Request for Proposals: REDFworkshop Website Redesign

Project Overview

Introduction

REDF invests exclusively in employment social enterprises (ESEs) – businesses achieving transformative social impact – providing jobs, training, and support to people breaking through barriers to employment.

We partner with the social entrepreneurs who lead these businesses – amplifying their success and the success of the people they employ. Our programs combine capital that propels sustainable growth, capacity building that strengthens leadership and operational excellence, and community that deepens learning and connection.

Problem

How can we improve REDFworkshop to meet the updated needs of ESE staff and REDF staff, and encourage them to actually use the platform? We are setting out to improve the REDFworkshop platform (both content wise and the back end of the platform) to meet the current needs of our ESEs. While also putting forth consistent marketing and connection efforts so that ESEs and REDF staff knows that it exists, how to use it, and the benefits of coming to this platform.

Reason(s) for Project

REDFworkshop has been in stasis mode since 2019 while our organization figured out the 2021-2025 strategy and our new org structure. Now that we are two years into our new strategy, many teams are ready for a new and improved REDFworkshop. Teams across the organization have said that REDFworkshop is essential for doing their jobs and meeting the organization and their own team’s strategic goals. During a session at the REDF Partner Retreat, there was an overwhelming response from our ESE stakeholders who vocalized their want and need for an improved centralized hub of ESE best practices and content.

Goal of the Website

The goal of our updated REDFworkshop platform is provide Employment Social Enterprises the resources they need in order to help them build and grow sustainable organizations. We hope with this revamp it will become the premier tool that will allow us to provide capacity building that strengthens leadership and operational excellence for the ESE field at large.

Through this updated REDFworkshop platform, REDF will be able to better provide scalable technical assistance and reach even more organizations than before. Lastly, this content platform will allow us to continue thoughtfully engaging organizations who aren’t ready/eligible for REDF programs yet. We will be able to showcase REDF’s value to the field, while at the same time keep these orgs as warm leads in our outreach pipeline.

Target Audience

Our primary target audience and visitors are current/aspiring employment social entrepreneurs who visit the website to start and grow their organizations. Our secondary target audience includes other stakeholders who have an interest in the employment social enterprise field and want to use this website to inform themselves on important issues.

Budget

The budget for this project is $65,000 If your proposal goes above this amount, please detail why.

Timeline

Technical Specifications

Current Environment

REDFworkshop is currently hosted on Pantheon and we use WordPress as our development platform with a MailChimp integration as well. We have not made any major front end or back end changes to the website since 2019. Although we have added some content since 2019 and Below are a few items we would like to change with on our current website.

1. The content is not available publicly, all content (which we would now like to be public) is hidden behind the user login.
2. SEO is an issue as the content is hidden behind login so it is not crawlable by the search engines as well.
3. The user search is very basic.
4. The design is not intuitive anymore and is outdated.

Here is the link to our current website: https://redfworkshop.org/

Website Requirements & Must-Haves

After extensive discovery conversations with REDF staff and our core target audience, we have created a draft of our website requirements and must haves. However, if there is additional functionality that REDF has not included in this RFP, but you feel would benefit the community or website, please include both descriptions and costs.

Design, Branding and User Experience

• Design should be clean and simple to ensure easy viewability and intuitiveness
  • The design will need to be cohesive with REDF’s updated brand refresh
  • We will have a style and brand guide available for you
  • There will also be opportunities to get insights and direction from REDF’s Marketing & Communications Team
• The website must be visually appealing and include a mix of text, while also leveraging visuals (photos,graphics,videos, etc.) where appropriate in order to prevent a text heavy experience
• An uncluttered appearance that does not overwhelm visitors with information overload
• Need an “About us” page for more details on REDF Workshop beyond Home page description
• Present a clear and concise statement on the purpose of REDF Workshop
• Consider using action-based titles vs just general topic names (“Tell my story” vs Marketing)
• Present users with different use cases/personas to select from in order to personalize content/site experience (e.g – Khan Academy Home page)

Functionality

Back End

• User login – The system should have authentication for users to manage the backend functionalities
• Roles & Permissions- Each user should have a role associated with them. Depending on the role they will have certain access and permissions. Below are the roles we have in mind to start but open to others:
  • Superadmin (All permissions)
  • Content Manager (Ability to upload/manage/tag content,on the site)
• Content Management System(CMS) – The system should have the capability for managing the content easily
  • Make categories and subsections dynamic so that they can be changed without developer updates
  • Make content pages editable without developer updates
  • Content types, categories and subsections should be consistent throughout site experience to reduce confusion
  • Extensible – The CMS should be able to grow as we decide to add new functionality to the site
  • Categorization/Tagging – Roles with this ability should be able to create & assign categories and tags to content so that it is searchable and presentable in the desired format to the front-end user.
  • Content Types – Below are the content types that will initially be part of this platform. The back-end should allow for more content types to be added by the Superadmin role
    • Learning Guides
    • Case Studies
    • Downloadable Tools & Templates
      • For this type of content we would be interested in having people enter their name/org/email address so this content could also be sent to them via email
    • Blog Posts
    • Video Documentaries
    • Webinars (embedded videos from our Youtube Page)
    • Employment Social Enterprise Map
    • Quizzes
  • Bulk Actions – Ideally the CMS will allow for bulk actions to make implementing changes faster
  • Global Menu Options – Allow for high level menu options to be changed without developer update

