request for proposals: website redesign & content ...€¦ · request for proposals: website...

1WEBSITE PROPOSAL / GOLDEN GATE NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVANCY

Request For Proposals:

Website Redesign & Content Management Platform Change


PROJECT DE SCRIPT ION

The goal is to transition off the

existing content management

system to an open-source CMS

and move to a responsive and

mobile-friendly design based on

an open-source framework that

is easy to develop.

Current Digital Environment

The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy is currently on Blackbaud’s Luminate CMS and Luminate Online (CRM) platforms for our website. The CMS is used to manage the content on the website and has an event calendar system. The CRM is used for user and group management, fundraising pages and donation processing, user registration for events, ticketing, email newsletters (building and sending), and surveys (collecting information from site visitors and constituents).

Why change?

The content management system is not a priority for Blackbaud to continue to develop, and has become outdated and lacking in important web and mobile features. Because it is managed by Blackbaud and our ability to develop or add new features is very limited, it is time-consuming or sometimes impossible to add new features or design elements ourselves. Also, because we are using Drupal on a number of other sites, we would like to reduce the number of CMS technologies we are developing for and supporting.

COMPANY INFORMATION

The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy is the nonprofit membership organization working in partnership with the National Park Service and Presidio Trust to preserve the Golden Gate National Parks, enhance the experiences of park visitors, and build a community dedicated to conserving the parks for the future.

Since 1981, the Conservancy has provided $400 million in support to the Golden Gate National Parks, rallied more than 250,000 volunteers, and pioneered innovative park stewardship and education programs.

These parks (Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Muir Woods National Monument, and Fort Point National Historic Site) constitute the most-visited destination under the National Park Service. With a combined 17.6 million visitors each year, more people come to the Golden Gate National Parks than visit Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and Zion National Parks combined.


Stretched across 80,000 acres north and south of the Golden Gate Bridge, these parks also constitute one of the world’s largest national parks in an urban setting. They feature:

n 37 distinct park sites, from Muir Woods National

Monument to Fort Point National Historic Site

to Alcatraz Island

n More than 130 miles of trails

n 1,200 historic structures

n 1,000 types of plants, 250 bird species, and the

third largest number of federally endangered and

threatened species of all 411 units under the

National Park Service

n Significant natural resources making the parks a

part of a Biosphere Reserve “biodiversity hotspot”

designated by UNESCO

n 19 separate ecosystems in seven distinct watersheds

The Conservancy also runs retail stores and cafes at the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, Muir Woods, Marin Headlands, Lands End, Fort Point, and Crissy Field.

The Conservancy offers the following community programs:

Crissy Field Center

Perched over the Crissy Field Marsh and at the forefront of the Conservancy’s environmental education efforts, the Center aims to bring people of all backgrounds to the national parks we all share. Through award-winning, innovative youth programs, the Center strives to cultivate a new generation of responsible environmental stewards.

Golden Gate Raptor Observatory (GGRO)

Staffed almost entirely by volunteers, the GGRO has eyed the autumn skies for over 30 years, monitoring one of the major migratory flyways in the U.S. In addition to counting thousands of birds of prey above the Marin Headlands, volunteers also band raptors and lead demonstrations for visitors.

Park Stewardship

For over 20 years, this program has engaged the community in the restoration of sensitive park sites that are home to rare and endangered species such as the mission blue butterfly. Through hands-on stewardship, this program connects the public (with an emphasis on youth) with vital conservation work.

Trails Forever

Launched in 2003, this initiative galvanizes staff and volunteers in the renovation and expansion of park trails and the stewardship of lands north and south of the Golden Gate. Improving the vital links between people and the special places around them, Trails Forever fosters a deeper appreciation for our natural, cultural, and historic treasures.

Native Plant Nurseries

The Parks Conservancy’s Native Plant Nurseries represent the root of habitat restoration work. From seed gathering to on-site planting, volunteers bring native species back into our parks. Through the energy of four nurseries and over 2,000 volunteers each year, this program has grown more than 2 million plants since 1997.

Institute at the Golden Gate

Founded in 2008 as part of the post-to-park transformation of Fort Baker, the Institute fosters cross-sector dialogue and action on social and environmental challenges. The Institute leverages parks as catalysts for promoting positive change in areas such as food systems, health, climate change, and urbanization.


OBJECT IVES

The primary objective is to transition off Blackbaud’s Luminate CMS to Drupal and move to a responsive and mobile-friendly design that is easy to continue to develop.

We plan to keep Luminate Online for our CRM needs but we would like to move off Luminate CMS to Drupal, and have a new design based off of the Bootstrap framework (or something similar).

By moving to an open-source Drupal platform and the open-source Bootstrap framework, we will be more nimble,and quickly make use of new features or designs developed by others or features/designs that we can develop for our custom needs. Switching will also allow us to feature more dynamic content, give us more customization options, and acquire the ability to change our design more easily.

Expectations:

We would like to accomplish this in two phases to coincide with our fiscal year that starts October 1.

PHASE 1 (Now until October 1, 2016)

n Strategy and discovery + information architecture

We would like a thorough strategy and discovery phase,

producing a well-thought-out information architecture

and content organization. This may require in-depth user

research, surveys, analytics reviews, SEO research, and

market analysis.

n New visual design + front-end web development

This would entail creating wireframes and new, responsive

designs for the website--and then translating the visual

designs into code, so it can be integrated with our new

platform. We would then need to create reusable templates

based on this design.

We would first develop templates to work with Luminate CMS, the existing platform to freshen the look-and-feel before a switch to Drupal, and Luminate Online so that the experience between the CMS and the CRM (donations, ticketing, etc.) is seamless. Basing the design off of an open-source framework like Bootstrap would be ideal. We are using Bootstrap on a number of our sites so it would be good to have a consistent front-end framework.

