Call for Proposals: Website development and maintenance support

Overview

We recently published our long-term strategy, which defines our work until 2040 and sees us radically focus our vision and raise our ambition for the role of research and innovation in the humanitarian system. It sets out how we’ll work with our community to realise its potential in humanitarian response, and how we’ll capture the real change and improvements to the lives of people affected by crisis.  

In 2024 we are embarking on building a new website, replacing our existing website, which was built on WordPress and launched in 2019. This redevelopment is not just about giving our digital presence a facelift, but about ensuring that Elrha’s digital future reflects our new strategic direction and meets the ever-evolving needs and expectations of our diverse audiences.

Between November 2023 and April 2024, we conducted research into our key stakeholders/audiences to better understand the needs, expectations, and challenges of our current website. We also conducted technical reviews of our website to evaluate usability, accessibility, overall user experience and performance. This discovery phase informed the direction of this work to build a new website, rather than redevelop our existing one. The findings from this research will continue to inform our decision making throughout the project and shape the overall process to ensure our new website will align with our organisational strategy, resonate with our core values, and enable us to convey our mission, vision and impact more effectively.   

For our new website we are open to explore continued use of open-source solutions (e.g. WordPress or others) or transitioning to a more closed system (e.g. Webflow or others). The new website must deliver almost everything the current website provides, along with several changes and updates that we consider high-medium priority and / or desirable. 

We are seeking a Service Provider to deliver a new website for Elrha; onboarding and training for its staff; and hosting and maintenance support for up to 12 months post website launch. 

Objectives

The Service Provider will deliver a new Elrha website that:  

• allows visitors to easily find content and achieve their goals
• allows staff to easily update and manage content in a consistent way that minimises errors
• is optimised for search engines to ensure visibility
• is fully responsive across all devices and screen sizes and is compliant with WCAG 2.0 AA and AAA
• is fully compliant with data protection regulations (e.g. GDPR)

The Service Provider will deliver onboarding and training to staff members contributing to the website and provide sustainable green hosting solutions and maintenance and support for up to 12 months post website deployment.   

The new website must deliver almost everything the current website provides, along with several changes and updates that we consider priorities as described in the Call for Proposal document below. 

Appendix 3 (listed below) provides more insights into the current Elrha website experience outlining current technical stack and development, types of audiences our website is catering for, and our digital ecosystem.

Timeframe

The work will start no later than July 2024, and it will conclude no later than end of November 2024. Only Service Providers with availability to meet this timeframe should consider participating in this tender.

• Call for Proposals issued – 5 June 2024
• Proposals submission deadline – 23 June 2024
• Evaluation of Proposals completed (anticipated) – 1 July 2024
• Presentation to Stakeholders – 2-12 July 2024
• Communication on contract award (anticipated) – 15 July 2024
• Due diligence and contracting (anticipated) – 26 July 2024
• Start date of Services delivery (anticipated) – 29 July 2024

A more detailed timeline, including interim deadlines and activities, will be jointly agreed upon during the initial kick-off and planning meeting(s).

Submission Instructions

The deadline for submitting proposals in response to this Call for Proposals is 23:59 UK time on Sunday 23 June 2024.

Submissions missing any of the documents listed in the Call for Proposals document or received after the deadline might not be considered.

Please submit the Technical and Cost Structure Proposals, the completed Annexes (1,2,3,4 and 5), and any supporting documents (as relevant), to Catalin Parascan, Digital and Creative Communications Manager, as per the following instructions:

• email address: comms@elrha.org, with contracts@elrha.org in copy
• subject line: Call for Proposals – Elrha: Website Development and Maintenance – [your organisations name]
• signed with the name and title of the person making the submission

Submissions emailed to any other Elrha email address will not be considered.

Submissions not following the ‘subject line’ instructions might not be considered.