Catholic Relief Services
https://www.crs.org/about/bid-opportunity Please visit the CRS website for the full scope of work and attachments.
CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL
RFP #US4435 WEBSITE REDESIGN
CRS.ORG REDESIGN – DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
This document and the information contained within are confidential and proprietary to Catholic Relief Services (CRS). It has been distributed for your express use for the purpose of responding to this opportunity only and may not be duplicated or distributed to any third party without prior written consent from CRS. Any other use is strictly prohibited.
Table of Contents
1.1.1 CRS Vision 2030: in their own hands Strategy. 5
1.4 CRS Departmental background and goals. 9
1.5 Agency Redesign Priorities. 11
Priority 1: Private Fundraising. 11
Priority 2: Advocacy & Movement Building. 11
Priority 3: Institutional Donor Engagement 11
2. Summary of Service needs. 13
2.1.2 Scope and Deliverables. 15
3.1 Invitation to Tender Response. 17
3.7 Chronological List of Proposal Events. 18
4.2 Proposal Response Sheet Guidelines. 19
5. Evaluation and Basis for Award. 19
6.1 CRS Code of Conduct and Business Ethics. 20
6.2 RFP Response Ownership. 21
6.3 Confidentiality of RFP and Responses. 21
6.4 Agreement to Comply with Applicable Laws. 21
6.5 Binding Period / No Contract / Severability. 21
6.7 Costs and Expenses Associated with the Response. 22
6.8 Partnering with Another Vendor. 22
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
Catholic Relief Services is the international humanitarian and development agency of the Catholic Bishops of the United States, with programs and services that reach over 140 million people across the globe. Dedicated to a vision that all people reach their full God-given human potential in just and peaceful societies that respect the dignity of every person and the integrity of creation, CRS programs are based on need without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ humanitarian relief and development work is accomplished through a global presence and networks, productive and mutually respectful partnerships, technical expertise across eight program areas, advocacy for policies and practices that promote justice and peace, engagement of supporters in the United States, and many other organizational capabilities of its diverse staff from across the globe.
Supported by a headquarters based in Baltimore, Maryland, CRS operates programs in over 100 countries, grouped in the following regions:
· Asia
· Europe, Middle East, and Central Asia
· Latin America and Caribbean
· Central Africa
· East Africa
· Southern Africa
· West Africa
Over 80% of CRS programs take place in sub-Saharan Africa. The largest single sector for CRS programming is Health. CRS’ main business unit for programming is the Country Program, under the leadership of a Country Representative.
Key to CRS’ operations is close collaboration with local Church, civil society, and government partners to achieve shared goals and objectives. CRS places a particular emphasis on accompanying local institutions in achieving their ambitions to be effective, dynamic and sustainable catalysts for change for the people and communities they serve. We believe that by investing in people and strengthening local institutions, we support their ability to lead their own development, increasing the impact of programs and services and producing sustainable solutions.
In the United States, CRS engages with Catholic institutions and individuals and others of good will to advance our mission. Activities in the U.S. range from praying for and learning about the particular challenges and opportunities for those living in poverty around the world to fundraising and advocacy to contribute to building a more just and equitable world for all.
1.1.1 CRS Vision 2030: in their own hands Strategy
Our mission aspirations—to save lives and alleviate suffering, accelerate the end of poverty, hunger and preventable disease, and cultivate just and peaceful societies—are interrelated and mutually reinforced, always placing the dignity of the human person at the center.
To advance our mission, CRS’ agency strategy, referred to as Vision 2030, articulates bold goals and targets designed to catalyze transformational change at scale for those living in the most challenging conditions of poverty and vulnerability outside the U.S. The strategy’s five goal areas encompass the range of programming which CRS and its partners carry out. Each goal area reflects the evolving needs and capabilities of the people we serve and our over 2,000 local partners. For each of the five goal areas specific targets to achieve by 2030 are listed (see below).
Figure 1: CRS vision 2030 Strategy Goal Areas and targets
To catalyze the transformational changes needed to achieve our 2030 targets, CRS invests internally to leverage current and develop new organizational assets and capabilities focused around four inter-related and mutually reinforcing strategic approaches agency-wide.
