Nonprofits need to carefully select products and vendors in order to insure that critical investments are successful. The Request For Proposal is a much-maligned document. This presentation from the 2014 Nonprofit Technology Conference suggests how they might be salvaged.

1. Requests For Proposals
Making RFPs Work for
Nonprofits and Vendors
<#14ntcRFP>
Peter Campbell

2. RFPs Are Fun!
Image: Joi Ito

3. NOT!

4. So Why Bother?
Image: Valerie Everett

5. Proposals Should Be Formal

6. Goals and Objectives Come First
Picture: Torsten Bolten

7. Responses Can Be Contractual

8. The RFP Process
• Identify and quantify the need
– Financial Impact
– Organizational Impact
– Risk/Opportunity
• Identify products and/or vendors
– Peer Recommendations
– Online Resources (Idealware, Techsoup)
– Research

9. RFP Format
• Introduction and Key Objectives
• About the Organization
• Description of Current Status and
Environment
• Questionnaire (includes pricing)
• Deliverables
• References
• Proposal Instructions

10. RFPs for Products
• Company history, size, stability
• Product functionality
• Data ownership and accessibility
– Getting Your Data Systems Talking
• Integration and compatibility
• Support (vendor and community)
• Cloud concerns

11. RFPs for Products
• Should ask very specific questions about all
aspects of product functionality
• Can be a long questionnaire
• Should include key questions about support:
– Who provides it?
– Dedicated or random?
– What’s the support staff turnover rate?
• Should include cloud provisions, if applicable

12. Cloud Provisions
• Who has rights to use the data?
• How is the data backed up?
• Can it be backed up locally and how often?
• What happens to the data if the vendor goes
out of business, or is sold?
• What does the vendor support and not
support in the cloud environment?
• Do subcontractors honor vendor agreements?

13. Example – Company Details
1. Please provide the name and contact
information for your company.
2. How many years has your company been in
business?
3. What geographical area do you provide services
for?
4. How many people are employed at your
company?
5. What is the average rate of turnover for your
company?

14. Example – Level of Detail
1. List the standard and maximum hard drive (HDD) space
(for all models recommended)
2. List the standard and maximum Random Access Memory
(RAM) (for all models recommended)
3. List all document formats that the scanner can save to.
4. Can the system send scans to email addresses?
5. If yes, do those addresses have to be pre-entered into the
system, or can they be entered ad hoc (as part of the
scan job setup)?
6. What mail protocols (POP, SMTP, etc.) are supported?

15. Example – Support Questions
1. What is your Service Level Agreement response time
guarantee for solving issues that impede our ability to
use the devices? Please breakdown by identifying
business/non-business hours, if applicable.
2. How far away (in miles, feel free to specify location) is
your support technician likely to be from our
headquarters when we place a service call?
3. We are looking to lease this equipment, primarily in
order to stay current with the technology should
significant advances be incorporated in newer models.
What is the average cost to upgrade three years from the
lease start date?

16. RFPs for Services
• Vendor size, history, stability
• Demonstrated expertise
• Examples and references
• Standard hourly fees by role
• Shouldn’t be overly long

17. RFPs for Services
• Establishes goals and relationship
– Include detailed project goals
– Describe current situation
• Should gage expertise and compatibility
• More of an essay test than a questionnaire
• “Show your work”
– Case studies
– Work examples

18. Example – Clearly Stated Goals
• The anticipated deliverables for this work will include
advice and assistance with the configuration of
Salesforce for our purposes; sharing of knowledge
and best practices around Salesforce development
and use; mentoring and training of technical staff,
possible training of line staff; and documentation of
any custom work performed. This is a long-term
project, and our goal is to eventually become self-
sufficient with Salesforce.

19. Example – Expertise Queries
Task 4.0 – Development of Community/Portal Sites
Describe your experience setting up custom web sites that expose Salesforce
functionality to constituents outside of the company. Provide examples of
portals that you have developed.
Task 5.0 – Workflow Automation
Describe and cite examples of workflow automation projects that you’ve
implemented. In particular, forms, routing and process automation.
Task 6.0 – Training
Indicate whether training is a service that you provide and, if so, describe the
types of training that you offer (e.g. administrative, end-user, train-the-
trainer).

20. RFP Process
• Set dates in RFP for questions and responses
due
• Verify receipt and participation
• Send RFP to identified vendors and/or post
publicly (appropriate forums, RFP websites,
your website)
• Answer questions
• Collect responses

21. RFP Process
• RFPs should present a level playing field to
vendors
• Set a deadline for questions (2 weeks is good)
• Collect by email and send replies to all
questions to all participating vendors
(anonymizing vendors)
• Alternatively, schedule a conference call for
vendors to discuss RFP (Bidder’s Conference)

22. Compare/Weigh Responses

23. Interact
• Schedule demos or meetings
• Request that you meet with the people that
would be assigned to your project
• Answer questions that RFPs can’t
– Is the demo/meetup consistent with the RFP
response?
– Is the product intuitive to use?
– Do you have a rapport with the vendor or
consultants?

24. Decision Making
• Have key decision makers involved
• Use polling and/or scorecards (documents
decision)
• Document the rationale for the decision
• Notify vendors
• For services, be open to providing candid
feedback to those not selected

25. Image http://www.flickr.com/photos/slr/

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