PHASE 2 (October 2016 and onward)

n Back-end website development

This entails setting up the Drupal development and

production environments, integrating existing Luminate

Online CRM functionality. Event calendars are our highest

traffic driver so we would need a replacement system in

place with Drupal, with the ability to bulk upload events.

Since we would like to share event calendars with our partner

organizations (the Presidio Trust and the National Park

Service), it will be helpful to build an event calendar system

that anticipates this with the ability to import and export full-

text feeds.

We also have other specific content types, such as programs, staff listings, parks, and locations that will need to be accommodated. The location data should work with our existing map application, or a new mapping method for park locations will need to be developed.

n Conversion & quality assurance

We would need to convert existing pages from Luminate

CMS to Drupal (roughly 1,000 current pages) and quality

check the pages. Not all pages will be switched over,

however. That will depend on the results of the strategy/

discovery phase.

n Usability testing

This includes the execution of quality assurance for broken

links, functionality, browser compatibility, and mobile

responsiveness, etc. Usability testing comes in all shapes and

sizes, so we will need to decide at what level we would do this,

but this usually involves testing a website with real users and

analyzing their feedback.

n Website hosting

Moving off the Luminate CMS platform requires a new

hosting platform for the website. It should be one that

handles much of the website maintenance, such as system

upgrades and backups.

n Documentation and support

We would like the agency to stay on board for a few

months after the launch to support the website created.

The new system should be well-documented by system

administrators, front-end and back-end, as they work in

anticipation of handing over the site.

The Conservancy must own or have full access to and have the right to customize site code.


HIG H-LE VEL FUNCTIONALIT IES

This is not a comprehensive list of all functionality that we are looking to have on the site, but a representation of the types of functionalites that we are looking to implement:

n Support for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

n HTTPS enabled by default on all pages

n Support for Facebook Open Graph, including an ability to

easily specify an OG image on each page of the site

n Support for Twitter Cards

n Blog-like functionality

- Ability for staff of different technical levels to

quickly and easily create content, from desktop or

mobile device

- Ability to easily embed YouTube or Vimeo videos

on story pages that appear and play as large as

possible and look as good as possible in the design

- Ability to tag content that will appear in as many

contexts as needed; tags function so that stories

appear with other tagged content or with related

subject matter (i.e., story about youth appearing

on the Crissy Field Center section)

- Author biographies appended to stories with bylines

- Integration of blog content with relevant sections

of the site; for example, youth-oriented stories

should appear in some fashion on the Crissy Field

Center section of the site

n Site Administration, user levels: Admin, Content Editor

(ability to edit and publish pages), Contributor (ability to

create content or events but not publish them), others as

needed

n Password-protected area or login required for area of the

website accessible only to the executive team or members of

the Conservancy’s Board of Trustees

n Ability to import and export full-text event feeds

n An elegant slideshow or photo gallery experience with

captions and photo credits that will be easy to create and

implement

n A mapping method for park locations or hikes will need to

be developed, or the existing mapping application will need

to be repurposed for the new website

n ADA accommodations to make sure the website is as

accessible as possible

n Ability to render pages in different languages, especially

non-Latin character coding

AUDIENCE

We are targeting the following types of visitors to our website:

n Park lovers and outdoors enthusiasts, including avid hikers,

cyclists, runners, and birders

n Anyone looking to volunteer or give back to the community

n Potential donors and members

n Individual philanthropists

n Busy families

n Locals looking to explore their own backyard

n Out-of-town visitors/tourists

n Educators for our youth programs

n Diverse and underserved segments of the population

n Youth who would be interested in visiting our parks or

participating in our array of educational and stewardship

programs

n Media and press

S ITE STAT IST ICS

Our ParksConservancy.org website currently has more than 1 million visits per year, from 690,000 users who generate 1.9 million page views. In the past 30 days, we have had 50,000 active users on our website. This does not include traffic from our OneTam.org, HPHPBayArea.org and InstituteAtGoldenGate.org websites, which will remain separate.

PROPOSAL

We expect this project to include two phases.

PHASE 1 (Now until October 1, 2016):

n Strategy and discovery + information architecture

n New visual design + front-end web development

PHASE 2 (October 2016 and onward)

n Back-end website development

n Conversion and quality assurance

n Usability testing

n Website hosting

n Documentation and support

We would like to begin this project in July 2016 and complete Phase 1 by October 1, 2016.


PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS

Please include:

• Two relevant examples of past clients – approach,

strategies/frameworks implemented, results, and references

• Key staff and proposed time commitment

• Proposed fee structure. Please list out the costs or cost

ranges for each phase of the project.

• Example timeline and milestones based on past

experiences.

VENDOR SELECT ION CR ITER IA

When selecting a vendor for this project, we will be evaluating candidates on the following criteria:

• Experience bringing multiple brands under one umbrella

through a website

• Experience working with nonprofit organizations

• Solid information architecture skills for organizing content

in ways that are intuitive to the site visitor

• Experience taking a holistic approach to an organization’s

web presence (e.g., insight into integrating social media

platforms, campaign tracking mechanisms, etc.)

• Proximity to the Parks Conservancy and familiarity with the

Golden Gate National Parks

Please submit proposals by June 24, 2016 to:

Dan WongDirector, Digital Media

Golden Gate National Parks ConservancyBuilding 201, Fort MasonSan Francisco, CA 94123

Or digitally to:[email protected]

request for proposals: website redesign & content ...€¦ · request for proposals: website...

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