Figure 2: Strategic Approaches
The CRS.org website and over 35 other web properties currently help enable CRS’ strategic approaches through the support of a wide variety of business functions engaging in different ways with their primary audiences. For example:
1. Catalyze Humanitarian and Development Outcomes at Scale: our CRS.org website is a repository for program information and policy position papers that current and potential donors and partners, thought leaders and peers access; other CRS web properties, such as the CRS Institute for Capacity Strengthening (ICS), provide specific information, tools and other resources for specific audiences. In the case of ICS, the website provides support for partner’ organizational development needs.
2. Expand and Diversify Resource Mobilization: CRS.org currently prioritizes private donors in the U.S. to learn about our work, our organization and who we are as well as to engage with us and facilitate online giving. Institutional donors can also find similar information although their funding agreements with CRS are not facilitated by the website; rather, staff for these institutions may access our online resources to learn more about specific programs and approaches or conduct due diligence reviews of our financials or other kinds of research.
3. Mobilize Catholic Church and others to Take Action to Combat Global Poverty, Injustice and Violence: CRS’ movement building work in the U.S. leverages CRS.org and CRSespanol.org to reach U.S.-based audiences interested in learning about our policy positions and opportunities to advocate with us. Current sites provide tools and resources to mobilize current and potential supporters.
4. Build a More Agile, Innovative and Impactful Organization: CRS.org programming information, particularly program evaluations and studies, provide rich resources for those interested in learning about program innovations, including current and potential partners, donors and thought leaders.
1.2 Purpose
The objective of this RFP is to partner with CRS to transform our digital presence into an efficient, centralized platform that maintains accessible, branded presence with consistent messaging as appropriate for our diverse audiences. Success of this endeavor will be improved outcomes in soliciting donations, driving advocacy actions, communicating the agency’s capacity and impact, and facilitating engagement of targeted audiences with CRS. The project will provide:
• Technology recommendations for future platform stack
• Implementation Plan
• Information Architecture and Taxonomy
• Design
• Development and Configuration
• Launch and Deployment
• Backlog and change management procedures
• Training and documentation for workflows in the new platform
1.3 Program Objectives
Through this initiative CRS expects to support the strategic approaches:
Catalyze Humanitarian and Development Outcomes at Scale
· Enable program sector experts and country program offices to highlight mission critical activities through their program’s web presence as well as meet donor reporting policies.
· Empower local staff to manage their regional web presence following the governance model and best practices.
Expand and Diversify Resource Mobilization
· Support the strengthening of dialogue with partners and support the expansion and diversification of financing through the personalization of content and a native multi-lingual capacity.
· Improve CRS outreach efforts with U.S. constituents and focus on generating awareness among key audiences by developing a strategy for a 360-degree view of all of CRS constituents.
· Increase our visibility as a thought leader by demonstrating our technical expertise and evidence of results/impact through programming with our partners.
· Increase and expand beyond our current individual donor audience by providing engaging content through improvements in website structure and navigation.
Mobilize Catholic Church Action to Combat Global Poverty, Violence, and Injustice
· Engage communities of faith and empower them to take action through the strengthening of constituent engagement pathways, personalization of content, and use of a native multi-lingual capacity.
· Increase the agency’s degree of influence by attracting broad-scale audiences to advance policy positions and CRS-endorsed legislation through relevant and timely issue-based campaigns.
· Achieve scale within our chapter/club methodology while deepening quality relationships with U.S. constituents by sustained and upgraded engagement.
Build a More Agile, Innovative and Impactful Organization
· Increase fundraising conversions with personalized content by optimizing the digital service delivery processes, upgrading systems, and training staff.
· Increase the agility of the Digital team by implementing reusable templates and elements along with an improved content model.
· Strengthen, enhance and protect the CRS brand through well-manicured web content which is relatable to our various audiences and implement the process to ensure content reuse and ongoing disposition.
The success of this initiative will be tracked, and CRS expects this initiative to be within the time and budget projections.
1.4 CRS Departmental background and goals
The Marketing and Communications (MarCom) division promotes and enhances the CRS brand and communicates the impacts of the agency initiatives to key audiences such as Catholics in the United States, institutional and individual donors, and government officials.
Using an integrated marketing approach, MarCom plans and executes CRS strategy-specific communications and campaigns. MarCom works collaboratively on campaigns, conferences and projects. MarCom drives awareness, engagement and fundraising for CRS by creating and distributing ads, videos, websites, marketing materials and direct response mailings while generating major media coverage. As part of the improvements that will come with the redesign of our website, we hope to implement a Governance Committee and Content Strategy that will align efforts across web properties and divisions. This work is currently in progress.
