best-and-final-offer.docx

STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA

North Dakota Office of the Secretary of State 600 E. Boulevard Ave, Dept. 108 Bismarck, ND 58505-0500

REQUEST FOR BEST AND FINAL OFFER

August 15, 2024

Request for Proposal Number and Title: 108.5-24-002 - Blue Book Project

Dear Offeror:

Your firm submitted a proposal in response to the above referenced Request for Proposal (RFP).

The evaluation committee completed a preliminary evaluation of proposals. The State is requesting that offerors revise their proposals and submit a Best and Final Offer.

Best and Final Offers must be received by the Purchasing Agency no later than August 26, 2024 by 11:00 AM, CT. The offeror is responsible for ensuring that the Best and Final Offer is received by this deadline. You may contact the procurement officer to confirm receipt.

Best and Final Offers can be submitted to the Procurement Officer, Abigail Dschaak, by email at aadschaak@nd.gov.

The Best and Final Offer must identify the RFP number and title and Vendor. The Best and Final Offer should address the following information:

1. In RFP Section 1.1 – Purpose of the RFP, the second sentence of this section is amended to the following:

Work will include but not be limited to coordination of editorial content through an established editorial board and content partners (Blue Book Committee), and design of a condensed version of the Blue Book.

2. RFP Section 3.1 – Scope of Work is deleted in its entirety and replaced with the following:

The Office of the Secretary of State (the STATE) seeks to find a contractor to assist in the conceptualization, coordination, production, and design of the next iteration of the North Dakota Blue Book – or statewide almanac. Information about the North Dakota Blue Book along with current and past editions can be found here: https://www.sos.nd.gov/about-office/north-dakota-blue-book.

The objective is to begin the transition of this important resource for the digital consumer, while honoring the richness of the Blue Book’s history in print. This effort will require working with the Office of the Secretary of State to review the Blue Book committee, editorial process, and content strategy to result in a reimagined Blue Book offering, determining what content will be directed to print efforts and what content will be better served online; collaborating with a volunteer committee of writers and editors to produce content; and, providing information to seek bids for printing of resulting publications, working with printer through to publication. This process will result in the following outputs:

· A condensed (reduced pages – select chapters included) print publication in the style of past Blue Books to support storytelling around selected topics celebrating North Dakota and identified chapters that are included for print.

· Drafting of content for remaining Blue Book chapters for use in digital content creation by the Office of the Secretary of State. (Content from all traditional chapters)

· Identifying any information that should be outbound links to partners rather than the Office of the Secretary of State hosted content.

3. In RFP Section 3.3, Subsection A – Deliverables, the items under the initial sentence, “The contractor will be required to provide the following to achieve the objective of this project:” are deleted in their entirety and replaced with the following:

1) Take lead oversight role and act as the STATE liaison to the Blue Book Committee (contributing writers/idea generation) and Editorial Board (content/decision/editing) or migrate these groups into a new structure for content development and review.

2) Work with the STATE to determine what content is featured in print, what content lives digitally on website, and what content is directed to collaborative partners

a. Some topic areas are only found in the Blue Book publication, others are readily available on other state websites, content direction process will determine what will live on the site or in publication, and what should be referred to sites with ownership of information in some areas.

b. Frequency of content updates, changes or features.

3) Work with State Historical Society to ensure inclusion of final product into education tool, and to explore how newly created web version of Blue Book might interact with this education tool. Example of current interaction found at: https://www.ndstudies.gov/curriculum/teacher-resources/nd-blue-books

4) Direct outreach/coordination of needed visuals, graphics, content development for determined solutions.

5) Schedule and attend meetings directing content development

6) Establish timelines and deadlines for editorial cycle or project plan for content creation/migration

7) Assist contributors throughout process to establish consistency and accuracy in content creation

8) Edit all submitted materials to ensure consistency, accuracy, and appropriateness

9) Work with the STATE on all aspects of Blue Book development and provide ongoing progress reports throughout the process

10) Submit a proof of created materials prior to publishing for approval

11) Provide a digital copy of all content

12) Coordinate with approved printing vendor – providing files as needed

13) Develop a suggested marketing/publicity plan to promote outcome of this project Offerors are asked to submit a Best and Final Offer after review of the above information that includes a revised technical proposal and cost proposal following the proposal format mentioned in RFP Sections 4.3 – Proposal Format, 4.4 – Technical Proposal, and 4.5 – Cost Proposal.

Best and Final Offers will be evaluated based upon the evaluation criteria stated in the RFP and as an adjustment to scores already received by offerors on their original proposal response.

The State reserves the right to conduct additional discussions after submission of Best and Final Offers. If offerors do not submit a Best and Final Offer, their original proposal will be considered their Best and Final Offer.

Any questions regarding this request for Best and Final Offer must be directed to the Procurement Officer.

Sincerely, Abigail Dschaak Procurement Officer E-mail: aadschaak@nd.gov Telephone: 701-328-4912 TTY Users call: 7-1-1