The Context

As a civic incubator, Edge Collaborative partners with public, private, and nonprofit organizations to tackle systemic economic challenges in Stockton. With a focus on three key areas – jobs and workforce, climate, and community wealth – Edge seeds and supports partner-led initiatives with a range of tools including access to capital, talent, policy support, and coalition-building. Edge Collaborative is a fiscally sponsored project of the San Joaquin Community Foundation.

To date, the Edge Collaborative team has successfully attracted philanthropic investment in community-led projects to bridge local efforts with public investment priorities. That work will continue. As we look to grow the organization, we're keen to identify, recruit and contract with talent from both local pools and across the country to accelerate key community-driven climate, community wealth and workforce priorities.

RFP Overview

Edge Collaborative is seeking proposals from qualified vendors to help chronicle the work of the organization and its broad portfolio of initiatives to date. While this scope will relate to narrative development and storytelling, the primary focus is on documentation.

To support our efforts, we're looking for a curious and detail-oriented chronicler to help document the trajectory of the organization’s work from its founding in 2021 to present day. We expect that this vendor will rely on various modes - including oral interviews, documentation review and visual aids to articulate key organizational milestones and decisions. The output of this effort will serve as an internal informational tool, and also lay the foundation for future storytelling projects. At a minimum, this role will need to engage in the following activities to reach these goals:

- Learning and documentation sprint, that will entail learning about Edge’s model, work portfolios, history, and theory of change

- Interviews with Edge leadership, advisors, and members of the portfolio teams, to deeply understand key drivers and contributors to the work

- Synthesis of existing documentation of Edge’s work to date – including process, partners, funding relationships, strategy docs, etc

What We Want to Learn From You

Edge is curious to learn more about you and how you might be able to facilitate accomplishing our chronicling goals through your talents, experience, and services. To assist us in our search for an individual candidate or firm, please provide a proposal that includes responses to the following questions:

1. Please describe your background, history, and areas of specialization. Have you worked with an organization to document historical context, stories, or work processes?

2. Please describe your project methodology. How would you go about understanding our chronicling and future storytelling needs? What’s your preferred method for information gathering, and how do you compile it? Who would you want to talk to? What information would you need in advance? Who from your team would we work with?

3. Please provide a conceptual work plan that describes the range of duties and responsibilities, and what work you would specifically do to meet the goals listed above.

4. Please describe your experience - if any - with narrative development, storytelling, or media communications. Have you worked closely with another professional or firm to transition oral and written information into a compelling narrative?

5. Please detail the fee proposal to the greatest extent possible for each phase (e.g., cost for service, hourly rates, anticipated or typical reimbursable out-of-pocket expenses, etc.).

6. Please share any additional information that may make you uniquely qualified.

7. Please list three client references and their contact information for whom you have completed similar work.

How to Submit Proposal

Your proposal should be submitted via LEVER, and bids will be reviewed on a rolling basis. There are no page length or formatting requirements. Feel free to be creative, but please be sure that your response addresses the organization's outlined needs (listed below). Your proposal will be reviewed by Edge Collaborative’s leadership team.

Edge Collaborative's Needs

Chronology of events, to document the histories of Edge’s incubated projects and initiatives
Detailed description of the inputs and needs of community-led projects and initiatives, to describe the development and evolution of the work over different stages of planning
Themes that emerge from Edge’s portfolio of projects that articulate the organization’s particular approach to problem-solving
Documentation of Edge’s origin story, to describe how the organization was designed to address “edge challenges” by building and enabling civic infrastructure

Terms of Engagement

Scope of work & term: 5-8 months, between July 2024 and February 2025
Budget: Proposed by vendor, based on depth of expertise
Submissions: Bids reviewed on a rolling basis, beginning June 3, 2024

Work Expectations

Ability to develop and refine detailed work plans - based on dynamic needs of client
A problem solving "can do" orientation and willingness to find creative solutions
Strong critical thinking capabilities and a deep sense of curiosity about how to carry out the work in novel, non-traditional ways
High level of emotional intelligence and patience
Demonstrated commitment to equity and justice
Responsiveness and strong communication skills
Commitment to rigor and detail in documentation

Team Values

Beginner’s mindset - we love asking the ‘stupid questions’ to understand what is possible. Our greatest asset is our curiosity as beginners (not experts). We want to discover how and why particular systems and people have been historically neglected by the public and private sectors.

Undaunted - we believe that bold solutions emerge from the margins (or edges, as we might say). The first answer is usually never right, but we’re not afraid of being wrong. We bring a passionate persistence to breaking through the stalemates and road blocks.

Boundless creativity - we thrive as a team. We take inspiration from “keystone species” in ecology - modeling our work after the resourcefulness of penguins and the vibrancy of bees. We cross-pollinate ideas, sectors, and institutions to help manifest the untapped potential of the people we serve.

Humility in service of community - we care deeply about the communities in which we work, and endeavor to put their needs at the center of how we design and incubate new initiatives. We strive to balance the boldness of our imagination with the recognition that slow, sustained trust building with partners is critical to the long-term viability of the work.

Sheer whimsy - we believe that serious work calls for a playful attitude, as we imagine what is possible. Play is derived from a place of joy and speaks to how we aspire to brighten our days. Plus, what’s life without a lil bit of whimsy?

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