Front End

• SEO – The new website should leverage the most up to date SEO best practices
• Mobile Responsive – Mobile browser capability with usability on a variety of mobile devices of various screen sizes and resolutions
• Public Facing Website – The website should have public access to content/information unless designated as password protected
• Password Protected Section-This section will host content for one of our programs that needs an external facing interface to communicate with their stakeholders
  • See their current section here
  • Navigation
    • Provide a clear, short global menu that contains high level options that allow for quick navigation
      • Provide link in footer to REDF.org for continuity
• ESE Map
  • Map should display all the employment social enterprises in the REDF community.
  • The map should also be synced with Redf.org. so that both maps are consistent.
• Search
  • All the content (e.g: pages, article, webinars) on the site should be easily searchable
  • Provide a global search that can be accessed on any page
  • Provide a search results page
  • Should be user friendly and intuitive
  • Clearly indicate number of results and default sort order of results when returning search
  • Content should be differentiated by the types
  • Allow for searching by multiple content types
  • Use explicit filtering options so that its clear to user when filtering is happening and how results are being filtered
  • Allow for sorting of results by multiple content types to ensure that results are relevant
• Feedback
  • A feedback page to allow users to submit ideas for other features/content they’d want to see on the website

Analytics/Metrics

To help us learn if we are providing excellent content and also see if we are doing a good job of marketing our site to our target audience, we have a few analytical metrics in mind that we would like to track. We are open to feedback on these metrics as well as recommendations on other ones to track. Below are the ones we have come up with so far:

• Number of visitors
• Bounce rates
• Average page views per session
• Session duration
• Average time on page
• Exit pages
• Number of downloads
  • Total number of downloads
  • Number of downloads for each piece of downloadable content
  • Collect the name/org/email address of who has downloaded content so we can internally analyze the types of orgs interested in certain types of content
• Number of views for webinars
• Audience satisfaction with content via thumbs up/thumbs down surveys

Integrations

• Google Analytics
• MailChimp to continue newsletter functionality if we choose to do this again

Development Stack – Below is our suggested stack to develop the new system, however we are open to others:

• LAMP-PHP based framework/CMS

Source Code Repository and Access

• We prefer Github or Bitbucket for repository, but we are open to others if there is a strong recommendation that meets our needs
• We need a list of third-party libraries used in code that is updated as libraries are added/removed
• We need our IT dept to have repository access

Data Security and Compliance 

• As there is content on the website which is accessible to specific communities and peoples it’s important to maintain the security of the data

Website Security

• Keep the website secure from potential attackers and bots

Backup

• Maintain secure website backups for any unforeseen situations

Hosting

• We are currently hosted on Pantheon, but we are open to other hosting sites if there is a strong recommendation that meets our needs

Content Migration

• Some content from the existing site will need to be extracted and added to the new site.
• We will also have new content that we are in the process of creating that will needed to be added to the site. Initial setup and help uploading this content would be extremely useful.

Websites We Like

• Candid.org – UX/UI reference
• Khan Academy – We like to have the ability to provide different paths like they do on their home page
• Coursera
• Acumen Academy
• Listen 4 Good

Additional Needs

• Ongoing Maintenance and Support
  • We need a process for maintenance and support in case of bugs, system failures, security issues, etc.
    • Needs to indicate how to raise support issues
    • Needs to provide SLAs
  • Training
    • The selected company will be required to provide training to REDF staff on how to add/update content to the website. They will also provide detailed support documents.

Submission Instructions & Review Process

Submission Instructions

Please submit your proposal to Kristen Green-Portera at kgreen@redf.org and cc capacitybuilding@redf.org  by 5pm on 2/7/2023. If you have any questions about the scope of work or need more context, please feel free to email Kristen with your questions or reach out and schedule a call before the deadline.

Review Process

Once proposals are submitted, Kristen will send them over the Proposal Review committee. The committee is made up of REDF staff members across different teams who have a vested interest in this platform. They will complete a scorecard and write up any follow up questions that they have for you. If the Proposal Review Committee has any follow up questions on your proposal, Kristen Green will reach out to you 2/28-2/29/2023. You may reply via email or by call, whichever you prefer.

We will evaluate all proposals based on the following criteria:

1. Overall proposal suitability: Proposed solution(s) must meet the scope, requirements and needs, and is presented in a clear and organized manner.
2. Organizational Experience: Bidders will be evaluated on their experience as it pertains to the scope of this project and their experience working with nonprofits.
3. Work & Communication Style: At REDF we truly value a partnership workstyle internally and that is also true with our vendors. Bidders will be evaluated on their demonstration on how they communicate and work with clients. Some questions to possibly consider are:
   1. How do you share in-progress work?
   2. Is there a process for reviewing the site’s appearance before development? How do you find the right balance of taking the time to partner with the client and getting the work done on time?
   3. What is the process if unforeseen issues or delays arise during development? How do you communicate that to the client?
   4. How does testing the site and getting feedback from key stakeholders work?
4. Previous work: Bidders will be evaluated on examples of their work, bidders must have a demonstrable ability to produce accessible websites.
5. Technical expertise and experience: Bidders must provide descriptions and/or documentation of staff technical expertise and experience.
6. Commitment to DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion)-At REDF, we envision a thriving and inclusive society where all people have the jobs and the support they need to realize their full potential. The unique backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences that our staff and partners bring informs our work and helps us move towards this vision. As we strive for a more racially just and equitable economy—one in which all people are recognized and celebrated for their talents—we remain fervently committed to continuous learning, to regular process improvements and to holding ourselves accountable for our action:
   1. Proposals from bidders should answer the question “How does DEI show up in your work or how you do your work?”. It is completely up to you how you’d like to answer or demonstrate your response to this question.
7. Value and cost: Bidders will be evaluated on the cost of their solution(s) based on the work to be performed in accordance with the scope of this project