Friday 18 October 2013

Request for Proposal Comprehensive Redesign of NAHMA Website

Request for Proposal Comprehensive Redesign of NAHMA Website 

RFP Overview 

The National Affordable Housing Management Association (NAHMA) desires a comprehensive redesign of its website, www.nahma.org. To do so requires identifying and retaining the services of a contractor who specializes in state-of-the-art website design and architecture to improve all design and performance aspects of the NAHMA website, including but not limited to: 

* Visual appeal, readability, navigation ease of the site 
* Functionality of e-commerce and search aspects within the site 
* Compatibility with mobile devices 
* User friendly content management system 
* Integration with NAHMA’s social media sites 
* Search engine optimization 
* Integration of unique existing features, such as online searchable directories tied to NAHMA’s in-house custom database, NAHMA Maps, etc. 
* Redirection of old URLs to new URLs (where new URLs are implemented) 
* Creation of two sitemaps (one in HTML and one in XML) 
* Other features as may be recommended by the contractor and agreed to by NAHMA 

The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to solicit proposals from a contractor who specializes in state-of-the-art website design and architecture to work with NAHMA on the comprehensive redesign of www.nahma.org. 

About NAHMA 

NAHMA is the leading voice for affordable housing management, advocating on behalf of multifamily property managers and owners whose mission is to provide quality affordable housing. NAHMA supports legislative and regulatory policy that promotes the development and preservation of decent and safe affordable housing, is a vital resource for technical education and information, fosters strategic relations between government and industry and recognizes those who exemplify the best in affordable housing. Founded in 1990, NAHMA’s membership today includes the industry’s most distinguished multifamily owners and management companies. 

NAHMA is the voice in Washington for 19 regional, state and local affordable housing management associations (AHMAs) nationwide. For more information, please visit www.nahma.org. 

Scope of Work 
The selected contractor must be able to meet deadlines set by NAHMA for the comprehensive redesign of www.nahma.org that include in part: 

=> Dialogue with NAHMA staff and member representatives on website design and 
functionality recommendations. 
  1. Currently, the website encompasses some 250 webpages, two secure e-commerce pages, hundreds of links and PDFs, and two online search directories powered by uploaded data from NAHMA’s membership database. A comprehensive inventory of the current NAHMA website will be provided to the selected contractor (in the form of an Excel matrix) at project startup. 
  2. NAHMA’s preliminary preference is for a LAMP platform (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). Also, we prefer a responsive design framework (such as Bootstrap) that will ensure the redesigned site is mobile friendly using a standardized system. 
  3. As part of the redesign project, NAHMA is interested in receiving recommendations or bids for a new host for its new website. 

=> Submission of a detailed proposal, along with a set of three proposed visual/design comps, for the comprehensive redesign of the NAHMA website within 45 days of executing a contract with NAHMA. NAHMA will provide feedback to the contractor within 30 days of its receipt of the proposal and visual/design comps. (Wireframe designs are welcome as part of the design development process.) 
=> The contractor will incorporate NAHMA’s feedback and complete the comprehensive redesign and development of the NAHMA website within 90 days of receiving NAHMA’s feedback. During this process, the contractor will stay in touch with NAHMA and seek ongoing feedback whenever the contractor has a question or concern about the redesign project. 
=> Once the website goes live, the contractor will commit to fix any design or functionality problems identified within the first year of operation. 
=> The contractor will provide full documentation of the web site using GitHub in such a manner that other developers can understand how the site functions. 
=> The contractor will release all intellectual property rights to NAHMA upon full payment. 
=> The proposal should be all-inclusive covering any stock art or other third-party consultants. 
=> The contractor will take great care with existing inbound links to insure that search traffic is not lost to broken links. 
=> Search Engine Optimization is a very important component of this project. The contractor shall use a commercially available SEO monitoring service such as Moz.com to track SEO improvements and ranking increases. 
=> The contractor will integrate NAHMA’s Google Analytics account into the project. 

NAHMA Support 

NAHMA will administratively support the contractor as follows: 
 Provide a comprehensive matrix outlining the current site content and layout and pages/files that are active / important. 
 Provide ongoing feedback as requested by the contractor. 3 of 4 October 2013 
 Assume liaison role in coordinating feedback from NAHMA member representatives during the redesign process.  

RFP Procedures 

RFP responses should address the following criteria, which will be carefully assessed during the review process: 

 Contractor’s credentials and experience in comprehensive redesign of websites (see 
Contactor’s Qualifications, pg. 4) 
 Ability to meet specific deadlines outlined in the RFP and the contract executed between NAHMA and the contractor (please note, financial penalties may apply for missed deadlines) 
 A proposed “not to exceed” cost for providing all required deliverables in the timeframe outlined in this RFP, as well as an itemized breakdown of proposed costs 
 References applicable to expertise 

RFP and Project Timeline 

Date                   Activity 
Oct. 2, 2013 RFP published and announced 
Nov. 11, 2013 RFP responses due 
Nov. 11, 2013 NAHMA review of responses begins 
Dec. 2, 2013 Review/follow up with contractors on proposals (if necessary) 
Dec. 16, 2013 Final selection of contractor 
Jan. 6, 2014 Execution of contract with NAHMA 
Feb. 28, 2014 Detailed proposal for redesign with three visual/design comps due from contractor 
Mar. 28, 2014 NAHMA comments due to contractor 
June 28, 2014 Completely redesigned website ready to go live 
Through June 2015 Contractor makes any fixes required to redesigned website 

Please e-mail responses to (or questions regarding) this RFP to scott.mcmillen@nahma.org, and please also mail a hard copy of responses to: Scott McMillen, National Affordable Housing Management Association, 400 N. Columbus St., Suite 203, Alexandria, VA 22314. 

Contractor’s Qualifications 

Please provide answers to the following questions in as efficient a manner as possible. 

GENERAL COMPANY INFORMATION 

1) Provide a brief history of your company, including the number of years your firm has been in business and the number of years of experience in the association website design field. 
2) Describe your company’s mission. 
3) Provide a brief summary of your company’s operations. 
4) How many employees work for your company and how many would be dedicated to this project? 
5) Provide a partial list of your company’s customers and the type of services that you provide them. 
  
EXPERIENCE 

6) Describe your company’s experience with similar programs/projects. 
7) What distinguishes your company and your products from your competition? 

PROJECT - SPECIFIC INFORMATION  
8) Provide a detailed description of the work plan for comprehensive redesign of NAHMA’s website.  
9) Describe your process for responding to information requests and updates from NAHMA. 
10) Please provide your proposed total fee for executing the redesign of NAHMA’s website as outlined under RFP Overview on page 1 and Scope of Work on page 2. Please present as a total proposed “not to exceed” cost for providing all required deliverables in the timeframe outlined in this RFP, as well as an itemized breakdown of fees. 

REFERENCES 
11) Please list the organization name, contact person and telephone number of three (3) references for similar projects, as well as a brief description of each project. 

OTHER 
12) Provide any other information that you believe is pertinent to this Request for Proposal. 

Source: http://www.nahma.org/NAHMA%20Notices/RFP%20for%20NAHMA%20Website%20Redesign.pdf

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