In collaboration with our internal stakeholders, the Digital Department within MarCom produces and manages the content for agency websites and email marketing communications. Currently, the Digital team supports CRS.org and over 35 CRS other web properties.
Figure 3: CRS Web Presence Supported by Digital
The Digital team works collaboratively on campaigns and other projects with several agency departments including, but not limited to:
· Overseas Operations (OverOps) – Implements program activities and operations to ensure fulfillment of the agency’s mission and strategy.
o Institutional Donor Engagement and Advancement (IDEA) – Engages institutional donors and strategic partners to acquire and steward resources that deliver excellent programs.
· Mission and Mobilization (M2) – Affects transformational change at scale for the world’s most vulnerable through influencing U.S. systems and structures and increasing private resources by building a movement of individuals.
o Campaign Team – Contributes to Mission and Mobilization’s movement building strategy by developing and implementing bi-lingual (English/Spanish) issue-based campaigns that engage supporters in the United States in strategic advocacy and fundraising action
o Chapter Management – Responsible for creating and implementing a strategy to build an ever-increasing network of chapters of CRS supporters throughout the United States with ever-increasing engagement with CRS’ mission and priorities.
o Church Engagement – Manages relationships with key Catholic leaders and institutions in the United States including strategic constituencies within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), individual bishops and relevant Church institutions, including dioceses and key seminaries.
o Policy – Responsible for developing strategic policy objectives, through consultation with OverOps, and analysis of the outside context to further CRS Mission and Goals.
· Charitable Giving (CG) – Engages U.S. Catholics and others of goodwill who share in the Church’s “service of charity” to poor and vulnerable people outside the U.S.. The division serves approximately 300,000 active donors who have given within the past 12 months, over 90% of whom are Catholic.
o Individual Giving
§ Annual Giving – Works to expand our base of support from donors contributing up to $25,000. This team builds relationships and encourages donors to give via mail, email, text, digital ads and community giving events. In addition to its traditional donor base, Annual Giving also works to reach new donor audiences in the United States, including Hispanic Catholics and younger generations, through digital and community giving.
§ Analytics – Delivers analytical insights into the hands of decision makers working with U.S. audiences to help drive impact and results.
§ Planned Giving – Promotes three principal giving instruments: bequests, charitable gift annuities, and charitable IRA rollover gifts
§ Editorial – Produces engaging print and multimedia materials for U.S. supporters and manages editorial processes that serve the entire agency, with an emphasis on telling the CRS story in a way that is relevant, timely, relatable, accurate and consistent with our mission and our brand.
§ Mid-level and Major Giving – Works to expand our base of support from donors contributing over $25,000.
1.5 Agency Redesign Priorities
CRS leadership has identified agency priorities to inform the redesign project. Future state requests will be prioritized based on the following order:
Priority 1: Private Fundraising
Engaging with audiences in the U.S. to build relationships with donors including identifying prospective donors and cultivating, soliciting and stewarding current donors.
· Outcome: Facilitate increased revenue from individual donors.
· CRS Activities: Content development and maintenance, metrics capture and review, email campaign planning, external acquisition channels and follow-up dependency content generation, etc. Offering an action that encourages a web visitor to share their e-mail address so they can begin a direct relationship with CRS. Offering videos that cultivate a stronger interest in CRS’ mission. Sharing stories that show how gifts to CRS are well stewarded and deliver impact for those we serve.
· Presumed audiences: Individuals in or from the US who may be: Current Individual Donors, Potential Individual Donors, Current Mid-Level Donors, Potential Mid-Level Donors, Current Major/Leadership Giving ($25k per year), Potential Major/Leadership Giving ($25k per year), Current Principal Gifts (over $500k per year), Potential Principal Gifts (over $500k per year), Current Planned Giving Donors, Potential Planned Giving Donors, Lapsed Donors
· Measurable user actions: onetime donations, recurring monthly donations, email sign-ups, time on page, rate of donation or sign-ups related to specific content, planned giving contact, planning a bequest to CRS, fundraising via DonorDrive, etc.
Priority 2: Advocacy & Movement Building
Engaging with audiences in the U.S. to facilitate advocacy actions and chapter activities.
· Outcome: Facilitate increased advocacy actions, chapter activity and general support for our work.
· CRS Activities: Content development and maintenance, metrics capture and review, email campaign planning, external acquisition channels and follow-up dependency content generation, etc.
