Contact: Noah Urban, Co-Executive Director
Date of Issue: 11/10/2025
Deadline: 11/26/2025 @ 3:00 P.M.
Data Driven Detroit, L3C (D3) is requesting proposals for a sustainability planning and fundraising consultant or firm to support us in refining and beginning to execute a longer-term sustainability and fundraising strategy for the Neighborhood Vitality Index (NVI) initiative.
We expect this engagement to extend from January – September, 2026, with potential for extension through September 2027 should additional funding be confirmed.
Background
D3 is a worker-owned low-profit social enterprise that works in Detroit and the surrounding region, advancing a mission of providing accessible, high-quality data and analysis to drive informed decision-making. We exist to provide equitable access to information and serve anyone who seeks to use data to make more informed decisions, including nonprofits, foundations, universities, governments, businesses, and individuals.
One of D3’s core initiatives, in partnership with JFM Consulting Group, is the Neighborhood Vitality Index (NVI), as a first-of-its-kind resource designed by, and created for, Detroit residents to improve their neighborhoods. NVI measures factors Detroiters care about, including schools, safety, parks, healthcare, and city services. Through NVI, we provide:
- Free and accessible data for residents and neighborhood organizations advocating for positive change;
- A resource for community development organizations to ensure equitable neighborhood investment; and
- A guide for policymakers in Detroit that measures more than 60 specific indicators for Detroit neighborhoods.
Conceptualized in 2016 during the Building the Engine of Community Development in Detroit (BECDD) initiative, over the past decade NVI has evolved from a community table advocating for a common set of facts to guide decision-making in Detroit to an initiative that gathers the perspectives of thousands of Detroit residents each year and provides this data for the public good. Over the course of NVI’s history, we have managed to gather support from ten funding partners to sustain the initiative. This breadth of support has contributed greatly to the success of NVI so far, as many stakeholders are invested in the initiative’s success. However, it also creates challenges in aligning different funding cycles and presents risks for the initiative’s sustainability should the funding strategies of one or more partners shift over time.
Ultimately, our goal is for NVI to exist for decades to come as a core piece of Detroit’s civic and community data infrastructure. The type of information that NVI provides is of greatest value to Detroit if it is collected and updated on an annual basis. One of the key short-term challenges that we face is aligning sufficient funding to be able to launch the survey by the late Spring/early Summer, and over the longer-term, we are aiming to create a broader funding base that makes it more likely for us to be able to regularly attain this goal.
In consultation with our community and funding partners, D3 and JFM have identified several potential strategies for creating a more sustainable and stable funding base for NVI in the future, including accessing public funding, building an endowment, and establishing earned revenue models that leverage both the NVI data and the potential replicability of the process in other cities. We are now seeking a sustainability planning and fundraising consultant to work with us to prioritize and operationalize these strategies and support us through the early phases of implementing a sustainability and fundraising plan.
Scope of Work
The Scope of Work calls for working closely with D3’s Co-Executive Directors, senior leadership, and outreach staff, as well as key NVI partners and stakeholders including JFM Consulting Group, to create and implement a sustainable funding strategy for the NVI initiative. Specific activities and deliverables that we expect to come out of this process include:
- Reviewing existing NVI funding sources, as well as potential strategies for diversifying funding;
- Identifying additional potential short-term funders who the NVI initiative may not yet have approached, and facilitating connections and conversations with these organizations;
- Conducting a landscape scan of the Detroit metropolitan region to identify which longer-term funding diversification strategies may be most appropriate and actionable;
- Refining funding diversification strategies into a discrete and actionable sustainability and fundraising plan with 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year KPIs; and
- Beginning to execute early stages of the sustainability and fundraising plan in partnership with D3 and JFM staff.
In general we expect the phases of this project to play out as follows, in accordance with the programmatic contract that funds this work:
- January – May, 2026: Create and refine sustainability and fundraising plan
- June – September, 2026: Begin implementing sustainability and fundraising plan
Proposal Requirements
The proposal should focus on addressing the vendor’s ability to provide the services outlined in the Scope of Work. Please provide the following:
- Approach to Scope of Work: Provide a description of your approach to meeting the needs outlined in the “Background” and “Scope of Work” sections.
- Project Cost: Provide detailed costs for the services to be performed. The total budget should not exceed $30,000.
- Qualifications and Experience: Provide a description of the history, experience, and qualifications of your firm/company/corporation to perform the Scope of Work.
Please include:- A sample of a relevant project that your firm/company/corporation has completed
- Resumés of key staff to be assigned to the project
Submission Requirements
Prospective service providers should submit a copy of their proposal in PDF format through email on or before Friday, November 21st at 4:00 PM.
Email submissions should include “Sustainability Planning RFP” in the subject line. Proposals should be submitted to:
Noah Urban
noah@datadrivendetroit.org
Proposal Evaluation
Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
- Knowledge of project requirements, as demonstrated under “Approach to Scope of Work”
- Ability to attain scope of work within cost and timeframe constraints
- Work samples and range of project staff experience
Provisions
D3 and JFM are co-leads in implementing the NVI initiative. The final contract to be awarded under this RFP will be with D3, and D3 will serve as the primary point of contact for the process. However, we expect JFM to be substantially involved in both the creation and implementation of the sustainability and fundraising plan.
Should funding be confirmed to support an additional year of services, we anticipate that the funding amount will be similar in size to this initial scope of work.
D3 assumes no responsibility and no liability for costs incurred relevant to the preparation and submission of the RFP by prospective vendors, or any other costs prior to contract signature.
D3 retains the right to reject any and all of the proposals submitted, and to make any award deemed to be in the best interest of D3.
A contract between D3 and the selected vendor will be subject to and be in accordance with all Federal, State, and local laws as may be applicable.
D3 is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and values diverse perspectives in everything we do. Black, Indigenous, and People-of-Color-owned businesses, as well as with women-owned businesses, are strongly encouraged to submit proposals. Metro Detroit-based organizations (or organizations with substantial experience in Metro Detroit) are strongly preferred.