RFP for Website Design and Development July 2016 SV@Home is looking for a designer/developer team or firm to build a new website to help our organization achieve its mission to drive education, awareness, and action on affordable housing policy. We have included in this RFP some of the background, needs, and concepts we have about the build-out, but we are looking for a true partnership with our selected consultant, one that will work with us and make recommendations on all considerations, from site layout and design to content provided in order to best: Improve user experience; Present our content in a beautiful, compelling way; And support our back-end member/donor and communications/advocacy needs. BACKGROUND Our current site can be viewed at: www.siliconvalleyathome.org Why are we looking for a re-design? - We want our landing page to be more compelling, easier to browse/skim, and point more directly/clearly to the important internal page content we are (or will be) producing - As our organization has grown, our needs have as well. We want to create a website that supports our defined organizational goals and priorities including: o Member Development: A more streamlined, integrated way for supporters to become members o Policy/Research: A beautiful and easy-to-use layout/functionality for our Policy Database o Community Education and Engagement: Clear, simple opportunities for supporters to find us on social media, donate, become a member, sign up for our newsletter, and get involved through integrated advocacy tools
Our Goals The SV@Home website will serve an important function as the base of our communications strategy. By serving as a compelling clearinghouse of information, the website can deliver our topline messages, demonstrate community/member support behind our policy goals, provide information and research, and deliver opportunities for supporters to engage (while demonstrating that support to decision makers.) The website is also an important infrastructure piece to our administrative and membership strategy, and should provide user-friendly tools for members to engage and see value in their membership, as well as provide SV@Home staff with the online infrastructure to track, grow, and utilize support over time. GOAL: Educate and inform our targeted audiences about the solutions available to tackle our housing crisis. GOAL: Build and demonstrate support for local and regional action. GOAL: Make the case for SV@Home membership (and provide services and appropriate demonstration of recognition for existing members.) GOAL: Provide members, supporters, and interested parties with ways to stay informed and get active. A Starting Concept Our site homepage can target and message our key audiences through a visual, vertical narrative: o How does housing impact our region? Our Community Our Economy Our Future o Local and Regional Solutions What? (Policy Database/ Policy Roadmap) Why? (Urgency and Community Impact/Personal Stories) How? (Opportunities to get involved, resources)
o Optional: Community Support/Testimonials (A sliding set of testimonials can either demonstrate the impact the housing community has on our region OR demonstrate why our members see progress through SV@Home work) o Members/Supporters List o Events/News/Updates o To also include contact/social media information, and possibly integrated twitter feed Internal pages will dive deeper into policies, issues, and opportunities: o Our Housing Crisis (Answering the why of the home page) o Housing Solutions (this is probably our most important internal page) Solutions page divided into two sections: Learn/ Act Learn (Policy Database) - Layout and display considerations pending. May want to use the Roadmap as a guideline (the 5 strategies/sections) Independent search function, if possible Will include a number of issues, each with its own entry and landing page. To (possibly) include a visual introductory presentation, an anchor jump menu of questions, and then a textheavy explanation page. Should include ability to share, print/save as PDF, email questions (maybe) on each topic Considerations for how we connect the topics to one another Act (Advocacy tools) tools to get involved, donate, sign up, share To feature 1-3 tools at a time, using our CRM or routing to external actions from partner groups Backend infrastructure to capture user information (including name, email, and zip code) and allow them to auto-subscribe to our newsletter o About Board Staff Mission/Vision o Member page(s) o Press page Includes recent coverage, press toolkit, contact/email button o Blog/news page Possible that our email program RSS feed can auto-publish here?
o Events (The blog/news and events pages will be our most dynamic internal pages.) o Housing Resources Functionality o Wordpress CMS o SalsaLabs CRM integration for memberships, donations, email subscriptions, advocacy tools o UX considerations that easily enable site visitors to: Become a member, Donate, Sign up for our newsletter, Share our content (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) o Links to SV@Home social media channels o Additional specs Fully responsive designed and implemented to scale appropriately and respond to screen size and orientation of devices including PCs, Tablets, Smart Phones Browser Compatibility across diverse devices and browsers Installation of Google Analytics, to track site visits, referring traffic sources, and other metrics TIMELINE We would like to select a web design and developer team by the end of August that will work with us to build and implement a design, production, development calendar with final launch by 12/15/16. HOW TO APPLY Contact for this proposal: Nicole Montojo, Policy Associate: nicole@siliconvalleyathome.org Firms who are interested in submitting a bid should signal their intention to bid by August 1. Questions should be submitted by email, and will be addressed the week of August 8. Full proposals should be received by August 19. Your proposal should include: - Your approach to this project - Your timeline - Full budget, inclusive of design, development, and testing. (We also encourage you to include any maintenance fees/retainers you would recommend.)
- Annotated portfolio examples. We are particularly interested in seeing examples of websites that you have built that may echo the style or format you would envision working with us toward It is our goal to select a team or firm by the end of August.