Step Into a Vendor's Shoes: Activity Kit for Paper Airplane RFP

When drafting an RFP, it's sometimes easy to get caught up in all the compliance requirements, specifications, and legal language and to forget what it's like to actually read and respond to the solicitation. This activity is designed to help participants understand what it’s like to respond...

Surveying Your Vendor Community to Assess Satisfaction and Identify Pain Points

When the procurement process is efficient, inviting, and inclusive, more firms and organizations will want to participate in contracting opportunities, resulting in greater competition. Positive relationships between vendors and governments during the course of a contract can lead to more...

Transforming IT Procurement: Framing the Problem

Last year alone, state and local governments were estimated to have spent nearly $120 billion on information technology (IT), much of which was purchased from the private sector in the form of software subscriptions and maintenance, systems integration, infrastructure, and managed services...

Transforming IT Procurement: Understanding the Marketplace

Using Data to Improve Procurement Operations and Outcomes

Diagnosing bottlenecks in the procurement process, understanding where contract outcomes can be improved, and prioritizing systemic challenges require the kind of clarity provided by data. Procurement data is foundational to running an efficient, effective, proactive, and strategic purchasing...

Using Government Procurement to Advance Racial Equity

Governments across the country are committed to investing in racial equity, but many are struggling to translate that commitment into tangible outcomes for communities of color. This how-to guide highlights innovative procurement strategies that can help governments increase...

Using Process Mapping to Save Time & Money

Without a streamlined and transparent procurement process, it is challenging for governments to focus on results or to progress on new initiatives. A frustrating procurement process can even make staff more focused on their strategy for navigating a bureaucracy, crowding out time for the more...

Statelandia Active Contract Management Meeting

Active contract management (ACM) is a set of strategies that apply high-frequency use of data and purposeful management of interactions between departments or agencies and vendors to improve outcomes from contracted social services. ACM consists of frequent, data-informed meetings designed to...

Evaluation Scorecards

Deciding what to buy and whom to buy it from is a pivotal moment in any procurement. Who is awarded a government contract not only directly impacts how a government is able to deliver services to residents, but it also means that some vendors—and not others—...

Gathering Feedback from Internal Customers via Surveys

Don’t be afraid to solicit feedback from your colleagues! Analyzing the experience of your purchasing team’s most frequent collaborators (attorneys, customer departments and agencies, city management, finance, etc.) can unearth new ideas and inspire solutions to...

Transforming IT Procurement: Writing the RFP

In 2022 alone, state and local governments were estimated to have spent nearly $120 billion on information technology (IT), much of which was purchased from the private sector in the form of software subscriptions and maintenance, systems integration, infrastructure, and managed services across a... Read more about Transforming IT Procurement: Writing the RFP

3 Strategies to Build Your Procurement Dream Team

If you’ve had to fill vacancies on your government procurement team over the past few years, you’ve probably noticed some shifts in the landscape of hiring and retaining staff. A combination of crises and longer term trends mean that governments increasingly must think more creatively about hiring... Read more about 3 Strategies to Build Your Procurement Dream Team

Are Procurement Thresholds Slowing You Down?

In most governments, different purchasing rules apply depending on the dollar value of the purchase. Often, more stringent procedures apply to large-dollar purchases compared to smaller ones, and purchasing thresholds help government staff understand which rules apply. But these thresholds do more... Read more about Are Procurement Thresholds Slowing You Down?

Responding to Solicitations 101

Vendors, especially small and diverse businesses, find the RFP process overwhelming and bureaucratic. A new process that’s hard to understand often discourages these businesses from even applying. But that doesn’t have to be the case! An open, recorded webinar or live training on an RFP’s structure... Read more about Responding to Solicitations 101

Unbundling Large Contracts to Diversify Your Vendor Pool

If your government is looking for ways to help small, local, diverse firms receive their fair share of contracting dollars, unbundling large contracts, or breaking them apart into smaller scopes of work that multiple firms can bid on, is a great way to make contracting opportunities available to... Read more about Unbundling Large Contracts to Diversify Your Vendor Pool

Strategies for Improving Vendor Certification Programs

Certifying small, local, and diverse businesses can be an important step toward addressing disparities and increasing equity in government contract spending, but how you implement your certification program will determine whether you succeed. If certification programs are burdensome and confusing,... Read more about Strategies for Improving Vendor Certification Programs

Governing: How Social Services and Performance Contracting Fit Together

Glendale, AZ After School Education Services Project Feature

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Glendale, AZ After School Education Services Project Feature

What Is Procurement Excellence?

Many of the most important functions of state and local government – from building roads to sheltering the unhoused – involve contracting for goods and services supplied by the private sector. Increasing the effectiveness of procurement is therefore a crucial component of improving governments...

Governing: How Cities Can Get Strategic About Procurement

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