Sample Request for Proposal

This sample Request for Proposal (RFP) was modified from an actual RFP
originally prepared by Total Action Against Poverty (TAP). Please note that the
project described here is specific to TAP and should not be reused verbatim. For
more information on how to build an effective RFP, please see TechSoups RFP
Library at: http://www.techsoup.org/emcf/rfp/
Copyright 2006 Total Action Against Poverty. All rights reserved.

Total Action Against Poverty

Request for Proposals
Client Management Software System
Issued by Tim W Tickle
Technology Resources Director
November, 20 2006

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Total Action Against Poverty

Request for Proposals
Client Management Software System
Issued by Tim W Tickle
Technology Resources Director
INTRODUCTION
Total Action Against Poverty, hereinafter referred to as "TAP," will contract with a
vendor(s) for the purchase of a client management software system for a human services
agency with multiple programs in multiple disciplines (housing, domestic violence,
employment, education, etc) as outlined in the specifications of this Request for Proposal
(RFP).
Agency Background
TAP is the designated community action agency for the Fifth Planning District of
Virginia, serving the counties of Alleghany, Botetourt, Craig, Roanoke, and Rockbridge
as well as the cities of Buena Vista, Clifton Forge, Covington, Lexington, Roanoke, and
Salem. The total population of the Fifth Planning District is 298,565 with 28,134
individuals (including children) living in poverty; a poverty rate of 9.4 percent.
Currently TAP offers more than 35 programs that can be divided into three broad
categories Assistance to Distressed Families, Children and Youth, and Helping People
to Get Jobs and Become Self-Sufficient.
Assistance to Distressed Families includes programs that provide emergency
food and shelter, domestic violence prevention and services, coordinated services to keep
families together, and more permanent housing options. More than 2,770 individuals
were helped last year.

The Community Development programs of Housing & Community

Development provide emergency services, community technology programs
and centers, ESL assistance, support to dozens of community groups for
capacity building and resource development, and experienced outreach and
public education support for community-wide initiatives like Tap Fair
Housing

TAP's Transitional Living Center (TLC) offers emergency and transitional

housing and nutrition for homeless individuals and families. The TLC
provides long-term supportive housing and comprehensive services, enabling
residents to stabilize their lifestyles and become self-sufficient.

Share-HIP (Homeless Intervention Program) provides rental, mortgage and

security deposit assistance to families/individuals in jeopardy of losing their
homes due to eviction or foreclosure, or in need of moving into housing.
Financial aid is provided in the form of loans and/or grants.

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TAP's Women's Resource Center provides comprehensive crisis and advocacy

services to abused and deserted women and their children who wish to
cultivate a more healthful, positive, stable environment.

TAP Housing helps families find adequate housing by providing Section 8

vouchers in Roanoke County or, in all areas of the Fifth Planning District,
improve the housing they already have with weatherization services,
emergency home repair, and indoor plumbing for homes with inadequate
plumbing. It also manages over 230 units of rental property, providing
affordable quality residential opportunity for low--income families.

TAP's Fatherhood and Families program assists families in distress; families

disconnected by discord, by unacknowledged fatherhood, and/or by
incarceration. The program is also designed to assist unemployed, noncustodial parents, the majority of whom are fathers of children on welfare.

Helping At Risk Children and Youth is accomplished through several TAP programs.
Over 1,600 children and youth were enrolled in TAP programs in 2005-20046

TAP Head Start and Early Head Start offers underprivileged children from
birth to five years a developmental program that helps them deal with their
present environment and later responsibilities in school and in life.

Project Pride is an alternative education program providing individualized

remedial instruction, counseling and referral services to at-risk youth

Project Recovery is a dropout retrieval program. The purpose is to find

students who have recently dropped out of public school and, through
counseling of dropouts and families, re-enroll those students in the school
system or engage them in remedial/alternative education, job-related
learning, employment, or a combination thereof.

Helping People to Get Jobs and Become Self-Sufficient involves adult educational
programs that help individuals to learn to read, get their GED, and go to college.
Employment programs work in cooperation with many of our other programs to ensure
that our clients can get and keep jobs.

Adult Literacy is an education program providing one-on-one tutorial sessions

for non-readers; individualized and group instruction for upgrading client
skills in order to obtain a GED or complete an employment or education
entrance exam.

The Center for Employment Training is an open entry, open exit and highly
individualized employment training program. Hands-on skills training is
tailored to meet the needs of local employers.

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The Youth Employment Program is a year-round program for youth 14 to 21

with emphasis on remedial education, academic enrichment, and career
exploration.

