Background

Dream of Detroit (DREAM) is combining community organizing with strategic housing and land development to build a thriving community and revitalize our neighborhood on the Westside of Detroit. We organize our local residents and, uniquely, Detroit’s metro-area Muslim community, because we believe that housing is a human right and we believe in solving the systemic issues that have decimated Detroit’s neighborhoods. That’s why we’re a leading member of Detroit’s Coalition for Property Tax Justice. We’ve also rehabbed 12 homes–including a transitional home for formerly incarcerated individuals and an artist residency–and will expand our community-led development into new commercial and residential construction in the near future. 

We believe that DREAM has the potential to inspire a more robust regional audience through our three-pronged approach (housing, economic development, and community organizing) to revitalization and Detroit advocacy, and we believe we can reach a national Muslim audience given our unique leadership and organizing niche. To that end, we seek a consultant to develop a digital strategy that grows our email list and social media followers, as well as creates a self-sustaining digital ads program. The consultant will report to DREAM’s Director of Development.

Scope of Services

Dream of Detroit is seeking the services of a digital strategy consultant or firm to help our development and communications staff create an online acquisition and fundraising strategic plan. The primary goal is to develop a strategy that increases the total number of subscribers across all channels to create the grounds for a more robust small-dollar fundraising program. The secondary goal is to develop a complementary digital ad strategy for fundraising. Ultimately, we want a refined marketing funnel creating a more donor-rich list and a digital ads program that sustains itself with at least a 2:1 ROI.

The consultant or firm will be responsible for the development of our plan. Our development and communications staff will lead on the implementation of the plan, but with regular input from the consultant or firm to review analytics and suggest real-time adjustments to tactics based on performance (e.g. messaging, targeting, ad budget, etc).

Tasks include but may not be limited to the following criteria:

• Quick audit of our current list sizes and past online fundraising performance
• Information gathering with communications and development staff
• Survey our online donors
• Draft a plan tailored to our staff and budget capacity
• Real-time recommendations of changes in our tactics or new tactics to explore based on evaluation
• Review tactic implementation pre-launch to ensure alignment with plan recommendations

Deliverables:

• Set baseline expectations for both acquisition and fundraising potential
• Create an acquisition strategy with competitive CPAs that, when implemented, will:
  • Increase DREAM’s email subscriber list from 1,600 to 15,000
  • Increase DREAM’s Facebook follower reach from 2,000 to 5,000
  • Increase DREAM’s Instagram followers from 500 to 2,000
• Create a digital fundraising ad strategy that, when implemented, will:
  • Produce a 2:1 ROI
  • Not conflict with our acquisition ads

Timeline and Submission of Proposals

Responses must be received no later than August 18, 2022 and should be emailed to info@dreamofdetroit.org with “RFP: Fundraising Consultant” in the subject line of your message.

Dream of Detroit can begin the project in early September 2022 and anticipates concluding our initial campaign by end of December 2022. We welcome proposals on meeting frequency, personnel involvement, and other project management matters.

Elements of Proposal

A submission must include the following elements:

• Description of the consultant or firm that includes a general overview.
• A one-page narrative outlining the consultant or firm’s previous experience and strengths and distinguishing skills or capabilities as they might relate to this project.
  • If possible, please include an example of ROI or other relevant fundraising metrics (e.g. “increased number of small dollar donors by 30% from XX to YY with a budget of $10,000”). 
• Fees based on the information shared in RFP for strategy development, as well as media creation and ad placement.
• Names and contact information for three client references.
  • Dream of Detroit reserves the right to contact the references provided, as well as other references, without prior notification to the consultant/firm. It is preferred but not required that bidders provide nonprofit client references.

Evaluation Criteria

In evaluating bids for this project, Dream of Detroit places high value on the following factors:

• Informed projections for acquisition and fundraising potential.
• Affordability of targeted CPAs.
• Demonstration of past success in attaining new list subscribers.
• Demonstration of attaining, retaining, and upgrading small-dollar donors through digital fundraising strategies. 
• Facility with a range of digital fundraising tactics. 
• Past experience in digital fundraising for Detroit-based and/or Muslim organizations preferred, not required.

Dream of Detroit’s Digital Assets

DREAM has a significant number of digital assets currently available for media creation and distribution.

• Thousands of photos and roughly ~10 hours of various event videos
  • Select photos and videos can be found here:
    https://dreamofdetroit.org/media/
• Media coverage
  • Most articles and segments can be found here:
    https://dreamofdetroit.org/news/  
• Digital infrastructure
  • WordPress.org website
    • https://dreamofdetroit.org 
    • Needs Facebook and Google pixel and tracking codes
  • Asana for project management, Google Workspace for communication
  • No digital comms or IT staff
• Regularly produced content
  • Active accounts on Facebook and Instagram @dreamofdetroit
  • Dormant Twitter and TikTok accounts @dreamofdetroit

Budget

Dream of Detroit has an initial budget of $10,000 for this strategy-building scope of work and seeks competitive bids and best offers. Media spend budget will be allocated separately based on the recommended solutions. 

Dream of Detroit provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment for all positions and job classifications. This consultancy description is intended to convey information essential to understand the scope of the work. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of skills, efforts, duties, or responsibilities associated with the contracted work.  Consultant will need to enter into a contract with Dream of Detroit outlining details of the scope of work, timeline, deliverables and payment.