Request for Proposal: Web design and development
- This RFP had a pre-bid event.
The organization is requesting proposals for the design and development of a new web site (http://www.conbio.org). The existing organization web site has been extant since Fall 2005, was designed by a freelance graphic designer, and is maintained with in-house resources by a part-time Webmaster and part-time Senior Designer. Much content from our current site will migrate to the new organization site, and the new site will need to interface with an independent external membership system and with our publisher’s web site. Otherwise, the site itself will be original in terms of design, information architecture, and new interfaces (for example, with social media or video hosting sites).
Our goals are to modernize the site’s appearance and functionality, streamline confusing information architecture and technical aspects of usability, augment services, and incorporate the latest web technology. We intend our new site to serve our complicated organizational, membership, and programmatic needs, internationally. This will include as top priority the addition of an open-source content management system whereby widespread staff, volunteers and Board members may update the site with current activities, articles, and multi-media files, without compromising the integrity of
the site’s appearance and structure and without editing source code. We also require a site that will
advertise our successes, inspire funders, and engage with other individuals and groups interested in
the science and practice of conservation.
The new site will:
i) Provide a content management system based on an open-source industry leader (Drupal,
Joomla, Moodle, Sharepoint, Wordpress), usable by individuals around the world, in
developing countries and on a wide variety of platforms. The CMS will enable many
individuals to add and update content, navigation, and multimedia, without editing source
code or changing the look and feel of the site itself. The CMS should have a wide variety of
permission settings to be managed by in-house organization staff. These settings will apply both to
staff and to the widespread group of volunteers who will be contributing to either the main
site, or to mini-sites (see number 6). The CMS should be flexible enough to allow for a
creative design approach for the addition of new activities and themes as needed, rather than
provide only a small range of page templates.
ii) Integrate and interface with external sites and database systems including: social media and
video hosting sites, our publisher’s web site, and an external membership and
meetings database system. The membership system is currently in flux and the portal design
inflexible. Ultimately, it will provide the following functions: renewing membership, joining
the organization, registering for meetings, joining Sections, chapters, and working groups, generating
reports, labels, and email lists.
iii) Integrate with and possibly streamline and/or upgrade in-house SQL database services
including the organization job board, membership voting, Postdoctoral Fellowship
program database, the organization expertise database, policy database of existing policy statements, and
allow for additional data harvesting and data provision from and to our members.
iv) Make easy, seamless, and attractive the process of donating to the Society.
v) Streamline and reorganize content and navigation to better serve our mission, reflect our
activities, and increase usability.
vi) Provide the structure and themes for individualized mini-sites for the organization
vii) Enable and encourage members to interact with the Society via the site. This will include
forms for members to submit current stories, activities and photos; feature articles from our
publications for free download (interfaced with our publisher’s web site); the integration and
highlighting of real-time twitter feeds and policy actions; the featuring of members (member
highlights); and more!
