Social Justice & Equity Commission Public Engagement

 

 

The City of Olympia is seeking a qualified individual, consultant firm, non-profit, or other organization (Consultant) with expertise in providing professional consulting services in public engagement and data analysis with a focus on diversity, racial equity and inclusion. Olympia (City) is seeking to form a new Social Justice & Equity Advisory Commission. This process will include engaging with primarily marginalized community members, with an emphasis on Black, Indigenous, and People Color, and will be led by the City’s Equity & Inclusion Coordinator and a five-member Founding Member Work Group (Work Group) made up of citizens who identify as being from one or more marginalized communities.

The deadline for this RFQ is 5:00 pm Pacific Standard Time, Tuesday, December 15, 2020. Earlier responses are welcome.

 

1. BACKGROUND

 

Advisory Commissions & Committees

The City currently has twelve Advisory Committees, Commissions, and Boards. Advisory committees are a structured way for individual citizens to share their opinions and perspectives, study issues, and develop recommendations in a focused, small group structure. The primary purpose of Olympia’s advisory committees is to provide judicious advice, from a citizen perspective, to the Olympia City Council (Council) and City staff.

 

Social Justice & Equity Advisory Commission

On June 9, 2020 the Council forwarded to the General Government Committee (a Committee comprised of three Council members who address topics related to public safety, general city policy, advisory committees, and community relation topics) a referral to request the development of a Human Rights Commission. The referral requested the Committee develop the best process to scope and populate a new advisory commission. The referral also outlined that community members most impacted by social and institutional racism needed to be integral to the development of the commission and its resulting work plan.

 

On November 2, Council approved a process to establish a Social Justice & Equity Advisory Commission (Commission), including that the process be led by a Founding Member Work Group, made up of five community members representing marginalized populations, with an emphasis on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. This group would be responsible for hosting a series of Community Conversations to elevate the voices of marginalized community members, and use the input gathered to recommend to Council the new Commission’s:

• make-up and terms;
• formal name (as “Social Justice & Equity Commission” is a Council-approved placeholder);
• scope of work; and
• first year work plan

 

338903. process will include a series of approximately four Community Conversations (with the exact number to be determined by the Work Group in collaboration with staff and the consulting team). City Councilmembers and City staff are listeners, while Work Group members are hosts. Conversations shall be thoughtfully designed and facilitated so as to provide psychologically and physically safe spaces in which participants can authentically engage with one another and share their thoughts, personal stories, and ideas.

 

Council has chosen this approach because it engages participants in dialogue with one another, emphasizes seeking out and elevating the voices of typically underrepresented and marginalized groups, and fosters the dialogue, trust, and relationships needed to form a Commission that can best represent and respond to the needs of those community members.

 

2. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

 

338903. process will be led by the City’s Equity & Inclusion Coordinator, with support from the City’s Strategic Planning & Performance Manager. The expectation is that the consultant(s) will work closely with City staff and the Work Group throughout the process.

 

The duties and responsibilities will be the following:

1. Designing and Facilitating Community Conversations. Work closely with the City and Work Group to design and host approximately four Community Conversations in a virtual platform. Provide input on meeting design, participant make-up, outreach methodologies, invitation, and data/input collection. Facilitate the meeting using a highly accessible and interactive virtual platform, while ensuring psychological safety for participants. Provide actionable insights and take-aways from the meetings and recommend adaptations to the design as needed.
2. Summarizing and Analyzing Public Input. Collect input/data from Community Conversations (and any other tool/platform used to collect community member input). Review, summarize, and analyze input for patterns, themes, and recommendations.
3. Supporting the Founding Member Work Group. Provide expert guidance, research/best practices, recommendations, and draft documents to inform the Work Group and help them achieve their deliverables within the desired project timeline: Commission make-up and terms; formal name; scope of work; and first year work plan. Design and co-facilitate Work Group meetings with the City’s Equity & Inclusion Coordinator. Provide individual support to Work Group members in a work environment that will be highly visible, mentally and emotionally challenging, and potentially trauma-inducing for members.
4. Producing Reports and Documentation. Provide summaries, recommendations, and other content that can be shared with Council and process stakeholders. Prepare and submit a final report with the Work Group’s recommendations and visual and written documentation of the overall process.

3. BUDGET AND TIMELINE:

Funding available for forming the Social Justice & Equity Commission is in the range of $30,000 to $40,000. This process is proposed to be completed in June 2021 with the appointment of nine permanent Commission members and an approved 2021-2022 work plan.

4. APPLICANT SELECTION CRITERIA:

The City’s Equity & Inclusion Coordinator is responsible for leading the recruitment and contracting process. A City of Olympia team will evaluate qualifications and develop a list of qualified applicants. Applicants will be invited to appear for interviews, with the Work Group making a final selection based on qualifications, demonstrated competence, and technical response to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ). When the final selection is made, the successful consultant(s) will be invited to enter into contract negotiations with the City.

 

The City of Olympia will evaluate the statement of qualifications based on the following criteria:

 

1. Quality and completeness of RFQ response and adherence to submittal requirements;
2. Experience working with government organizations on similar Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts;
3. Experience engaging a variety of different stakeholder and community groups, including marginalized groups (with an emphasis on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) in public process;
4. Demonstrate experience in addressing bias and using a trauma-informed approach when working with marginalized communities (with an emphasis on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color);
5. Demonstrate the ability to analyze, summarize, and formulate recommendations from large amounts of data/community input;
6. Demonstrates creative, interactive, and relevant facilitation experience, including the use of virtual techniques, tools, and approaches;
7. Excellent written and oral communication skills;
8. Examples of previous work;
9. Ability to meet the desired timeline; and
10. Fee schedule/hourly rate (including any administrative fees or surcharges)

 

All applicants submitting qualifications will be notified of the City’s selection. Please do not contact the City of Olympia for status on the selection process during the selection period.

 

INSTRUCTIONS TO SUBMIT QUALIFICATIONS

 

The deadline for submission of proposal is 5:00 pm Pacific Standard Time, Tuesday, December 15, 2020.

 

Proposals shall be submitted to the City by email to the RFQ Coordinator at osalazar@ci.olympia.wa.us. The proposal must be in Word or PDF format.

 

No faxed or mailed submittals will be accepted.

To obtain information to submit qualifications, please visit either:

1. City of Olympia RFP & RFQ Page. The Request for Qualifications will be posted under “Current RFP/RFQs”. If using this option, please review this page to verify any addendums posted are reviewed before submitting.
2. Washington State’s Electronic Business Solution (WEBS). The Request for Qualifications can be found by in WEBS by searching:

Organization Name: Olympia, City of

-OR-

Customer reference number: OLY-RFQ-002

For questions about this RFQ, please contact the RFQ Coordinator via email at osalazar@ci.olympia.wa.us.