· Presumed audiences: Individuals in or from the US who may be: Current Advocates, Potential Advocates, Current Chapter Members/Leaders, Potential Chapter Members/Leaders, Current Club Leaders (HS Staff), Potential Club Leaders (HS Staff), Coalition Partners, Parish/Diocese/Educators, Current Rice Bowl Participants, Potential Rice Bowl Participants.
· Measurable user actions: digital advocacy actions completed, additional advocacy actions reported via the online reporting tool, chapter membership, download of materials, time on page, rate of sign-ups related to specific content, outreach to M2 contacts, etc.
Priority 3: Institutional Donor Engagement
Engaging with institutions internationally to increase funding opportunities, steward relationships, demonstrate capacity, and foster growth of existing programs.
· **Outcome:**Facilitate increased engagement and relationship cultivation with potential and existing institutional donors by improving knowledge of CRS’ and partner programming, technical capability/expertise, commitment to local leadership, and achievements.
· CRS Activities: content development and maintenance, metrics capture and review, publication and promotion of technical papers, videos that show project or impact, storytelling aligned with achieving Vision 2030 goals (perhaps connected specifically to goal areas). Sharing digital content reflecting the scale and impact of funding from a specific institution. Exhibiting where CRS has partnerships and a strong presence.
· Presumed audiences: Priority institutional partners include individuals and leaders at CRS’ largest funding institutions which include USAID (DC and Missions), the Global Fund, USDA, UN agencies and current foundations. High priority prospects (some of these donors do partner with CRS currently, but to a lesser extent and whom we are intentionally targeting to grow our relationships): EU, World Bank, FCDO, German donors and new universities, foundations, or corporations.
· Measurable user actions: number of views, time on specific pages (i.e., country pages or impact stories/video pages), number of downloads of technical papers and program materials, rate of sign up related to specific content, number of enquiries to CRS experts or via another email address (representatives of institutional donors using the site to reach out or continue conversations with CRS.)
Priority 4: Demonstrating Expertise and Commitment to Local Partnership for Non-US Local Organizations and Governments
Publishing CRS’ organizational development materials as currently found in the Institute for Capacity Strengthening. Engaging with potential and existing local partners and governments to cultivate relationships, grow capacity, promote our expertise, and increase awareness of CRS partnership opportunities.
· Outcome: Continued development of content that reaffirms our commitment to and investment in local leadership. This content differentiates CRS from peers and competitors who voice a similar commitment to local leadership but who have not invested as heavily as we have in creating these materials over time. Increased awareness of CRS expertise to facilitate continued and new partnerships. Increased confidence in CRS’ commitment to local leadership by seeing the depth, breadth, and quality of our materials and tools.
· CRS Activities: Content development and maintenance, metrics capture and review, publication and promotion of technical papers, videos that show project or impact, storytelling aligned with achieving Vision 2030 goals (perhaps connected specifically to our local leadership goals).
· Presumed audiences: Existing partners (such as Caritas and other Church and civil society partners and government entities) that wish to access the CRS tools and reference materials related to organizational development in the Institute for Capacity Strengthening portfolio. Potential partners with interest in our approach to partnership and how CRS can support their own organizational development. Academics and university students may also have interest in accessing these technical materials.
· Measurable user actions: Number of views, time on specific pages (i.e., country pages or impact stories/video pages, thought leadership materials like best practices and case studies), number of downloads of technical papers and program materials, rate of sign up related to specific content (e.g., the ICS has a regular newsletter or publication), number of enquiries to CRS experts or via another email address for opportunities to partner.
Through this RFP, CRS is seeking to engage a vendor with deep understanding of information technology, web design and development, cybersecurity, information architecture, user experience, and donor workflows. The vendor should be able to demonstrate successful completion of projects similar in size and scope at similarly sized international organizations. Also, they should be able to successfully facilitate the transition in collaboration with the existing Digital team and resulting governance body.
In preparation for this initiative, CRS has been through an initial Discovery process, reviewing and documenting functional requirements from stakeholders across the agency. These requirements have been categorized and prioritized using the guiding priorities set by our leadership for this Redesign project.
Our discovery included producing the following deliverables which can be used to design the new website.
· Peer organization site review
· Stakeholder interviews and supporting staff surveys
· User interviews and surveys
· Development of Key Personas
· Development of User Journeys
· Prioritized Functional Requirements
· Content Governance Workflow draft
2. Summary of Service needs
We will look to the partner vendor to recommend an order of implementation for functional requirements and provide a strategic direction that will ultimately support the implementation of all identified requirements unless excluded by future decisions.
