COVID-19 Outreach RFP #OCA1001

The Office of Community Affairs wants to ensure that the community still has easy access to important and updated information during the COVID-19 pandemic. San Mateo County Health, alongside the County of San Mateo, is actively responding to the COVID-19 pandemic to protect the public and keep the community informed. The time to act is now to protect vulnerable populations and the community at large.

Proposers must be from not for profit organizations and can include:

Organizations: Must be tax-exempt organization such as organizations that are tax exempt under Sections 501(c)3, 501(c)4, 501(c)6 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), or an organization that files a Form 990, Form 990 EZ, or Form 990-N with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and that serves San Mateo County residents.
School Groups/Districts: Must provide educational services to residents and students in San Mateo County.
Government Agencies: San Mateo County cities, San Mateo County districts/agencies, and libraries in San Mateo County.
Coalitions: Groups comprised of two or more organizations, school groups, student associations, or government agencies.

Timeline:

RFP Released: September 1, 2020 4:00 PM PST
Deadline for questions, comments, and exceptions: September 12, 2020 5:00 PM PST
Proposal due date and time: September 17, 2020 5:00 PM PST

Intent to Award Announcement

The County has evaluated the proposals received using the evaluation criteria identified in the RFP, and is hereby announcing its conditional contract award to the following Proposers:

Bay Area Community Health Advisory Council
Building Skills Partnership
Casa Circulo Cultural
City of San Bruno
Coastside Adult Day Health Center
Coastside Farmers' Market
Daly City Partnership
El Centro de Libertad
El Concilio of San Mateo
East Palo Alto Center for Community Media
Family Connections
First Chance – Star Vista
HealthWays
Heart and Soul, Inc.
Institute for Human and Social Development
International Rescue Committee
North East Medical Services
Nuestra Casa
Pacifica Resource Center
Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center
Peninsula Family Services
Peninsula Volunteers
Puente
Ravenswood Family Health Network
Self-Help for the Elderly
Senior Coastsiders
Siena Youth Center
San Mateo County Libraries
San Mateo County Union Community Alliance
South San Francisco Library
Support Lives
Taulama for Tongans
YMCA Silicon Valley

The County will be contacting the Proposers listed above to negotiate a contract. As provided in the RFP, the award is subject to execution of a written contract. As a result, this announcement does NOT constitute the formation of a contract between the County and the vendor listed above. The award decision is conditioned upon final approval by the Board of Supervisors or its designee and the successful negotiation of a contract.

Questions + Answers

1. What is the overall funding available?

The overall funding available will be between $300,000 and $600,000 depending on the interest and number of applications received. Each contract will be funded up to $20,000.

2. How many grants will be awarded?

The number of contracts to be awarded will depend on the number of applications received. These will be contracts, not grants.

3. In terms of conducting outreach, would conducting outreach to our own patients (we serve about 18,000 patients in San Mateo County—majority of whom are from Latinx communities) be acceptable or is the expectation to conduct outreach to overall residents in San Mateo County?

Conducting outreach to your own patients is acceptable.

4. Is it allowable for the EPAY and SQY branchs located in San Mateo County to submit two separate applications in response to this RFP, with each branch being eligible for the $20,000 funding, even though they share the same tax ID number?

Yes, it is allowable for different branches of the same organization, but located in different regions, to each apply for the funding.

5. Are multi-service organizations able to submit 1 application on behalf of multiple programs? Or should applications be specific to 1 program?

We recommend applications be specific to 1 program. Each contract will not exceed $20,000.

6. Can organizations apply to provide only certain activities listed in the RFP? Or do organizations need to be able to conduct all activities listed in the RFP?

Organizations do not need to be able to conduct all activities listed in the RFP, these are only suggested potential activities.

7. Can organizations apply on behalf of RFP activities that their programs are currently doing (e.g. providing education around COVID-19 to their clients)? Or is this funding intended to support new activities?

Applications can be submitted to augment, increase the reach of, or improve any existing activities.

8. I was wondering if you could kindly provide more information on the education aspect/requirement. Will the County provide specific educational materials or messages, or will we be required to develop these on our own?

The county will be providing the overall messages and educational information. However, contractors may adapt these materials, or create their own, but they will require review and approval by the County to use the new materials.

9. Will the Office of Community Affairs hold an info webinar or Q&A session?

There is no information webinar or Q&A session planned.

10. Will San Mateo County be providing specific messages or materials for the contracting organizations to communicate and distribute?

See the answer to question 8 above.

11. When completing the application, should Good2Know Network's application list all of these (outreach) options and break out the costs for each, or should we put together one package of tactics, with an understanding that we could be contracted to fund some, all, or none of the activities?

Applications do not need to itemize costs for each outreach activity, but can provide one cost encompassing all outreach activities.

12. Under the items that the County is providing - i.e. masks, hand sanitizer, etc., - who is it providing to - the general community, non profit orgs? Is there a limit in the number of those items?

The items being supplied will be for the contracted partners only, not the general community. The county will provide to each contracted organization: 5 face shields, 50 face masks, 2 large bottles of hand sanitizer, and banners (to be determined).

13. I understand that the County will be providing the educational materials and messages, but will they only be available in English? What other languages will be available? If we need to translate the materials to reach our intended/target audience, can funds be used to cover translation costs?

The County will provide materials in English, Spanish, and Chinese. If additional translations are needed funds can be used to cover those costs.

14. In the Proposal Questions section, number four, asks for financial statements. I want to ensure I submit the correct paperwork, what financial statements are you referring to exactly?

Financial statements will be required at the time of the contract award (not part of the application process). This can be in the form of your profit and loss balance sheet.

15. I see in the RFP that the County is able to provide masks, face shields, and limited amounts of hand sanitizer. If we need those items are part of our project, do we include those as operating line items in our budget? Or would those items be separately allocated from the County?

16. We provide meals to the needy in the community (Homeless, Seniors, Low Income) once a week. Our expenses have increased due to additional meals being served due to unemployment in the area. Could we apply for recent COVID-19 Outreach Contracts to cover our additional costs to serving meals?

Yes, you may apply to cover additional costs.

17. Can the contract support network building to help strengthen the nonprofit sector's collective response to COVID-19 in vulnerable communities?

Yes.

18. In the budget, the personnel section outlines "director wages" and "admin wages". Are these just examples? Can we adjust these to accurately depict the personnel we plan to assign to this project?

Yes, these are just examples. Please adjust accordingly.

19. Under proposal questions - can you please give examples of #2 exceptions? What is this referring to?

An exception would be a request to change a term contained within the County's sample standard contract provided to you. Please note that not all requests for exceptions will be accommodated.

20. What is required in terms of the reporting? (What information is being asked for, how often are reports due, are there targets grantees have to meet - what targets?)

Monthly reports shall be submitted to the county, and will include detailed invoices to the county on a monthly basis to include: a narrative of activities/events; billed hours for each position; hours billed at applicable rates; locations where contractor's assigned personnel are working; and supporting documentiong include timesheets or time logs for staff with a description of the work performed and no greater than quarter hour billing increments. Contractor will certify the timesheets and/or time logs.

COVID-19 RFP #OCA1001 Documents

How to Submit

You must submit your proposal by Thursday, September 17th, by 5:00 PM PST by emailing all documents to: CMO_COVID_RFP1@smcgov.org