Child Care Aware of Washington Seeks Digital PR Firm

Child Care Aware of Washington is accepting proposals to redesign and develop our website.

Our current website runs on Plone and is maintained both internally and by a contracted developer. It is hosted by Six Feet Up. We have a licensing agreement with Child Care Aware of America, which dictates our logo and primary/secondary color palettes. We want to partner with a developer to build a new site that offers an excellent user experience, is state-of-the-art and visually compelling, is interactive, easy to navigate, is mobile-friendly, and optimizes SEO.

Background:

Child Care Aware of Washington is part of the early learning system in Washington State. We are a non- profit organization with six regional offices that connects families to high-quality child care, supports child care providers in improving quality, provides scholarships for early learning professionals, and advocates for children and families.

In addition to the core services described above, we are expanding our efforts in fund development; shared business services for child care providers; support for family, friend and neighbor care givers; and business engagement. Our website is the primary conduit for linking those we serve and other audiences to these programs. We want to highlight on our home page our advocacy activities, our leadership conference, and other time sensitive content in compelling ways.

We want our website redesign to feature and reinforce our brand and key messages while better serving our diverse audiences and programs.

We will migrate the majority of our content to the new site and add content sections described below: http://wa.childcareaware.org/

Scope of Work:

1. Establish a website redesign process and timeline in coordination with CCA of WA project director
2. Propose a stakeholder input mechanism during the design process and for the life of the redesigned site
3. Reimagine Child Care Aware of Washington’s online presence
4. Visually and graphically represent our mission and primary messages
5. Incorporate the organization’s strategic plan initiatives into the website
6. Add Employer Engagement section
7. Add Shared Services marketing section
8. Provide clear and accessible paths to established and in-development stand-alone sites that are part of our brand but in distinct locations:
9. Family Center child care search (we desire a more prominent link)
10. CCA of WA field staff statewide (240 users); we currently use Schoolology

iii.            Elevate Early Learning Conference registration

1. Shared Services customers (link to stand alone site; not yet purchased)
2. Revisit the site platform, architecture and navigation to ensure ease of use for, and effectiveness with, users
3. Advise on CMS products and site hosting; we currently use Plone and would like best practices and options for ease of maintenance for internal staff
4. Propose a maintenance process for design, navigation and content that allows for a blend of internal staff capacity and contracted services
5. Intuitive navigation, a comprehensive site search, and programmed for SEO
6. Welcoming and accessible site for multiple language users: English, Spanish, Somali and Russian. Provide guidance on industry best practices for translated content.
7. Provide document management system that easily categorizes all documents in available languages
8. Ensure the new design is mobile friendly and accessible to all visitors, and is ADA compliant
9. Better integrate the website with our social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn)
10. Add interactive maps, more dynamic interaction with our data products such as county reports, and other interactive elements to increase site usage
11. Allow for growth into e-commerce and other areas (we do not currently have this functionality but may in the future)
12. Reposition the organization as a fund development entity by incorporating individual and corporate fundraising mechanisms throughout the site

Due Date:

February 21st

Address:

michel@wa.childcareaware.org

Digital PR firms include Peppercom.