2013 Evaluation of the AFSC Baltimore Programs Request for Proposals and Statement of Work

2013 Evaluation of the AFSC Baltimore Programs Request for Proposals

The South Region of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a nonprofit charitable and educational organization of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) wishes to engage an evaluation consultant to assist in designing and completing an evaluation of the Baltimore Programs that will categorize and measure the different activities carried out and provide in depth analysis of a representative subset of the programs' numerous activities.

Background on the AFSC

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action. Drawing on continuing spiritual insights and working with people of many backgrounds, we nurture the seeds of change and respect for human life that transform social relations and systems. AFSC is committed to the ideal that peacemaking requires more than merely advocating against war, and includes working to change the culture, situations, and systems that lead to violence.

Services Sought

The South Region has developed an overall plan for evaluation of the Baltimore Programs that is presented in the Statement of Work (Attachment 1). As noted in the Statement of Work, the committee wants to use this evaluation to provide feedback to the Regional Executive Committee, management, and staff. We seek an experienced evaluator who can conduct the components of the Statement of Work to a successful conclusion of the evaluation. We are especially interested in support for the development of the structured list of activities, measurements that staff can readily adopt with minimal burden, and insightful analysis of program activity over the past 5 years.

We anticipate that the consultant will complete all tasks as indicated in the Statement of Work within time parameters and available resources, with a specific focus on Task 1 and Task 3. Vendors should propose an approach to Task 2 that may include interviews, focus groups, or other data collection. AFSC will provide available program documentation on request, and make staff available if the approved work plan requires staff interviews.

Contract Type

We anticipate issuing a time and materials contract in an amount not to exceed $18,000 for all costs except travel. We anticipate that limited travel will be required to complete the scope of work. The AFSC will negotiate the travel budget with the successful bidder.

Proposal Format

Proposals should consist of the following sections:

1. Understanding of the project
2. Specific approach to be used for each task
3. Potential barriers to successful completion and potential mitigation strategy
4. Deliverables (due dates are shown in parentheses)
   1. Detailed work plan (3 weeks after effective date of contract [EDOC]);
   2. List of current as well as recommended measures (6 weeks after EDOC);
   3. Final report (2 months after AFSC and consultant agree on detailed work plan).
5. Past performance
   1. Summarize experience developing process evaluation plans, particularly for social service projects.
   2. Provide three references of companies, organizations, or individuals for prior evaluation consultation, including contact information for each. Submitting a proposal will be considered permission for AFSC to contact references and confirm past performance.
6. Business proposal
   1. Anticipated hours and hourly rate for each task
   2. Other expected costs, such as travel.

Brevity and economy in proposal preparation will be appreciated. We anticipate that a responsive proposal will require fewer than 10 pages. The maximum number of pages is 15, inclusive of appendices and attachments.

Proposal Submission and Due Date

Electronic submission of proposals is preferred. Vendors should send proposals by e-mail to DCBargabus@afsc.org AND BVana@afsc.org . Electronic submissions should be Microsoft Word documents (2003 or earlier) or in Portable Document Format (.pdf). Alternatively, vendors may deliver one original and two copies of the proposal to:

Deborah Cash Bargabus and Bryan Vana
AFSC/South Region3600 Clipper Mill Rd., Suite 212
Baltimore, MD 21211-1948

Proposals are due June 28, 2013 at 12:00 noon Eastern Time. Proposals arriving after that date may be disqualified.Bidders with the best ranking on the evaluation of written proposals will be invited to interview in early August, 2013. We anticipate an award in the same month.

Questions

Vendors should submit questions via e-mail to DCBargabus@afsc.org AND BVana@afsc.org. The AFSC will only respond to written questions.

Statement of Work

Background

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action. Drawing on continuing spiritual insights and working with people of many backgrounds, we nurture the seeds of change and respect for human life that transform social relations and systems. AFSC is committed to the ideal that peacemaking requires more than merely advocating against war, and includes working to change the culture, situations, and systems that lead to violence.

AFSC was founded in 1917 during World War I to give young conscientious objectors ways to serve without joining the military or taking lives. Following that modest beginning, AFSC has responded in numerous ways to human suffering such as:

• Feeding thousands of children in Germany and Austria after World War I
• Helping distressed Appalachian mining communities find alternative means to make a living in the 1930s
• Negotiating with the Gestapo in Germany to aid Jewish refugees
• After World War II, sending aid teams to India, China, and Japan
• Giving aid to civilians on both sides of the Vietnam War and providing draft counseling to thousands of young men
• Sponsoring conferences for young diplomats in emerging African democracies
• Establishing economic development programs in Asia, Africa, and Latin America from the 1970s to the present
• Providing extensive support to the modern U.S. civil rights movement and public school desegregation
• Working with numerous communities such as Native Americans, immigrants, migrant workers, prisoners, and low-income families on education and justice issues

AFSC's Baltimore office was established in 1968 and since that time programs have worked to educate, train and advocate on behalf of the Baltimore area community on issues around peace building, violence prevention, economic justice, and human rights.

Currently there are two programs in Baltimore: Friend of a Friend and Baltimore Youth Empowerment through Conflict Resolution.

The Friend of a Friend (FoF) Maryland program serves about 200 men per year in five prisons with conflict resolution skills training, mentoring relationships, and support during re-entry. The goal of the program is for participants to find useful alternatives to conflict and violence in prison and upon return to their communities.

