CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Democracy Now! Productions
Request for Proposals
Constituent Relationship Management System


TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT RFP

PROJECT: DN! CRM
CLIENT: Democracy Now! Productions
ISSUED BY: Miriam Barnard, Director of Development, Democracy Now!
 
ISSUE DATE: February 17, 2010
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INTRODUCTION:

Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., Democracy Now! is broadcast on over 800 radio and television stations worldwide, including Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite television (DISH network: Free Speech TV ch. 9415 and Link TV ch. 9410; DIRECTV: Link TV ch. 375); and online.   

Democracy Now! seeks to implement a Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system using CiviCRM to manage constituent relationships with donors and prospects, activists, stations, webstore customers, volunteers, and other constituents.   
 
The overarching objective of the project is to increase the effectiveness of Democracy Now!'s global website and e-communications for both internal users (i.e. Democracy Now! Development and Outreach staff) as well as external users (i.e independent media consumers).
 
The purpose of this RFP is to provide potential respondents with the information they need to develop a proposal for the delivery of the technical development component of the project.
 
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TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM:
 
Democracy Now! has selected CiviCRM as the CRM to be implemented (along with additional components CiviContribute, CiviReport, and possibly CiviMember and CiviEvent).  The project will include the development of a real-time interface between the CRM and existing Ruby on Rails platforms and will need to interface directly with the bulk mailing service that is selected by our organization.
 
Respondents to this RFP must have experience working with CiviCRM and knowledge of Ruby on Rails, ancillary products and relevant modules.
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TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT APPROACH:
 
The technical development component of this project will be prioritized and will be implemented in order of priority over the course of four to eight months. The work results of each phase will be presented to a group of stakeholders and the feedback received will inform the planning for the next stage.
 
Respondents to this RFP must be in a position to allocate a dedicated (i.e. full time), self- organizing team of 1-3 developers to this project (see PROPOSALS section below for more details).
 
TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES:
 
Democracy Now! aims to implement a CRM system that:

Provides a powerful toolset for fundraising by enabling:
•   Integration with other systems (import/export, file formats, real time, web services, backups)
•   Individual and organizational records, with linking and soft credit capacity
•   Donor list collection, management and segmentation
•   Memberships, renewals & contributions
•   Campaign tracking (solicitation, response, category, etc)
•   Pledge tracking and collection
•   Basic event functions, such as invitation, RSVP, ticketing, and comp processing
•   In-kind and stock donation tracking
•   Tracking donor history and  prospects,
•   Notation and email notification (reminders) of tasks that need to be preformed, or deadlines

As well as provide seamless integration for the following functions: 
•   Payment options for Paypal, credit cards and direct debit 
•   Real-time and manual credit card processing 
•   Donation administration – search, void, refund, etc. 
•   Donation form customization
•   Automated acknowledgements and receipts
•   Online product sales that use same transaction processing back-end

Provides communication and relationship support by enabling:
•   Mail and email list segmentation and interaction with our bulk mailing provider
•   Networks and groups
•   Technical details for stations
•   Import/export to Excel, CSV, MySQL, etc.

Provides flexible admin user interface by enabling:
•   Customized user interfaces with variable access levels
•   Dashboards and shortcuts for common tasks/queries

Provides constituent user support by enabling:
•   Member access to giving history
•   Subscribing/unsubscribing/updating and initial cleaning of profile information
•   Setting preferences for language, country, topics, frequency of communications
•   Generating customizable member donation pages / emails

Captures and stores all user information in a single repository such that:
•   All user actions are trackable by the administrator and can be reported
•   Automated backup (data housed by Democracy Now!)

Provides a platform for future growth by:
•   Having UTF 8 Unicode language support
•   Using International address standards
•   Providing an interface to SMS and text messaging 
•   Having additional payment options (such as micropayments, SMS or phone- based)

Integrates existing data sources
•   Implements standards across large (100,00+ records) and non-standardized sets of constituent data
•   Merges multiple member records into single complete record
 
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EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST:
 
Those intending to submit proposals in response to this RFP must email Miriam Barnard confirming their interest at Miriam at democracynow dot org. Expressions of interest should be no longer than 500 words and contain contact information (address, phone, website and email), a brief summary of relevant experience, and reason for your interest in the project.  Those meeting minimum criteria will be invited to submit a full proposal.  Expressions of interest will be reviewed and responded to on a rolling basis.
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PROPOSALS:
 
Vendor proposals should be sent electronically to Miriam in OpenDocument, Microsoft Word or PDF format by no later than fourteen days from the date of the invitation and must include the following sections:

•   Applicant history and services
•   CiviCRM and Ruby on Rails experience
•   Experience and knowledge of independent media 
•   Description of standard development methodology 
•   CVs for proposed project team members, availability and day rates for each
•   Full CiviCRM Client list, including reference contact information for three (3) of these clients
•   Experience and knowledge of independent media and the work of Democracy Now!
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ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:
 
Each proposal will be assessed, at a minimum, according to the following criteria:
 
•   Completeness (as per the "Proposals" section above – please use the points above as section headings in your proposal)
•   Qualifications, past experience, suitability and availability of proposed staff
•   Cost (value for money)
•   Quality and applicability of references
 
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QUESTIONS:
 
Questions regarding this project should be sent by email to Miriam at democracynow dot org.  No phone calls.