables, not just talk and concepts 
• Allows ongoing collaboration
• Is easily understood by non-tech folks, even if partially technical in nature

How does the Drumbeat website work?

Imagine a ladder. Projects move up when they gain support and participation. The most promising projects — the ones that generate huge amounts of attention and action — receive the most support and resources.

There are three steps on the ladder.

1. Emerging

Emerging projects are at the lowest level of the Drumbeat ladder. There could be hundreds of emerging projects at one time they are the "raw" Drumbeat material, and are competing for attention and participation.

• Projects appear on the 'hub' page on the Mozilla Drumbeat site
• Project leads can recruit contributors, gather votes and promote their project
• The project page can serve as simple project workspace if you don't have your own

2. Featured

Featured projects have proven potential and gained traction within the Drumbeat community, but are not *quite* there yet. There are significant challenges of conceptual, technical or legal character, or the project lacks key people or resources.

• Projects achieve 'featured' status based on metrics of votes, contributors and traffic
• These projects receive a high profile rotating position at the top of the front page
• Featured projects receive strategic advice from Drumbeat 'project producers,' are profiled in Drumbeat newsletters and have already been receiving lots of critical attention.
• (Do we want to mention something about the drumbeat festival here?)
• There are approximately 10 - 15 featured projects at any given time. Featured projects that do not solve their own critical challenges move back into 'emerging' status if deemed inactive.

3. Supported

A small handful of the most promising projects are selected from the 'featured' pool by community reviewers. Once 'supported by Drumbeat', projects receive funding and practical support from Mozilla.

• Supported projects receive from $5-25k in seed funding, gain the ability to fundraise further donations on drumbeat.org
• (Do we want to say that only supported projects can fundraise? can featured projects fundraise?)
• Gain visibility on other Mozilla sites, including the Firefox landing page, plus e-mail promotion campaigns
• Receive dedicated support from a Mozilla Drumbeat 'project producer'
• Up to five new projects are supported per year

When you create a project profile — and complete all of the information — you automatically become an 'emerging project.'