Project Discovery is a dropout prevention, college access program designed to

stimulate first generation college-goers through information and
encouragement. Activities include cultural workshops, guidance in class
selection, workshops in both financial aid and college life, and college
visitation.

TAP Enterprises, and Business SEED, Inc. are the entrepreneurial and
business development arms at the agency. Business SEED initiatives provide
a full range of services to potential and current local entrepreneurs, including
business consultation, business plan development, micro-enterprise loan
funds, leveraged conventional financing, and management assistance. SEED
also provides an effective Individual Development Account program for
matched-savings asset development, and a tax-preparation program focusing
upon EITC returns, bringing significant resources back to low-income
families in our area. TAP Enterprises are agency-operated enterprises that
perform both entrepreneurial and program-related purposes. We operate TAP
Properties, leasing both commercial and warehouse space in the region.

CURRENT ENVIRONMENT
TAP currently uses OCTOPI a Microsoft Access (Visual Basic) based client management
software system provided by Community Networks Corporation. The system supports
over 40 users and a client base of over 10,000. Users access the software via a local LAN
connection or remotely via Microsoft terminal server.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Term of Contract
The initial contract term for this client management software will be negotiated at the
time of contract award.
TAP's Right to No Award
TAP reserves the right to reject all proposals, reject portions of any proposal, or accept
the proposal deemed most advantageous to TAP.
Cancellation
Should the vendor fail to meet the requirements of the contract, TAP may cancel the
contract with a thirty (30) days notice and award the remainder of the contract term to the
next best vendor.

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Vendor Selection and Contract Award

TAP will conduct the selection and contract award in the following manner:
This document will be distributed to all interested vendors.
Proposals will be received and evaluated as described in the RFP. Selected
vendors will be asked to demonstrate their client management software and/or
make oral presentations to TAP.
Schedule for Evaluation Process
RFP distributed to vendors
Deadline for RFP responses
Invitations for formal presentations
Vendor demonstrations/presentations
Selection of vendor/contract negotiation
Client management software implementation,
database migration and user training.
Client management software operational

November 20, 2006

December 20, 2006
January 12, 2007
February 5-6, 2007
March 5, 2007
March June 2007
July 1, 2007

PROPOSAL SUBMITTAL
Preparation and Submittal
Vendors will prepare proposals in compliance with all of the instructions outlined in the
RFP. Partial or incomplete proposals will be rejected. A vendor official with legal
authority to bind the vendor must sign the proposal in ink. All proposals must be firm for
acceptance within 180 days following the proposal opening.
Number of Copies & Contact Information
Please submit 6 original copies and an electronic copy (on disk or via e-mail) of your
proposal, including all supporting documentation, to:
Tim W. Tickle
Total Action Against Poverty
145 Campbell Ave
Roanoke, Virginia 24001
540-815-2881
[email protected]
Please contact Tim Tickle at 540-815-2881or via e-mail at [email protected]
with any questions about the RFP.
PROPOSAL FORMAT
To facilitate the evaluation of the proposals, vendors shall utilize the following proposal
format:
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Cover Letter Referencing the RFP

Table of Contents
Company Background.
Vendor shall provide a brief (one page) company description, history, number of
employees, and financial status.
Executive Summary
Vendor shall describe in non-technical terms its client management software, identifying
any unique or distinctive features of the software to which the vendor wishes the
evaluation committee to give particular attention. Do not include any pricing in this
section.
Questions and Answers
Vendor shall provide detailed answers to the questions contained in the RFP.
Response to Terms and Conditions.
Vendor shall indicate its agreement to the specified terms and conditions and/or provide
the requested responses throughout the entire RFP.
Proposal Costs
All costs incurred by the vendor in preparing the proposal, or costs incurred in any other
manner by the vendor in responding to this proposal will be solely the responsibility of
the vendor. All materials and documents submitted by the vendors in response to this
RFP become the property of TAP and will not be returned to the vendor.
VENDOR QUALIFICATIONS
All vendors submitting proposals must meet the following minimum requirements at the
time of proposal submittal to qualify for consideration:
Business Operation.
Vendor must have operated a business providing similar service and support for a
minimum of five (5) years.
Business Compliance.
Vendor must be in compliance with all city, county and state business licensing, bond
and insurance requirements.
PROPOSAL EVALUATION CRITERIA
Vendor shall provide the following information to help us evaluate their proposal:
Financial Information.
Please indicate any planned mergers or acquisitions. Please indicate if your company is
currently in bankruptcy proceedings.
Customer List.
List at least five (5) companies/customers as references. State company name, address,
contact name and telephone numbers, installed and supported software and duration or
relationship.

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BASIS OF AWARD
The following criteria will be used to evaluate each RFP response.

