JA GovDelivery FY25 Redacted.pdf

GovDelivery Communications Cloud SaaS Control Number VA-25-00019994

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

1. 2. Description of Action: This proposed action is for the award of a firm-fixed-price delivery order issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for the renewal of the deployed brand name Granicus Inc. GovDelivery Communications Cloud Service Software as a Service (SaaS) license (hereafter referred to as GovDelivery solution), which includes maintenance support, and ancillary support services.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services: VA Office of Public Affairs has a requirement to renew its deployed brand name enterprise GovDelivery solution comprising of GovDelivery Communications Cloud SaaS license, as well as ancillary Software Maintenance. This system supports the VA’s enterprise-wide email delivery, SMS messaging, audience segmentation, and outreach analytics. It serves over 28 million subscribers and delivered 2.5 billion communications in FY2024. As part of this offering, the Contractor shall provide remote hosting for the service in its environment, which shall be Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) compliant at the Moderate Level. This solution will provide VA with a secure, authenticated and direct communication platform that will provide trusted communications to the Veteran without backend integration and provides opportunities to contact the Veteran through non-traditional connections provided through the GovDelivery network and allows for personalized communication campaigns. These services will enable VA to communicate harvested data from across the enterprise’s business lines in a manner that is usable and easily accessed by the public through internet-connected devices. The solution shall provide services to allow users to create customizable profiles and subscribe to information from across VA web sites. This one-year requirement will ensure the continuation of mission-critical veteran and stakeholder email communications while the VA develops a new acquisition strategy that fosters future competition.

The solution provides enterprise reporting capability for Agency users regardless of access level, as well as reporting for each communication sent on behalf of the Agency. This ability will allow VA administrators to better analyze the activity, identify trends, opportunities, and make more informed data-driven decisions with confidence.

Communication reporting will provide statistics that reflect at a minimum, engagement rates, subscriber access, and bounce rates. The period of performance for this proposed effort shall be a 12-month base period, plus Optional Tasks. These tasks provide Short Message Service (SMS) functionality in Individual Messaging Capability, and additional access to advanced reporting and analytics capability

6320. Continuity of services is therefore essential to maintain these functions while pursuing long-term competition.

At this point in time, no other solution is currently capable of integrating with multiple VA specific websites/web pages and content management processes without requiring back-end database or content management server integration. This integration is accomplished by the software monitoring website content changes and using a unique and proprietary automated process to send change notifications to subscribers by email when changes occur. This unique technical feature provides simplification of the implementation/change processes for VA staff, while protecting the VA infrastructure by having this integration completed outside the VA firewall. Only the current brand name GovDelivery solution is capable of meeting this technical requirement. For another source to provide this functionality, it will have to design and test a solution that would interface with multiple databases and websites and repositories. This creates an increased and undue complexity for VA in the short term, as access to these databases websites and repositories may require backend integration with secure and/or proprietary networks that may be beyond the control of VA.

Additionally, GovDelivery remains the only SaaS solution currently in full production at VA that meets the Department’s functional requirement to customize the domain name of outgoing correspondence and operate as a trusted sender for VA communications.

This accreditation enables the use of “.gov” aliases—rather than “.com” domains—on all outbound messages, which is critical to reinforcing message legitimacy and maintaining Veteran trust. While market research identified a limited number of alternative solutions that may be technically capable of supporting this requirement, these platforms are not yet integrated into VA’s trusted sender framework. Even if an alternative solution were to have a FedRAMP Moderate and ATO credentials in place, these alternatives would still require additional development, testing, and formal validation by the VA Enterprise Security External Change Council to achieve the same level of operational accreditation and assurance.

To immediately implement a new solution is not feasible, as VA estimates based on its market research that based on the solutions that either significant development work or implementation work would be necessitated resulting in duplicative costs. For instance, some solutions that could potentially meet general platform requirement would require additional development and scaling for existing COTS solutions to meet all the required functional and technical requirements, resulting in an estimated cost of at least $2M and 6 months to complete, based on the maturity and features of the noted COTS product.

