Frequently Asked Questions for New Grants Management System Bid Process

(Updated 7/12/2021)

Any questions submitted by potential Suppliers regarding the RFP will be posted here. To submit a question regarding any aspect of this RFP, email ART-info@sfgov.org by July 9, 2021 at 5 p.m. and we will answer them as soon as possible and will post them here.

To view the Request for Proposals, click here.

To view the recording of the Pre-Proposal Conference (57 minutes), held on July 6, click on this link. (Passcode: JmHP8FN3)

To view details on San Francisco Labor Laws for City Contractors, click on this link (PDF), which provides information about the Health Care Accountability Ordinance and Minimum Compensation Ordinance. For further questions, contact Beverly Popek at beverly.popek@sfgov.org 

1. Can the the grant management system be on the Salesforce platform?
   
   It is possible, however SFAC does not currently have a Salesforce Admin and will have limited capacity to administer. Additionally, Community Investments staff will need to be able to make changes and have access. Both of these factors will have to be taken into account in the proposal. 
    
2. Can you provide more specifics around the types and quantity of users to meet the $40,000/year license cost?
   
   The Community Investments team will need about 5-10 users, depending on need during a grant cycle. We expect no more than three users who will need complete administrative control, and others can be categorized as users with less expansive permissions. 
   
   We are also seeking external application and panelist portals for users who are not necessarily licensed, but will still need to be able to access and submit information (file uploads, review scores, essay responses, etc.).
    
3. Are you asking for a bond of $60,000 in implementation work and if so, where should that charge be placed?
   
   We are not asking for a bond. The amount of the total development itself should be budgeted for $60,000 or less.
    
4. Businesses submitting a bid are required to have a business license and tax registration in San Francisco. When should that be done by?
   
   Business tax and business registration is part of the Supplier process and should be completed prior to the selected bidder going into contract. 
    
5. How many external grant "applications" (external users) does SFAC anticipate receiving annually into the grant management system?
   
   While we do not know for certain exactly how many applicants there will be, we can report that in this past fiscal year there were a little less than 100 applications from organizations and approximately 350 applications from individual artists. These numbers have fluctuated over the years; this past fiscal year, we received the highest number of individual artist applicants. 
    
6. How many grant programs are there per year?
   
   Grants fund individual artists (which are further broken down by medium [literary, visual, media, etc.]) and organizations (number also variable based on funding). Some of these organizations have 501(c)(3) status, and others are fiscally sponsored. We treat these types of organizations differently. The number of grant programs vary from year to year based upon the funding sources and the funding received. Because of the variation, flexibility is key for the grant management system being developed. 
    
7. Will this Grants Management solution be replacing the current Grants Management solution at SFAC that has been configured on the Salesforce platform? (or is this for a different Grants Management system or program?)
   
   Yes, this is intending to replace the grants management system that is currently on Salesforce. We have found that what is currently being used does not quite meet Community Investments' needs, namely: lack of an external application portal, user licensing concerns, lack of external panelist portal, etc. 
    
8. If a sandbox environment can't be provided for testing, will that response not be eligible for further consideration?
   
   A sandbox testing environment is required for the successful bidder. 
    
9. If evidence cannot be provided of a history of working with at least three municipal or state governmental arts grantmaking agencies in the past ten years, could this be waived? 
   
   We are unable to waive this requirement. 
    
10. Would you please list the different software packages that would need to be part of the integration?
    
    Required integrations are with Salesforce, DocuSign, Form Assembly, and the Microsoft Office suite. Additional integrations with PeopleSoft through a third-party API would be considered. 
     
11. If the project's cost exceeds that $300,000 for seven years, will that response not be eligible for further consideration? 
    
    If the project's cost exceeds $300,000 for seven years, that proposal will not be considered. 
     
12. How many users (internal and external) will be accessing the system?
    
    Internal users will be between 5-10. External users will vary year to year. This past year (FY20), we had approximately 400 applicants and 30 panelists, all of which would be external users.
     
13. How many of those users would be high core users (>40 hours/month)?
    
    Of the internal users, 3 will be high core. None of the external users will be high core. 
     
14. Can you elaborate the level of integration with Microsoft Office Suite, Salesforce, DocuSign and Outlook? Other than these software, are there any other integration requirements? 
    
    Integrating with Microsoft Office Suite will be used for exporting data from the system into Excel format, as well as using Word to import grant contract templates. Integrating with Salesforce will be unidirectional, such that information from the grants management system will be pushed to Salesforce to combine with information coming from systems in other parts of the agency and create an overall picture of the agency's impact (racial demographics, geographic locations, monies spent, etc.). Edits in Salesforce should not impact the grants management system. Integrating with DocuSign is for the purposes of enabling grantees, the City Attorney and SFAC senior staff to sign grant agreements so that payments can be made to grantees. SFAC already has a DocuSign account. Outlook integration is so that emails sent from the system (or from Outlook) can be tracked in relation to an applicant's/grantee's record in the system, centralizing all communications. And while it is not an integration per se, it is worth noting that Form Assembly currently holds all applications, panelist tools (such as scorecards) and surveys, all of which would need to be migrated over in the build of the new system. 
     
15. What is the purpose of the "sandbox" testing environment? Is it for ongoing testing of new functions post-implementation? Or is it required for functional testing during the implementation; after which it is no longer required post-implementation? 
    
    The "sandbox" testing environment is only required for functional testing during implementation. It it not needed after implementation is complete. 
     
16. Please specify your planned hosting option (Public Hosting, Private Hosting)?
    
    Public hosting will suffice, so long as the appropriate security protections (as stated in the RFP) are in place.
     
17. What are you currently using for your grants management solution?
    
    SFAC does not currently use a grants management solution. The grants team previously used WESTAF's Go Grants platform, before it was sunsetted. Right now, grants are managed through an ad hoc combination of multiple software platforms, such as the Microsoft Office Suite, Form Assembly, DocuSign and Dropbox (for panelist materials). 
     
18. Is your go-live date of October 15, 2021 flexible?
    
    Yes. 
     
19. On page 7, you indicate that you are looking for "a platform for contracting and invoicing that is transparent for the grantee and SFAC." What invoicing system do you currently use? 
    
    Invoices are currently produced manually and then relayed to our financial management system (PeopleSoft/FSP) for encumbrance and payment, which is the Citywide financial system. The grants team has recently attempted to use Salesforce to track payments. This aspect would be up for discussion with SFAC's finance team during the build process, in order to design a solution/process that works best for all parties.