Technical capability

Software capability

Functionality

Vendor support, responsiveness and follow-up

Ease of use

Flexibility and ease of product implementation

Implementation plan and support

Pricing

Timely and complete response to RFP

Vendor client references

Results of requested demonstrations and presentations

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Provide contact information for the principle individual(s) to be contacted regarding

the information in this RFP.

Provide a brief history of your company and the location of corporate headquarters
and offices.

How long have you been in business? How long have you been providing client
management software to Community Action Agencies or other human service
providers?

Are you a private or publicly traded company? Provide evidence of your companys
financial stability and projected longevity.

How many current client management software clients do you have?

Describe what differentiates your organization from your competitors.

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

Provide an overview of your client management software system. Attach any relevant
marketing materials and data sheets.

Describe the user interface and system navigation features. How is your interface and
navigation superior to those of your competitors?

In what ways can your system be customized?

Describe user help features built into your system.

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TECHNOLOGY
List the recommended optimum hardware requirements for your client management
software:
Server:

Client PC:
List the recommended optimum software (OS) requirements for your client management
software:
Server:

Client PC:
What is the recommended way to access you client management software from a remote
location?
Does your client management software have a web interface?
Will your client management software work over a VPN?
Will your client management software work over terminal server?
In what language is your client management software written?
What database system (SQL, MS_Access, oracle, etc) does the client management
software use?
Is there a limit to the number of records your client management software supports?

CLIENT TRACKING FUNCTIONS

Please provide a yes or no answer with a brief explanation for the following questions.
Client Eligibility
How does your client management software aid in determining economic eligibility for
agency services?
Ability to search system for client by key fields
Alert staff to any reasons for past ineligibilities.
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Alert staff to client eligibility or other available services within the agency

Intake
Ability to maintain data for both individuals and families
a) At any point in time
b) During and after family composition change.
Ability to link individuals to a family
Ability to track referred-from source
Capture current employment and education
Capture for each client all demographics required by community service block grant
reports.
Capture current outside services utilized
Centralized Intake
Is there the capability of sharing intake information between programs with no
duplication of records?
Can the central intake form be designed to ask sufficient questions to determine
eligibility for most human services programs?
Is client information changed by one component updated across the entire database?
How is error/omission tracking handled for client intake or update?
Agency Services
Ability to custom enter list of services offered
Ability to update status of each client need
Ability to track client participation in programs
Ability to enter narrative of client progress, developments, concerns, etc.
Referrals
Ability to maintain referral agency details
Ability to search for referral agency by multiple criteria
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Case Management
Ability to track client interactions (i.e. phone, meetings, file updates)
Ability to schedule client meetings and notify case worker when due.
Ability to track client goals, progress and outcomes
a) Absolute outcomes (CSGB)
b) Scalan outcomes
Ability to enter notes for each interaction
Ability to maintain history of employment and education during service period and upon
exit
Ability to maintain history of outside services
Ability to monitor program outcomes as distinct from client outcome.
Reporting
Ability to create ad-hoc lists and reports using all database fields.
Ability to include user-defined fields in reports
Ability to produce unduplicated client counts by all demographic and program criteria
and data.
Ability to produce services counts by date range
Ability to use Crystal Reports to produce other reports
Pre-made report forms for standard queries such as number of clients in a program,
number of services per client and per program, list of clients per program, mailing lists of
clients per program and per geographical area, by CSBG requirements, etc.
User customizable queries for different reports.
Ability to print all forms and reports to a local or network printer
Data Management
Describe database structure and component interaction.
Ability to export data
Ability to import data
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Ability to maintain/edit standard drop-down lists

Ability to create/define fields for intake information
Ability to create/define fields for services information
Ability to create/define fields for case management information
Automatically enters current date when record is entered with user override.
Automatically updates date when record is edited
Security based on
a) role of user
b) group
c) program confidentiality requirements

Ability to customize with relative ease

Ability to create mailing lists of clients by program, date of service, or any key field

TRAINING
Is a standard training package included with the purchase of the client management
software? If so please give details?
Please provide details of availability of additional training packages? (Cost, duration,
user level)

SUPPORT
How will product technical support be handled?
Days and hours support availability?
Methods of support contact? (email, telephone, real time online, etc)
Average support call back time?
Average problem resolution time
Can the program be customized to meet our individual needs?
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Cost of program customization?

How do you address customized vs. standardized program updates across the customer
base?
COST
Total cost of client management software?
Annual support cost?
System use training cost?
Cost for program updates.
OTHER
Can data from our current client management software be imported into you client
management software system? Is there a cost for this service?
Is there an online/off-line interactive user demo available? If so, web address.

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