Website Redesign – cbpp.org

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is accepting proposals to work with CBPP’s Communications team to create an updated visual language and minor design refresh for CBPP’s website. Proposals are due to CBPP via email by 5:00 pm on April 19, 2024, at nkasprak@cbpp.org. Evaluation and selection are expected to be completed by May 10, 2024, with work to start around the week of May 20, 2024.

About the Center

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is a nonpartisan research and policy institute that works at the federal and state levels on fiscal policy and public programs affecting low- and moderate-income families and individuals. It pursues federal and state policies designed both to reduce poverty and inequality and to restore fiscal responsibility in equitable and effective ways. CBPP applies its deep expertise both to inform debates and achieve better policy outcomes.

CBPP works in the areas of Federal Budget and Tax, State Budget and Tax, Health, Social Security, Economy, Poverty and Inequality, Food Assistance, and Housing and Income Support. Staff in its various program areas collaborate within their teams, across teams and with a wide range of partner organizations and individuals across the country to conduct research, produce policy papers and memoranda, provide technical assistance, and deliver educational programs. CBPP is a 501(c)(3) organization located in Washington, DC, with more than 160 employees. More information on CBPP and its departments and programs can be found at www.cbpp.org.

Project purpose and goals

CBPP publishes hundreds of research papers, blog posts, and other material on its website each year. Our Drupal-based website is our primary method of disseminating our research, and we have an extensive archive of content going back decades. The current design dates from 2015.

CBPP would like to undertake a minor visual refresh of the site, narrow in scope, to give it a fresher and more modern feel, without fundamentally altering the site architecture, structure, or user experience. Most web development is done in-house. CBPP recently undertook a full rebuild of the site as part of a migration from Drupal 7 to modern Drupal, and is not interested in repeating that process at this time – this is a re-theming at most.

Scope of Work

As the designer for the project, you will provide, in either Adobe XD, PDF, or Adobe Illustrator format, several design templates, each corresponding to a type of page on our site, as the final deliverables. These will include at minimum mobile and desktop versions of the home page, a topic landing page, a typical paper or report that includes all standard reusable elements (text box, tables, pull quotes, block quotes, etc.), a typical blog post, our staff page, and several other page types we determine further into the process.

We expect the final number of deliverable page templates to be around 15 – 20, counting desktop and mobile version of the same page type separately.

Design elements that could change:

• Colors
• Typography
• Minor layout adjustments
• Table styling
• Home page structure

Design elements that should not change:

• Content types
• Navigation/menu structure
• Embedded chart styles
• Anything requiring extensive content migration
• Anything requiring extensive addition, removal, or remapping of content fields

The design should:

• Be responsive to all screen sizes and devices
• Use color contrast adhering to WCAG AAA guidelines across-the-board with no exceptions
• Be functional for legacy content and new content without extensive migration or conversion.
• Use freely available web fonts only, such as Google Fonts

As part of the discovery process CBPP is willing to grant access to the back end of our site, so that you may arrive at a better understanding of our site architecture and determine what types of changes are possible. We understand that a fair amount of guidance may be needed initially.

We are flexible on process and timeline. CBPP will pull together internal stakeholders, both inside and outside the communications team, to provide feedback and reactions throughout, and are willing to adapt our feedback process to your needs.

CBPP in-house developers will use the templates provided to update our existing Drupal theme (or write a new one, depending on how extensive the changes are.)

Goals

• A modern look and feel, in line with our peer organizations
• Content that is visually easy to read, even for long papers with extensive tables and appendices.
• Smarter and more future-proof handling of social media sharing tools and links
• Closer alignment between print/PDF and HTML versions of papers

Proposal Requirements

Please include in your proposal a:

• Work plan to address the scope of work within this document that includes deliverables and explains any suggested modifications to the scope of work. Describe in detail your plan for each stage of the process – colors, typography, wireframes (if needed), final templates, etc., how many rounds of revision is desirable for each milestone, and strategies for incorporating feedback from a variety of different people with varying levels of tech expertise and fluency in visual design terminology.
• Timeline, if not included within the work plan. If the timeline differs from what is outlined in this RFP, please include a brief explanation of why you are proposing a different timeline.
• Proposed project fee broken down.
• (Optional but strongly encouraged) A portfolio of websites you’ve worked on previously.

Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation criteria will include, but not be limited to, the following: experience, project understanding, availability, and quality of proposal.

Budget and Submission

Our current budget for this project is not yet set, but we anticipate it will be in the range of $20,000 – $30,000. Your proposals may include other options for the scope of work at different cost levels.

Note that if you have any questions related to this RFP, you are welcome to email nkasprak@cbpp.org and someone from the CBPP team will be in touch by email to respond to your inquiry.

All proposals and related material will be held in the strictest confidence. Proposals should be received by CBPP via email no later than 5:00 pm on April 19, 2024, at nkasprak@cbpp.org.