Request For Proposals for Marketing Service

Summary

With this Request for Proposal (RFP), Alliance for Greater Works™ (Alliance) seeks to acquire the services of a qualified marketing firm to support Its Healing Youth Alliance initiative.  Alliance invites proposals from interested marketing agencies with experience in brand development and management, marketing; social media strategy, implementation, and management; website design and development; and market research.  Preference will be given to culturally competent agencies providing a broad range of services and expertise working with nonprofit, education and/or faith-based organizations.

Background

Alliance for Greater Works™ is committed to dismantling the systems and practices that perpetuate inequities for people living in marginalized communities.  Founded in 2001, Alliance partners with communities to address the real, often hidden, issues at play that create inequalities.  These may include lack of food, jobs, housing, healthcare and education.

We do that by organizing the right people and resources to come up with solutions that improve the lives of individuals in marginalized communities.

Learn more at www.alliancetx.org.  

Description of Project

Healing Youth Alliance, a new program of Alliance for Greater Works^TM, is a faith-based training designed to support the mental health and wellbeing of our youth and dismantle practices that create or resurface trauma.

While overall awareness of mental health providers has increased, there are long-standing barriers to those seeking mental health services, especially in African American youth. Stigma of mental illness, misunderstanding among community members, victim blaming, and tension with law enforcement leaves many individuals isolated when faced with trauma or emotional distress. Research has found that many African Americans rely on faith, family and social communities for emotional support rather than turning to health care professionals, even though medical or therapeutic treatment may be necessary. 

AGW believes that faith-based and youth development organizations must address this gap by offering culturally-sensitive mental health resources and trauma-informed practices to pastors, educators, families and young adults.  

Stress can vary in form and intensity but when a stressor overwhelms a child’s capacity to integrate the experience, adversely impacting development or leading to significant distress or symptoms of disorder, we refer to it as a trauma.

This training will provide individuals with the necessary information to recognize signs of trauma in youth and empower them to respond in ways that will begin to create a pathway for healing. In addition, this training will begin to explore the trauma related to community violence, environmental disasters, school-settings as well as misconduct within the church.

Target Audience 

Ideal participants are pastors, youth pastors, faith-based educators and counselors, youth development professionals, and families who are seeking to emotionally support fellow community members, particularly youth.

Alliance Marketing Goals

Working in collaboration with the Executive Management Team at Alliance, the marketing contractor will work towards and measure efforts against the following goals:

• Drive measurable traffic and leads to Alliance by using a marketing mix that spans digital, PR, training support and targeted offline communications
• Build greater public awareness of Alliance’s Healing Youth Alliance training products, programs, and custom solutions and position Alliance as an innovator and thought leader in the space
• Build a direct sales channel for online training purchases
• Create and implement a customer engagement plan  

Budget Range: $15,000 – $20,000

Project Scope of Work

The scope of work will include the following:

Strategy

• Serve as Alliance’s expert advisor for the development and implementation of marketing strategies for its Healing Youth Alliance initiative
• Develop a marketing plan focused on achieving Alliance’s Marketing Goals
• Create quarterly planning objectives and reporting for ensuring tactics are managed on brand and on budget

Marketing and Public Relations

• Provide graphic design and content development for digital, print, and collateral material, as requested
• Manage public relations resources to accomplish the objectives as described in the marketing plan
• Provide strategic campaign support, including planning, development, and execution; multi-channel outreach; and branded material development (video, script/email for reaching out to churches and schools to ask to host training; confirmation letters, evaluation forms, training booklets, follow-up letters, CRM database etc.)
• Support Alliance’s internal marketing needs by providing integrated collateral templates 

Digital

• Provide website design, development, and content services, as needed
• Provide social media strategy development, content, and execution

Market Research

• Conduct market research to identify target industry segments with the highest awareness generating probability, as needed
• Conduct surveys, as needed

Branding

• Advising Alliance on maintaining brand consistency
• Making recommendations on brand advancement

Response Requirements (minimum requirements)

For ease and efficiency of review, Alliance has specified the numbering protocol below for bidders.  Please follow this numbering protocol exactly, and do no re-number, insert numbers, or otherwise modify the sequence.  

1. Company profile
   1. Name of the business, contact person, and contact information: Provide address, telephone, mobile telephone number, email address, and web address, as applicable.
   2. Statement of ownership: Describe the type of business entity (sole proprietorship, corporation, LLC, or other), and list the majority and minority owners with diversity of gender and ethnicity.
   3. List of subcontractors.  If applicable, provide company name, contact person, address, and telephone number, and intended percentage of work to be performed by any subcontractor.
2. Qualifications
   1. Provide a brief description of your firm, including its founding and history; number of employees; service areas; and, awards or other forms of recognition.
   2. Provide a description of your work process.
   3. Special consideration: Describe the experience with and knowledge of the nonprofit, education, and/or faith-based organizations among your firm’s personnel, in the context of their careers.
   4. Special consideration: Describe the experience with and knowledge of the nonprofit, education, and/or faith-based industries among your firm’s personnel, in the context of their careers.
   5. Special consideration: Describe why and how your firm is uniquely positioned to serve as Alliance’s lead marketing strategist, implementer, and advisor for the Healing Youth Alliance.
3. Experience and ability to perform this work
   1. Describe the approach your firm would undertake to successfully complete the tasks described in the Scope of Work.
   2. Provide examples of relevant work and/or case studies.
   3. Provide a minimum of three (3) client references.
   4. Provide a list of personnel who would be assigned to Alliance work, along with their credentials and experience.
4. Pricing
   1. Provide a schedule of fees for all relevant services described in the Scope of Work including cost of Ongoing Consulting, Management, and Strategy Development; Digital Marketing Services; External Collateral; Content Development and Website Maintenance; Public Relations; and Paid Media.
   2. Based on your approach, provide an estimate of the annual number of hours required for each service area described in 4a.

Please follow exactly the requirements for the responses noted above.  It is the responsibility of the bidders to provide all required materials in the required form and format.  Responses that are not in the required form and format will not be considered.

Questions

Individual questions regarding this RFP will be responded to only as follows: Questions regarding requirements and scope of work will be accepted up to 5:00pm CST Monday, December 9, 2019 via email only, at ajohnson@alliancetx.org.  Answers to all questions received by this deadline will be sent via email.  

Award

Alliance reserves the right to alter the timing of the start of any work described above, to not proceed with some of all of the work, and to contract with more than one vendor for  services described within this RFP. Alliance reserves the right not to award a contract for this RFP, and will not reimburse the cost incurred by bidders who respond to this notice.

Anticipated Selection Schedule

• RFP Distributed December 6, 2019
• Question & Answer Period December 6-9, 2019
• Proposal Due Date December 12, 2019
• Interviews December 16, 2019
• Contractor Selection December 18, 2019
• Commencement of Contract December 19, 2019

Protocols for Preparing and Delivering Responses to this RFP

Responses to this RFP must be delivered electronically to Alliance by 5:00pm CST on Friday, December 12, 2019.  Responses submitted after 5:00pm CST will not be accepted.  Responses must be submitted electronically via email to: ajohnson@alliancetx.org with “RFP Submission for Marketing Services” in the subject line.

Submissions should consist of one (1) PDF document containing all of the requested information in the same order as the numbered Response Requirements listed above.