CVI RFP – Strategic Planning Consultant

Announcement date: June 28, 2022
Applications will be reviewed on an ongoing basis.

Request for Proposals: Strategic Planning Consultant

About the Organizations

Conservation Voters for Idaho Education Fund is a statewide nonprofit that works to protect Idaho’s environment and quality of life by informing, engaging and empowering citizens who care about our natural heritage and healthy communities. We advocate for sound environmental and voting rights policy.

Conservation Voters for Idaho creates the political environment to protect the natural

environment. Over the last 17 years, we have elected environmental champions to city, county and state offices, held our elected leaders accountable to their voters, and built a broad conservation voter movement in Idaho that’s impactful across the political spectrum. 

The staff and board of directors at CVI and CVIEF are committed to creating a just, inclusive and healthy future for all. We have a growing team of 18 full and part time staff and 20 board members. 

About the Strategic Plan

Conservation Voters for Idaho Education Fund (CVIEF) and Conservation Voters for Idaho (CVI) adopted our most recent strategic plan in 2019. The three year plan was developed through a robust process that included staff and board collaboration. The resulting 2019-2022 strategic plan set forth a path for advancing a bold vision for Idaho and focused our capacity on advancing climate action and creating a strong and resilient democracy alongside our work to protect our land, air and wildlife for future generations. Since then we’ve had big wins and made progress towards that vision all while we’ve navigated a changing world that created complex challenges to our work.

CVI/CVIEF invites bids to provide capacity and support to our Strategic Planning Task Force, made up of board and staff, to advance our next three year plan that will shape the vision, mission and programs of our two organizations in the years ahead as we work to fight for clean air, clean water, access to public lands, a strong and resilient democracy and to build a better Idaho for all.  

Scope of Work

Our organizations are looking to engage a consultant or group to lead us through a strategic planning process. This effort should focus on developing the mission, vision and plans for the next 3 years. The efforts should focus on developing information into a report with an executive summary that outlines the below sections: 

• Current Lay of Land
  • Details current staffing, operations, programs. This provides a basis for the future of the organization by identifying where we are coming from.
• Stakeholder Analysis
  • Interviews with stakeholders of all levels including staff, board, donors, partners, and members. 
• Planning/Visioning
  • This section puts together a vision for our programs including clean energy, public lands, environmental justice, civic engagement, and leadership development. 
• Projected Financials
  • This section looks at the financial sustainability of the organizations and the operations. 
• Short and Long-term Goals
  • Develop trackable goals and metrics 

To complete these efforts several elements are critical and a path forward must be developed.  Our organization sees these efforts occurring in three phases with the following work provided.

Introduction/Initial Findings

• Introductory call with the Executive Director and Board Chairs. The purpose of this call is to gain a broad understanding of the organization, to help us draft desired questions that may be asked, to identify potential interviewees and gain an understanding of peer organizations.
• Individual Interviews
  • These are typically done in person or via zoom/conference call depending on interviewee’s preference and last about an hour.  The intent of these calls is to gather information on the organization, including perceptions, interests, opportunities and concerns. 
    • 4 members of staff
    • 4 board members
    • 4 major donors 
    • 4-5 others (may be community leaders, partners, members, etc.)
  • In addition, a digital survey should be developed that can be shared with a broader audience that will allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the organization.
• As the interviews are going on, the consultant will also be developing a competitive landscape putting together information on the community and peer organizations. These efforts should begin to provide benchmarks for the organization to compare itself against.
• At the end of the interviews, the consultant will draft a summary of the interviews and a landscape within which the organization operates that looks at the community and peer organizations. Consultant should be prepared to present the Initial Findings report either in person or via zoom.

Development

• Consultant will gather the feedback from the Initial Findings Report and Meeting and utilize that to start to draft a foundational plan for the organization. 
  • This foundational plan will identify the mission, vision and current operations and programs of the organization. 
  • The purpose of this work is to ensure that the mission and vision align to  programs and, if they don’t, assist the leadership team in working through alignment.
  • After ensuring that the foundational plan is aligned, the consultant will begin to overlay the draft of the strategic plan.  Beyond the mission, vision and current operations the draft strategic plan will look at the above-mentioned sections.
  • The draft plan is typically not developed with graphics or a strong visual presence but is focused on the content.
  • Upon completion of the draft report, the consultant will facilitate an in person workshop with the board and staff to finalize.

Final Strategic Plan

• Consultant will gather the comments received during the strategic plan in-person workshop with board and staff and implement the desired feedback. 
• Consultant will at this time develop any necessary visuals and graphics for the strategic plan.
• Consultant should plan on developing and delivering two strategic plans:
  • A full strategic plan that has great detail.
  • A summary strategic plan that is more likely to be read by board members, major donors, etc. 

Deliverables

• Initial Findings Report – Made up of information gathered from the interviews, surveys and competitive landscape of the community and peer organizations.
• Foundational Plan – Made up of the mission, vision and current operations of the organization.
• Draft Strategic Plan – Integrating in the feedback and information developed from the Initial Findings Report and Foundational Plan the Draft Strategic Plan builds the future of the organization.
• Facilitate an in-person workshop with the board and staff to get feedback.
• Final Strategic Plan – Delivered in 2 formats (full detail and summary document) this strategic plan identifies the future of the organization and lines up a clear path to success.

The selected consultant should anticipate a three month timeframe for the scope of work and should include a schedule that shows the work plan over the course of those six months If a different period of time is being proposed, the proposal should explicitly show why more or less time is needed. 

Budget

The current budget for this effort is not to exceed $10,000-$15,000

Proposal Qualification Requirements

Please include the following in your proposal:

• An overview of your company/firm 
• Bios of the consultant to work on the project
• Include experience with conservation and civic engagement
• Proposal of approach
• Schedule
• Proposal of fees
• A summary of how you have incorporated your commitment to and investment in diversity, equity and inclusion

Selection Determination

The Strategic Planning Task Force will evaluate the proposals based on the following criteria:

• Responsiveness to the required information outlined in this RFP
• Quoted cost of the proposal
• CVI/CVEF reserves the right to award the contract to the vendor that represents the best alignment in values as determined by our organization

The proposal will be reviewed by the Strategic Planning Task Force. The Task Force will be in touch with next steps after the review process. Please submit your RFP to shevawn@cvidaho.org and include the subject line “CVI Strategic Planning Consultant”.