CollectionBuilder Community Developers Program

Applications to this program are now closed!

Do you have an idea to enhance or build on CollectionBuilder that you would like to develop and release to the community?

The Community Developers Program is a grant funded opportunity that will support a wide variety of projects that enhance, extend, experiment with, and/or document CollectionBuilder.

Description

We are accepting proposals for short, one time contract awards of $3,500 to $5,000 to develop new enhancements around CollectionBuilder. Work will take place from mid October 2026 until February 2027. “Developers” is defined broadly to include anyone with the skills and enthusiasm necessary to carry out the proposed enhancement and deliver in the short timeline–please remember CollectionBuilder is developed by librarians!

Projects should be re-useable enhancements and resources that benefit the CollectionBuilder community with new tools, ideas, and solutions (while also supporting new contributors). Potential ideas include, but are in no way limited to:

CollectionBuilder Built Ons (reusable templates that extends and remixes CB for new purposes).
CB Add Ons (documented packages that add new features to CollectionBuilder projects, providing self-contained dependencies, templates, and recipes. They generally support unusual formats or functionality beyond Items found in typical collections).
Porting CB from Jekyll to another static generator or framework.
Create a theming system or new curated themes that can swap into the default template.
Create new documentation content such as interactive walkthroughs, workshop content, or special topics that would be useful to the community, such as how to improve accessibility, carry out user testing in digital collections, build in digital preservation practices, or solutions for deploying sites in the wild.
Create new tools that support collection creation, management, or preservation that simplify workflows for users.

Expectations

USA-based and eligible to work in USA.
Familiarity with CollectionBuilder, static web approaches, and digital library / digital scholarship work.
Have the skills needed to successfully deliver the proposed project.
Please keep in mind that CB is a project focused on learning, you could use this work to develop your skills. While we use LLMs to aid in development, your proposal should be human driven and human led–not just an AI agent activity.
Work as an independent contractor (this is not a mentorship or cohort program).
Deliver project by Feb 10, 2027.
Openly publish deliverables (MIT code and CC-SA content).
Contract budget of $3,500 to $5,000 paid on delivery.

Proposals

The Call for Proposals will be open from Sept 24th to October 9th, 2026. The short proposal application form will ask for:

Project title
Project description (overview of project and its potential benefit to the CollectionBuilder community)
Project deliverables (outline of specific outputs)
Contract budget amount (between $3,500 and $5,000)
Project team background (your qualifications)

Applications should be from humans–please do NOT have your AI agent apply. Selected proposals will meet with CB team to discuss and create a project contract.

Please use the form below to submit your proposal information.