Survey Design Consultant to Survey State Early Childhood Leaders

TSNE-BUILD (buildinitiative.org) is seeking proposals from qualified vendors (individuals, institutions, organizations, or businesses) to perform contracted survey design consultation services for a group of early childhood system technical assistance providers. The Technical Assistance (TA) Collaborative is comprised of multiple national organizations working collaboratively to identify the technical assistance needs of states seeking to stabilize and strengthen early childhood systems for young children from before birth through age five and into the early elementary grades— (Prenatal-Grade 3).

The intent of this RFP is to identify interest among vendors and select one vendor that will be responsible for survey design, determining sampling approach, analyzing data, and developing reports from a survey of state leaders in collaboration with the National TA Collaborative’s state survey subcommittee. The purpose of the survey is to document the technical assistance needs of state early childhood leaders representing multiple sectors to stabilize and strengthen state early childhood systems.

These organizations define technical assistance as the process of providing focused support to states and the forms of technical assistance range from intensive consultation, in person assistance, peer exchanges, webinars, subject matter expertise, as well as connecting states with resources and supports to document these needs. it is important that the survey capture:

• States’ priorities for stabilizing and strengthening early childhood systems.
• Policy and program changes that are needed by states to strengthen early childhood systems.
• Challenges states are facing in developing and strengthening early childhood systems.
• The types of assistance state agency leaders believe are needed to support their work to stabilize and strengthen early childhood systems.
• The perspective and needs of key collaborators such as parents, early educators, and health and mental health care providers in strengthening state systems.

BUILD is a fiscally sponsored project of TSNE (tsne.org).

Scope of Service, Contract Period, & Budget Estimate

The vendor must have a strong commitment to economic and racial equity and understand the importance of it within the early childhood systems landscape.

The vendor will be responsible for performing the following activities under this contract:

• Regular consultation and collaboration with Tameika Leslie, project director, and the state survey subcommittee responsible for overseeing the survey design, collection, and reporting. The survey of states subcommittee will meet with the contractor virtually via Zoom or a similar platform.
• Oversight of distribution to the participating organizations’ lists as the sample of individuals who will be asked to complete a survey (in collaboration with the survey of states work group). The sample will include state agency officials with a role in stabilizing and strengthening state early childhood systems. The sample will include state level administrators, agency staff, statewide advocacy groups, parent led groups, provider led groups and other groups or organizations responsible for the early childhood system.
• Contractor will be responsible for determining the sampling approach.
• Survey distribution will be done in coordination with TA Collaborative Member Organizations.
• Design, development, and piloting a survey instrument that captures key constructs of interest to the work group. The instrument must include a combination of closed-ended and open-ended survey questions and capture the key constructs of interest to the work group. The pilot testing approach might include cognitive interviewing.
• Programming of the survey using a web-based platform and testing the interface prior to making the survey link available for TA Collaborative member distribution.
• Administration of the web-based survey, follow up with respondents to ensure a high response rate, cleaning of data, coding, or recoding of variables.
• Rapid analysis of survey data including aggregate and disaggregated findings by key variables. The specific types of analyses required will be determined in collaboration with the survey of states work group.
• Up to 3 briefings, including a preliminary briefing to the survey of states workgroup on the overall findings, a briefing to the full TA collaborative on key findings, and a potential follow up briefing with the survey of states work group.
• Production of 2-3 short reports based on analysis of survey data for a general audience of state early childhood leaders (e.g., not researchers per se).

The contract for this service will be a 6-month performance period.

Response Deadline

• Due Date: No later than 2pm (ET) on 6/24

Proposal Requirements

Proposals of no more than 5 pages must address the following criteria.

• Capacity to complete the work. Describe the organizational and individual capacity to complete all tasks listed. In this section, respondents must include references, a profile of similar work, and a description of similar work products. Respondents can include examples of similar work as an appendix; this will not be counted toward the page limit. 10 points
• Understanding of the problem. Describe the current early childhood systems landscape, the state agencies responsible for overseeing early childhood policies and programs, and the types of technical assistance state agencies are currently accessing. 10 points
• Approach. Describe the overall approach and address each sub-component listed below. 40 points
  • Approach to identifying the sample of survey respondents. Describe the proposed approach to identifying the sample of respondents to ensure each state’s perspective is included but also acknowledging differences in the administration of early childhood policies and programs across states. The description should address the vendor’s approach to collaborating with the survey of states work group in identifying the survey respondents. The proposal should also describe the approach to data cleaning of responses from individuals with distinct roles who may appear on more than one distribution list to avoid duplicate information while ensuring individuals with similar names are not purged from the lists.
  • Ability to collaborate with a workgroup. Describe the approach to working with the survey of states workgroup overseeing the project, ability to be responsive to divergent perspectives, and approach to obtaining consensus to develop and administer the survey. The work group will meet weekly to oversee all work completed under this contract. The respondent must describe the approach to engaging with the group on a weekly basis.
  • Approach to designing and piloting the survey. Describe the approach to identifying key constructs of interest, developing, and piloting the instrument, and refining the instrument. Respondents should describe the approach to pilot testing that might include conducting focus groups, engaging in cognitive testing, and taking other steps to identify questions for each respondent group.
  • Technical capacity to design and administer a web-based survey. Describe their technical capacity to program, collect, clean, and analyze a survey using a web-based platform. Respondents should describe the specific software they propose to use, their capacity to create closed-ended and open-ended questions, their ability to develop complex skip-patterns, their ability to create modules that are specific to different respondent groups, and their approach to testing the survey once designed in the web-based platform.
  • Cleaning, recoding, and analyzing survey data. Describe the proposed approach to cleaning survey data, recoding variables if needed, analyzing survey data, following up with respondents if needed, and how to ensure an adequate response rate.

• Briefing and reporting findings. Describe a proposed approach to providing the working group with preliminary findings, incorporating input from the survey of states work group, and developing draft reports. Respondent must describe a proposed approach to developing tailored reports that present findings for multiple audiences. 10 points
• Timely completion of all required deliverables. Describe the approach to ensuring all required activities are completed within the six-month timeline. Proposals that offer a more expedited timeframe will be given more points. Proposals must include a detailed timeline. 10 points.
• Budget and budget narrative. A budget in Excel format and narrative justification are required. Organizations/institutions submitting a response are capped at 14% indirect cost rate per funder fiscal policy.) 10 points
• Other requirements:
  • Verify proposal includes all information requested and is organized as directed. Failure to do so may result in TSNE-BUILD, at its sole discretion, deeming the proposal as non-responsive to the requirements of this RFP.

Regarding COVID-19: TSNE considers the health and safety of our employees of the utmost importance, and due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and subject to your state and local laws, our policy requires that all employees performing in-person work at a TSNE designated office are fully vaccinated. For the purpose of this policy, fully vaccinated indicates that you have received a single dose of the Janssen vaccine, or both doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. Certain exemptions may be requested and will be considered by Human Resources.

Compensation and Benefits

TSNE/BUILD envisions a society grounded in the principles of social and economic justice. As such, we strive to achieve excellence through a diverse and inclusive workplace that honors the unique talents and lived experiences of each person. Our vision and values are reflected in all our employment-related decisions, including hiring practices. Accordingly, TSNE actively seeks people who bring diverse backgrounds and perspectives to join us in our work.

As an EOE/AA employer, TSNE/BUILD will not discriminate in its employment practices due to an applicant’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin or ancestry, age, sexual orientation, gender identification, genetic information, veteran or disability status or any other factor prohibited by law.