Career Center
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria, VA
Alexandria, Virginia
Arlington, VA
Alexandria, Virginia
Posted: 17-Jan-23
Location: California
Type: Contract
Categories:
Salary Details:
Preferred Education:
Additional Information:
Internal Number: 004
The Institute for Nonprofit News is seeking a systems consultant with experience with Association Management Software (AMS) and Learning Management Systems (LMS) to help INN synthesize use cases, gather requirements and rank the best systems and options for managing our membership database of nonprofit newsrooms and their staffs, and member access to information and materials. This time-bound project will be a one-time engagement.
About INN:
INN is a field-building organization that leads and advances the growth of more than 400 newsrooms across North America, all nonprofit, non-partisan and dedicated to providing journalism as a public service. Together we are building sources of trusted news for thousands of diverse communities throughout the country. INN members have direct audiences in the millions and distribute their news through more than 7,000 other news outlets as well.
INN provides training to help our members’ staffs build their capacity in fundraising, board development, talent and leadership development, audience development, and more; robust written resources in many areas of nonprofit news management; access to shared services and vendors negotiated through INN; editorial collaborations with fellow INN members; and one of the largest collaborative fundraising campaigns (NewsMatch) for the field of nonprofit journalism.
Project Details, Scope, and Budget:
As our membership expands—we have surpassed 400 member newsrooms in 2022 and anticipate reaching a scale of 600 member organizations by 2025—our systems needs have also grown; in particular, the constellation of tools that we are currently using to manage both our organizational membership and member individuals’ access to member benefits.
We’ve reached a scale that now requires a more integrated approach, ideally in a robust AMS that has the capacity to function as both an internal database with robust reporting capabilities, as well as a member-facing tool where members can log in and check their status, pay their dues, access a calendar of upcoming events, etc. We are also interested in a learning management system to help us provide better access to our vast resources, whether that is a separate system or integrated into an AMS.
To that end, INN is seeking a consultant with expertise in systems to aid in the needs-gathering and evaluation of prospective AMS and LMS platforms.
The deliverables of this project are as follows:
- Identify (with INN leadership team’s help) key stakeholders across INN whose needs should inform the AMS/LMS selection process.
- Gather needs and use cases from key stakeholders, in the form of interviews, surveys, etc. as needed; Maintain documentation of the needs-gathering process for INN’s internal reference.
- Present a high level summary of INN’s requirements for an AMS/LMS system for consensus before developing detailed assessment.
- Develop a rubric of retailed functional requirements with which to analyze the existing market of AMS, LMS, or combined AMS/LMS platforms against INN’s needs and use cases.
- Arrange any outreach or meetings with external platforms needed to conduct the systems assessments including ranking of options and potential tradeoffs.
- Review the top 3-4 options with INN stakeholders based on rankings of options and tradeoffs including user experience for both members and staff, functional requirements, costs, implementation and ongoing maintenance requirements, and platform stability. Seek demos of and references from other organizations’ with similar/relevant uses of the top contenders. Facilitate demos/references for top 2-3 with INN key stakeholders
- Compile and document the final analysis of platforms with rankings and key considerations
- Recommend the top two or three platforms/software options or combinations that best align with INN’s needs.
We are aiming for this project to be completed by, or as close to, March 1, 2023.
Background Information:
Currently, INN’s membership management is spread among multiple tools that tend to serve a single function: Eventbrite for event management, Zoom as an event platform, Calendly to schedule individual office hours with our coaches, Notion and our public website for resource promotion and access, Neon CRM for membership applications and dues, and various spreadsheets for membership reports. We are currently in the process of a migration into Salesforce for our development contacts and fundraising workflows. A consultant familiar with best practices for a tech stack that includes both a CMS and an AMS is preferred, that can help us evaluate the benefits and trade-offs to integrating those systems or keeping them separate. We also use Constant Contact for member outreach, but welcome any recommendations for different tools that may work better with our final AMS/Salesforce tech stack.
Selection Criteria and Timeline:
We are not accepting sales pitches from AMS vendors. The emphasis of this project is on needs-gathering, identifying use cases, and evaluation to determine which system will best meet the needs of INN. This project will culminate in a recommendation, not in the purchase of any specific AMS.
If interested, please send a proposal brief that includes your or your company’s information, or resume; a cover letter outlining you or your firm’s direct experience evaluating and selecting AMS/LMS systems for organizations; and your quote and timeline for this project. INN will be accepting proposals until January 31, 2023. To submit your proposal, please send your materials to apply@INN.org, and include “AMS Consultant” in the subject line.