Who’s Interested In An RFP Resource Site?

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By: Drew McManus

In: Catch All

I need your help today. Specifically, I’m looking for some feedback on an idea a colleague and I have about creating an online Request For Proposal (RFP) portal that nonprofit arts and culture orgs could use, free of charge, to post RFPs and solicit bids.

Here’s an overview:

  • The site would accept listings for all the things organizations solicit bids for: IT, web, CRM/Ticketing, grant writing, marketing, data analysis, etc.
  • Submitting listings would be free.
  • In order to maintain a necessary degree of confidentiality, listings would remain behind a paid subscription wall.
  • Providers would pay a small fee, via subscription model, to access full listings and submission info.

This quartet of features is what I think qualifies as a minimum viable service launch threshold, but I’m curious to know what you think.

I’m imagining something that is similar to the way ArtsAdminJobs.com currently operates, albeit the full listings would be behind a subscription wall.

For those who don’t deal with RFPs, it’s worth knowing that the motivating factors here coalesce around the pain that is compiling the specs, finding quality providers, then evaluating whatever comes in. The more we can centralize this process, the softer these pain points become.

If you’re an arts and culture sector admin or provider, thank you in advance for completing this brief survey. And please feel free to leave a comment or send along your thoughts via direct message.

Drew McManus
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Drew McManus
In addition to my consulting business, I'm also the Principal of Venture Industries Online but don’t let that title fool you into thinking I'm just a tech geek. I bring 20+ years of global broad-based arts consulting experience to the table to help clients break the cycle of choosing one-size-fits-none solutions and instead, deliver options allowing them to get ahead of the tech curve instead of trying to catch up by going slower. With the vision of legacy support strategy and the delights of creative insights, my mission is to deliver a sophisticated next generation technology designed especially for the field of performing arts. The first step in that journey began in 2010 when The Venture Platform was released, a purpose-designed managed website development solution designed especially for arts organizations and artists. For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, lead a team of intrepid arts pros to hack the arts, lead an arts business incubator, and love a good coffee drink.
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