Conversely, other responses suggested ground-up development of a solution, which VA estimates would require a minimum of $4M and 12 months, with additional authorization and security compliance efforts introducing high levels of risk and potential delays not included in that cost. These estimates are based on historical/similar efforts for deployment of a new solution. During this time, VA would need to continue operating the GovDelivery platform in parallel to avoid service interruption, resulting in duplicative costs and increased operational risk, for the estimated cost of and additional $4M. As these features are essential to VA’s public-facing mission and cannot currently be met, VA must continue and renew the existing solution at this time.

With the continued use of the GovDelivery solution, no other source, other than GovDelivery or its reseller can provide the required maintenance support due to the proprietary nature of the software code. Access to the proprietary code is critical to generate, test, and deploy seamlessly interoperable patches, updates, features, and support for the existing GovDelivery software. Access to this code is also critical for configuration of the deployed software to create uniquely tailored suite of features that federal agencies require when interfacing with the general public. Without the patches and updates, security vulnerabilities would render the GovDelivery software inoperable and non-compliant with VA security requirements.

Failure to act would result in immediate disruption to critical Veteran communications, the loss of trust that comes with the inability to send authenticated *.gov messages, and significant delays in time-sensitive outreach campaigns such as those addressing health alerts, benefit changes, or suicide prevention. Additionally, adopting an unready solution would expose VA to unacceptable security and reputational risks, as well as duplicative costs stemming from the need to operate both legacy and transitional systems in parallel.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in Section 8 of this justification. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can immediately meet the Government's requirements. However, the undersigned VA technical representative determined that limited competition is available among authorized resellers for brand name GovDelivery solution, as well as software maintenance and support. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Contracting Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: Based on the Market Research as noted in Section 8 of this Justification, VA anticipates that due to the shift in the market that a competition for future requirements could be viable within the next year. Specifically, VA recognizes that increased market competition for enterprise email delivery services is achievable;

however, based on recent market research, no currently available alternative solution can meet all mandatory technical, security, and performance requirements without significant additional development and risk. To avoid disruption in essential Veteran communications, VA requires a one-year “limited-source acquisition” to maintain continuity while preparing for a full and open competition in early Fiscal Year 2026.

8. Market Research: In May 2025, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) issued a RFI under Notice ID VA-25-00019994 through SAM.gov and NASA SEWP. The RFI included a draft Product Description, and four technical questions designed to gather information on available industry capabilities, solution readiness, and potential compliance pathways. A total of 22 responses were received from interested respondents. Among the responses, multiple vendors noted use of the proposed GovDelivery platform, while other solutions from focused on offerings from Salesforce, Inc., MYALO Corporation, and Upland Software (Adestra). Further, some responses did not focus on the required COTS product, but rather platform capabilities or general capability statements. In general, VA’s review of the market research noted that most lacked one or more of the following areas of consideration: (1) FedRAMP Moderate authorization for both email and SMS services, (2) true SaaS COTS readiness, or (3) sufficient platform maturity to deploy at VA scale without further configuration. Solutions that offered only PaaS capabilities or partial compliance would require extensive development and deployment efforts. Given the review of the responses, it was determined that none of these sources are capable of meeting all of the Government’s technical and functional requirements as described in Section 5 above, within the required timeframe. Further, none of these sources have access to the proprietary code to perform maintenance support of the existing structure and application.

Additional Market Research was conducted in the form of the NASA SEWP RFI noted above, as well as a review of the NASA SEWP V GWAC Market Research tool. The results of which have identified multiple Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs) that are certified under the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Search (https://search.certifications.sba.gov/) that are capable of providing this renewal. As such, this effort will be set-aside to certified SDVOSBs under NASA SEWP V GWAC under NAICS 541519.

9. Other Facts: N/A

Office of General Counsel (OGC) Review

I have reviewed this document and find it legally sufficient, based on the representations set forth in the documents and, if any, attachments. The Competition Advocate’s approval is an independently supported decision not wholly reliant on the legal sufficiency determination.

Advocate for Competition Approval In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of brand name Granicus Inc. GovDelivery Communications Cloud Service Software as a Service on an other than fair opportunity basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.