2.1 Scope of Work
The scope of this effort will be to result in a new digital solution that includes positioning people, process, data, and technology to achieve CRS’ external marketing goals online by designing, developing, and launching a new centralized platform.
While the individual requirements are detailed and specific, they primarily are in service of achieving some high-level key objectives for the new platform:
· COPE content infrastructure—centralized back-end content and asset repository deployable to different contexts and front-end patterns as the design necessitates but maintained from a single point.
· Multisite support that uses a shared upstream repository for template management and integrates with a shared back-end for content management.
· Multilingual support including English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese.
· Existing integrations with our web properties will still be supported, and where possible, improved. In some cases, we would want to be certain the new site supports an API-oriented approach, particularly with SofTrek/ClearView/Stripe and EveryAction, and ability to support embeds for platforms such as ArcGIS ESRI maps, Power BI dashboards, and EveryAction JavaScript forms.
· A flexible, resilient user interface for creating rich content will be available for content creators across levels of technical experience.
· Robust permission and workflow automation capabilities.
· An integrated design and pattern library to ensure consistency across the platform and with our brand.
· Improved tracking to monitor the performance and ROI of digital content.
· A robust, configurable search to make it easier for users to find the content they need.
· Digital asset management will maintain existing functionality, be directly integrated within the content creation workflow.
· The platform will be compliant with the accessibility, privacy, and security standards within web expectations and regulations of 2022, including GDPR, CCPA, and WCAG 2.1 AA.
· Structured to support best practices for search engine optimization.
· A streamlined navigation and dedicated audience-specific areas of the site will ensure we’re not relying on a one-size fits all approach to content.
The objective of this procurement is to select the vendor who can partner with CRS to validate identified needs, communicate well-reasoned proposals on direction, and execute on that shared vision.
2.1.1 Current State
The current CRS digital ecosystem consists of 39 separate web properties on various systems and platforms, among those, our current proposed direction is that 22 would be migrated, and the rest archived or addressed separate from this scope of work [see annex].
The number of sites reflects the breadth of needs and activities at the agency and the many ways our constituents interact with CRS through our digital properties as one or more of the following audiences:
· Donor
· Potential donor
· Planned giving donor
· Advocate
· Institutional donor employee
· In-country implementing partner
· In-country donor employee
· Local government employee
· Media
· Staff at peer organization
· Communities of Faith
· Chapter member
· Program participant (previously referred to as a beneficiary)
· Potential CRS employee
Among many of these audiences, we also have identified specific attributes that we are looking to address and account for when engaging audience members including: faith affinity, Hispanicity, and age. For each of these attributes, our audience members may exist on a spectrum in various combinations, but we consider them highly impactful for consideration.
There are over a dozen systems which support, manage, or track the customer experiences the above roles may have with CRS. The systems support the following key business processes:
· Online Fundraising
· Online Advocacy
· Email Marketing
· Digital Commerce
· Campaign Management
· Opportunity Management
· Interaction Management
· Community Management
· Customer Segmentation
· Customer Support
· Customer Data Management
· Content Management
· Analytics
The scope of this work is intended to work with an awareness of these touchpoints, but primarily focus on the content and asset management and relevant metrics as captured for those pieces.
2.1.2 Scope and Deliverables
The response should address the following:
· Outline of services and experiences, and explanation of why the services would benefit CRS and meet project objectives
· Define the methodology and applicable tools the vendor would use to develop the following project scope:
· Technology recommendations for future platform stack
o CRS will provide prioritized requirements to inform criteria. Specific items may be negotiable based on optimal strategic direction. We will collectively determine what functionality is achievable by Minimum Viable Product launch
o Provide a recommended technology along with decision frameworks to demonstrate which technology should support which business.
o Define/validate current state of business processes for Content Management System web properties
o Validate formal business requirements and benefits
o Develop and assess options for build approaches
o Benchmark high-level costs for discrete components or functionality
o Validate project outcome objectives, and then define and implement success metrics
· Implementation Plan
o Assess dependencies and sequencing
o Develop roadmap with success factors, milestones, risks and mitigations, durations, dependencies, and sequencing
o Propose structure of deliverables
· Information Architecture and Taxonomy
o Develop user-friendly organization of site content for optimal experience
o Create a taxonomy that aligns with agency content needs and external usability
· Design
o Create layouts for optimal User Experience for the main website crs.org
o Create customizable templates for