You have a little more than two days to submit a proposal for DrupalCon Pittsburgh's innovation grant contest dubbed "Pitch-burgh." The Drupal Association has raised $75,000+ to allocate to the most compelling proposals received by May 25th. There is no lower limit on proposal size. A $1,000 "quick fix" is just as valid as a $20,000 proposal. Additionally, entrants can be individuals or companies. The only criteria is that pitches contribute to Drupal's continued innovation, whether through code, design, documentation, or even contribution process improvements.
In his latest post announcing the amount raised, Dries identified a few categories for folks to consider - improving reach with our target audience (the "ambitious site builder") or user interface improvements. Ideas can target core features (e.g. improving Layout Builder) or existing contributed modules (e.g. expanding ChatGPT support or decoupled form management). I had a quick brainstorming conversation with Dries about pitches this morning, and he pointed to a recent innovation example I'm sharing to help stimulate more good ideas. 😄
Matt Glaman, Mike Herchel, and others collaborated to improve the theme development experience, expanding Drupal's UI based cache management interface to support Twig template caches. Any ambitious Drupal project with feature-rich content types, layouts, and views will almost certainly need the support of a theme developer to fine tune the presentation of content on the site. However, as Matt's post linked above makes clear, it would require a Herculean effort on the part of the average site builder to prepare his or her development environment to test changes as they come in. This new feature thus accelerates the pace of development for new sites and surely reduces a common frustration that could sour a site builder on Drupal as "unnecessarily" complex (even if we understand at a high level why Drupal's caching layer is so awesome).
This is the perfect sort of improvement for Pitch-burgh! It has a well-defined scope, the clear ability to improve Drupal as a site building (and development) platform, and benefits from the dedicated attention of a developer or project manager to shepherd it through the various channels to completion. For a similar feature like this, you might develop a proposal that estimates your time and potentially a travel budget to accelerate the contribution process through a trip to Drupal Developer Days 2023 in Vienna. Depending on your sponsored contribution rates and expenses, perhaps that's a $5,000 - $7,500 proposal.
Everyone is bound to have their unique areas of interest, which is why Pitch-burgh isn't limited to a specific area of development or contribution. If you have a pet issue or cause, don't be shy! That money's ready to be spent, and a successful contest may lead to a long term effort that pair donors with innovation oriented contributors. 👌🏼
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