DEFNA's quiet impact on me and the community

The DEFNA Board at DjangoCon US 2025. Photo by Bartek Pawlik - bartpawlik.format.com

I noticed that Django Events Foundation North America (DEFNA) is recruiting a new member and decided to browse the new site a bit. I landed on the about page where I was reviewing the current team members and noticed a new section that my photo appeared in, “Board Members Emeriti.” The tag line is “Honoring those who went above and beyond in their service to DEFNA and the Django community.” The only Latin named groups I’ve been a part of were distinctions about graduating from high school with a certain GPA. The difference being, this one is actually significant to me.

It got me retreading old thoughts about DEFNA and its impact. A while back, I was speaking with Jeff Triplett (DSF President) and Catherine Holmes (Assistant to the Treasurer, amongst other roles) in a DSF office hours about how cool it is to see all these Djangonaut Space alumni spread across the Django and Python ecosystems, taking bits of the culture with them. Jeff then pointed out that DjangoCon US has a similarly far-reaching lineage, one that extends into Djangonaut Space as well: Dawn, Rachell and I were all DjangoCon US organizers before helping co-found it. He was absolutely right; the culture and habits DjangoCon US instilled in us were a part of why Djangonaut Space got off the ground¹.

It’s easy to think that all teams and organizations have efficient processes and effective culture, especially from the outside. Being a few years into things, I know a bit different. All systems, technical and community, require effort to remain effective. There’s no magical level of sustainability that will keep a community moving forward. We always need people putting energy in to move things forward.

And that’s where DEFNA’s work really shows, even though DEFNA and the DjangoCon US organizing team aren’t the same group. The continuity DEFNA provides is what lets a rotating cast of organizers pull off the event each year. Every single year, DjangoCon US goes on. There are bumps and hiccups. There’s challenges and adversity, but they deliver what the community requires each year. If that wasn’t impressive enough, they do it with a different group of people each year. The team has their tent poles like Adam Fast conducting AV, Carol Ganz running opportunity grants and Drew Winstel helping with programming. But they also have new people like Velda Kiara and Nathan Zeager who show up, are welcomed in, encouraged to dive in, and given guard rails to steer them to being effective. When they feel productive and then realize the fruits of their labor, they want to come back for more.

What’s great about the Django community is that people build off that success. When they see that they can benefit the community in one way, they are willing to try something new.

I deeply appreciate that about DEFNA, and by extension, DjangoCon US. They are churning out valuable community members year in and year out. It’s a group of people who care deeply about their subcommunity and realize the benefit they provide to the broader ecosystem.

So if you are eager to learn how to be an effective community organizer, consider applying to join the DEFNA board!

If you have thoughts, comments, or questions, please let me know. You can set up a meeting with me, or find me on the Fediverse, Django Discord server or use email.