Digital PR RFP Issued By Conservation International Foundation

Conservation International Foundation (hereinafter referred to as “Conservation International” or “CI”), is issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a platform solution for our digital marketing and online fundraising ecosystem.

For three decades (established in 1987), Conservation International (CI) has been a leader in conservation. We work with communities, governments and businesses throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific Ocean to secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity. Since our inception, we’ve helped to protect more than 6 million square kilometers (2.3 million square miles) of land and sea across more than 70 countries. Currently with offices in 27 countries and 2,000 partners worldwide, our reach is truly global. Conservation International is actively seeking proposals to reevaluate its current online fundraising and digital marketing ecosystem. Conservation International has used Luminate Online since 2003 for online donations, both one-time and monthly recurring, as well as email communications with a community list of about 850,000+ active email addresses. This strategy is led by the global support office based in Arlington, Virginia, but fundraising and email marketing campaigns are also deployed in various forms by a subset of field offices, e.g., Brazil, Japan, Singapore and Belgium, etc.

OBJECTIVES: This RFP will consider either a new platform or an ecosystem of tools to replace our current usage of Luminate Online. It will also consider an implementation partner with whom CI can partner to follow design best practices, meet our current use cases, allow CI space to grow our digital strategy, and surpass industry benchmarks for metrics like donation form completion rates and email open rates. This will include at least the following products:

• Online donation forms, including credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, cryptocurrency, international currencies and real-time currency conversions, and multi-language support

• Email marketing platform, including email distribution, constituent records, audience segmentation and lead scoring

• Social and search ad landing pages, including forms and surveys

• Donor surveys 

• Analytics dashboards for email and fundraising reporting

• IP mapping engine 

An ongoing support contract with the implementation partner will also be considered. This RFP does not obligate CI to execute a contract nor does it commit CI to pay any costs incurred in the preparation and submission of the proposals. Furthermore, CI reserves the right to reject any and all offers, if such action is considered to be in the best interest of CI.

Background:

Website: www.conservation.org Conservation.org is built on the Sitefinity enterprise content management system with about two dozen custom layout elements and content widgets to allow for a modular approach to page layout.

Objectives:

• Convey thought-leadership and educate visitors on CI’s core programs around science, policy and partnerships.

• Compel visitors to take actions, e.g., sign petitions, share content via social, calculate their carbon footprint, receive conservation news via email, etc.

• Compel visitors to make unrestricted donations to support CI.

Platforms in use: 

• Luminate / Blackbaud (process one-time and monthly donations, email subscription, email distribution, Facebook and search ad landing pages)

• Mobile Commons (SMS and MMS communications, including marketing and fundraising broadcasts)

• Stripe (process donations for mostly international donors who report difficulty with Luminate, but is also utilized on https://footprint.conservation.org. Use Donorbox forms as back-up)

• Donorbox, GoodWorld, Peak15 (third parties that integrate with Stripe as a processor)

• Mailchimp (used by some teams and field offices for email marketing)

• Raiser’s Edge (donor relationship management)

• ImportOmatic (gift data and contact information exported from Luminate Online to Raiser’s Edge)

• Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and CrazyEgg (web analytics)

• OneTrust Pro (cookie opt-in banner)

• Tandem Vault (image asset management)

• imgIX (image renditions) 

• Typeform (online quizzes) 

• MapBox and CartoDB (online maps) 

• Bitpay (Bitcoin donation service)

Scope of Work:

This RFP will address the digital marketing and online fundraising ecosystem as described in the use cases detailed in the attachment. As part of the implementation of the solution, we expect the implementation partner to execute the following activities: 

• Detailed business analysis of the attached use cases to clarify requirements

• Detailed solution design for priority use cases to be addressed by a May 31 deployment

• Detailed solution design for remaining use cases to be addressed after May 31, if necessary

• Installation or Initial setup of platform components

• Configuration of platform to meet requirements of use cases

• Execution of Quality Assurance testing to confirm platform meets requirements/acceptance criteria of use cases

• Demonstration of functionality and/or User Acceptance Testing scripts for CI

• Evaluation and resolution of identified bugs/enhancements found during User Acceptance Testing

• Development and Execution of Deployment Plan for May 31 Launch

• Post Production User support for issues identified during initial launch, including researching issues, updating solution to resolve issues, provide training/clarification on issues identified.

• Knowledge transfer sessions on Content Management and Technical Maintenance of the solution

• Migration of data required for May 31 Launch

The Implementation Partner will lead the project management of the implementation and will be required to provide the following under this engagement:

• A project manager to oversee the execution of the project

• A project timeline that provides a list of activities, resources requirement, planned start and end dates, critical milestones, and dependencies for each functional area

• A risk management process for identifying risks associated with the project timeline and deliverables

• A collaboration tool and process, including meetings, centralized data repository, process to facilitate the activities required for the project, and an area where bugs can be logged and their resolution tracked.

Due Date:

December 9

Address:

ciprocurement@conservation.org           

Agencies to consider include Crenshaw Communications and Walker Sands.