The Youth Empowerment through Conflict Resolution (YEtCR) program works with young people in Baltimore to find peaceful resolutions to conflict in their lives using tools from the Help Increase the Peace manual and other social change curricula. Working in under- resourced schools and neighborhoods, the program helps young people deal with the violence and poverty they experience in their community, learn about conflict resolution and human rights and get the support they need to become educated and engaged citizens.

Objectives of Evaluation

The AFSC South Region proposes to conduct an evaluation that will provide feedback to staff, management, the Baltimore program committees, and the region's Executive Committee. The evaluation should offer insights about program implementation, strategies based on the results of each activity, barriers encountered, and lessons learned. The evaluation will:

1. Identify and document background information on the community in which AFSC is doing conflict resolution work in Baltimore, Maryland.
   1. Document the need for work in Baltimore City Schools
   2. Document the need for work in Maryland prisons
   3. Document the need for work in Baltimore City neighborhoods
2. Characterize and document program activities and strategies over the past 5 years.
   1. Describe and document the interventions (e.g. conflict resolution training, mediation training) that each program is using.
   2. List and prioritize the target institutions and individuals who have received interventions.
3. Review current process objectives and measurements
   1. Are there specific, measurable, and time-limited objectives for each activity?
   2. Is the program staff, management, or committee members collecting the type of data that will be necessary to assess progress against the goals?
   3. Is there sufficient information to determine whether the activity has reached its target audience with the intended content, as well as to identify barriers and steps taken to mitigate them?
4. Allow staff, management, and the community to determine if each program has successfully met its objectives from 2008 through 2012.
5. Provide staff and the Regional Executive Committee ongoing, simple ways of measuring program activities and results that could be applied to similar programs. Specifically in preparation for future impact evaluations.

Process Evaluation

In conducting this evaluation, we seek to produce actionable findings and recommendations. The evaluation should help staff to gain a quantitative understanding of what they have accomplished as well as a deeper understanding of the factors influencing program change over time and to consider possible changes in strategy that might be more effective going forward. It should help the Regional Executive Committee and management understand the cost of different activities and see dynamically how the program has evolved. This should aid in replication of the program in other regions, if desired, as well as in recruiting staff to extend the current project or replace key staff when they retire.

Requirements

This section describes the specific tasks to be completed to put an ongoing process evaluation in place that would help us to also conduct impact evaluations in the future. Throughout this section, the word "researcher" is used nonspecifically to refer to the most appropriate individuals to complete the work.

Task 1 - Environmental scan and needs assessment

From review of program documentation, research into community characteristics (e.g., official statistical sources) and recent history (e.g., news reports), and interviews with key informants in the community (e.g. school staff, community-based program directors, etc.), the researcher shall identify why conflict resolution work is needed in the community now.

• Are there gaps?
• What priority do community leaders give to addressing this issue as compared with other important community concerns?

This is expected to be a brief summary of the facts that support the choice of conflict resolution work in the community and lays the groundwork for the subsequent evaluation.

Task 2 – Catalog and select interventions

There are many ways to educate a community, among them media campaigns, protest, lobbying political leaders, activating opinion leaders, and educational sessions in schools, colleges, churches, workplaces, or community centers. The researcher shall document for the most recent five years:

• What the programs have tried to accomplish and what they have accomplished
• The activities, strategies and tactics the programs employed
• How and why strategies have changed
• How the programs have discerned with the community which issues to address and the way in which to address them
• Opposing forces and other barriers to success
• Current and potential partner groups and individuals
• Support for program objectives in the larger community
• Learning that can help programs in the future

Task 3 – Test measures for interventions

Based on the selected list of interventions, the researcher shall work with program staff to identify and evaluate measures of intervention performance that demonstrate:

• Whom the intervention reached;
• How many individuals were directly affected by the intervention (for example, if the intervention is educational seminars, how many people attended each seminar);
• What the participants gained from the intervention (for example, what change in knowledge or behavior occurred in participants before and after an intervention);
• Whether the interventions occurred as planned and when planned; if not, what deviations occurred and why; and
• How the affected community perceived the interventions, and what the community felt might result from them.

We are not testing whether interventions "work," but rather whether they reached intended targets, on time, and according to plan. The researcher shall specify data collection tools and methods to support these measures if tools are not already in use, and also work with staff and management to identify reasonable targets for achievement of interventions over time so that in the future we might be better prepared to assess long term impact.

Task 4 – Analyze and report data

Summarize findings and report. The researcher will analyze information gathered from the initial review of documents, focus groups, and targeted interviews to produce a draft report. The report will consist of brief background and history of the programs, the list of activities, existing and suggested measures for activities and objectives, gaps between program efforts and intended results, and a description of program changes over the past five years.

The report will address each of the objectives of the evaluation including helping to determine if current program measures are appropriate and a logical step for future impact evaluations.

The report shall be suitable for presentation to management to justify program continuation, growth, or change; to staff, to help guide program improvements; to the community to document value received; to coalition partners; and to potential funders.

Task 5 – Propose changes to interventions as learned from analysis

The researcher shall work with program staff to incorporate lessons learned into future modifications of program design and intervention choice. Staff and the researcher shall produce a list of recommendations and present it to management. Conclusions and recommendations should be realistic in light of the AFSC's resources and capabilities.

Questions

Vendors should submit questions via e-mail to DCBargabus@afsc.org AND BVana@afsc.org. The AFSC will only respond to written questions.