As Drupal’s popularity sky-rockets, so does the volume of issues and sense of urgency for problems to get solved fast. To keep up, we need to get more people contributing to Drupal core. There are a lot of people who would like to contribute, but they’re not sure how, they don’t feel qualified, and the time commitment feels prohibitive. Meanwhile, as Drupal’s code base becomes more complex, the learning curve for contributing to Drupal core gets steeper. To get more people contributing to core, we need to make it easier to work on core. This is what the Drupal Ladder project is about. The Drupal Ladder project began with a pilot by the Boston User Group in the fall of 2011. The vision was this:

• Make a list of all the different ways people contribute to Drupal core.
• Organize the list like a ladder. The first few steps are easy for anyone, minimal knowledge of Drupal required. As you ascend the ladder, each consecutive rung is designed to be within reach.
• Each rung introduces a new skill that should take 15-30 minutes to learn, and allow people to contribute meaningfully to core each time they meet.
• Drupal groups meet regularly all around the world. If each group dedicates a few hours to making contributions and helping members work their way up the ladder, together we can close a ton of issues and bring more people into work on Drupal core.

At Drupalcon Denver (March 2012), we shared the results of the Boston experiment with members of Drupal User Groups from around the world. We posted the materials we developed on drupalladder.org; We invited other user groups to get involved by contributing lessons and organizing "learn sprints" and "issue sprints" at their own regular meet ups. Soon after, Drupal Ladder events started popping up at meetups and Drupal camps across the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

At Drupalcon Munich (August 2012), the new intercontinental six-person Drupal Ladder Steering Committee set two top goals for the coming months:

• Create Drupal 8 lessons and ladders for major D8 initiatives in time for Drupalcon Portland
• Keep growing the project, to help get 1% of active users on drupal.org to contribute to core by 2014

This session will include a status report on the goals set in Munich, an overview of Drupal 8 materials and activities available to share with user groups, case studies, and emerging best practices from the field. This session will also propose next steps for helping the community get 1% of active users to contribute by 2014.