Today we signed the contract for web development of our new site! The site will be built by Ciplex, LA's premiere web design firm. They are coming on board as partial sponsors of the project, giving a deep discount to make the new site something we can build within our budget.

The new site will be built using Drupal 5.8 open-source CMS, and will really take this project to the next level, allowing much greater participation, scalability, and tools for collaborating. I've been designing & fundraising over the past 8 months, so today was a pretty big moment.

The new site is going to cost us $13K. To put this in perspective, other firms bid as high as $49,000 to build the same set of features. I spent a month getting quotes from Drupal developers, following up with references, etc. I feel we are going to be getting a lot of website for the investment, and think Ciplex is the best fit for our build.

We paid the first installment today ($4,333.33) using donations saved up since returning from our presentation tour. Whenever making a big production expenditure, I always have a moment of incredible gratitude to all of you that have supported this project and chipped in to make this happen.

Over the next 12-16 weeks, I will be working along Ciplex to migrate all of our project data to the new site. I'm also going to be working on a new intro video and other site features. I'll be making an effort to document the process along the way.

Also, big thanks to Marcin Nadolny of TwoCan.org for joining me today to document the kickoff of our web development. I'll try to get some video together soon. 

excited!

best to all,

nirvan