NEARFP12-17 Solicitation Validating Arts and Livability Indicators in Selected Communities and Developing a User_s Guide final.pdf

August 14, 2012

Reference: Validating Arts and Livability Indicators in Selected Communities and Developing a

User's Guide with Case Examples and Local Data Sources

Subject: Request for Proposal Solicitation Number NEARFP12-17

Dear Prospective Offeror:

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) invites contractors to submit proposals for the services described in the attached statements of work, under the authority of Part 12 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

Enclosed you will find a Statement of Work/solicitation that requests proposals for Validating Arts and Livability Indicators in Selected Communities and Developing a User's Guide with Case Examples and Local Data Sources. QUESTIONS concerning this proposal shall be submitted only via email to CONTRACTS@ARTS.GOV by 5:00 pm (EST) on August 20, 2012. Please SUBMIT your PROPOSALS by TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2012 at 5:00 p.m. (EST). This RFP in no way obligates the U.S. Government to award a contract, nor does it commit the U.S. Government to pay any cost incurred in preparing and submitting your proposal.

The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer, conforming to the solicitation; will be most advantageous to the Government. Price and other factors will be considered. In order to select the winning offeror, NEA will rank offerors from best to worst. In addition to the narrative assessments prepared by the Evaluation Team for each evaluation factor, a point scoring system will be used to rank all technical and price proposals. The point scoring system uses a rating scale of 100%. However, NEA will not select an offeror for award on the basis of a superior capability without consideration of the amount of its price. In order to select the winning proposal, NEA will rank each offeror by making a series of paired comparisons between them, trading off the marginal differences in capability with the marginal difference in price.

The Government’s estimate is approximately $250,000.00.

Offerors are encouraged to pursue collaborations in order to provide the NEA with the expertise required for this evaluation.

The precise period of performance will be determined at the time of award; the final report is due no later than September 16, 2013.

Proposals that are faxed will not be accepted. Proposals must be received by the closing date and time stated above via email to CONTRACTS@ARTS.GOV. Please refer any questions concerning this request to Latonca M. Harris via email at CONTRACTS@ARTS.GOV.

Sincerely, Latonca M. Harris

Latonca M. Harris Contracting Officer Grants & Contracts Office mailto:harrisl@arts.gov

Enclosures:

Section B, Supplies/Service and Prices Section C, Description/Specifications/Statement of Work Section D, Preservation, Packaging and Marking Section E, Inspection and Acceptance Section F, Deliveries or Performance Section G, Contract Administration Data Section H, Special Contract Requirements Section I, Contract Clauses Section J, List of Attachments Section K, Representations, Certifications and Other Statements of Offerors Section L, Instructions, Conditions and Notices to Offerors Section M, Evaluation Factors for Award

SECTION B

SUPPLIES/SERVICES AND PRICES

B.1. GENERAL

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has established, as a strategic outcome it achieves through grant-making, Livability: American Communities are Strengthened Through the Arts.

The NEA has also identified four broad outcome areas that are important in the relationship between the arts and community livability. Those dimensions of livability are: the presence of creative arts activity; social cohesion and community attachment, including civic engagement;

individual quality of life; and local economic growth. The NEA is currently using several national data sources to develop a series of candidate indicators that would track movement along these four dimensions across all U.S. communities.

To facilitate the NEA's development and testing of these indicators, the Agency seeks a contractor to collect, analyze, and report on data from residents in approximately 20 communities.

Those data will help the NEA to test the validity of the proposed indicators, and to understand and articulate how local conditions and characteristics might bear on the appropriateness of each indicator for specific communities. As a result of this local validation effort, the contractor will produce a guidebook for public use of the NEA's national indicators, complete with case examples of their application in different types of communities.

Another task of the contractor will be to produce a directory of local or municipal data sources that communities might use to create metrics similar to, if not entirely comparable with, the national-level indicators currently being developed.

B.2 PRICING

All unit prices are firm fixed rates.

Period of Performance: Date of Award through submission of the final report due no later than September 16, 2013.

ITEM

No.

SUPPLIES OR SERVICES QTY UNIT UNIT PRICE AMOUNT

0001 Validating Arts and Livability Indicators in Selected Communities and Developing a User's Guide with Case Examples and Local Data Sources

1 Lot $ $

FIRM FIXED PRICE

GRAND TOTAL

AMOUNT FOR

NTE $

*NEA agrees to release payments to the contractor consistent with the submission of deliverables during the task order period. The contractor may invoice according to the following schedule:

Task / Deliverable Due

Date Quantity Cost Total

Task 1.1.1: Kickoff meeting 10/15/12 1 Lump Sum $ $ Task 1.2.1: Draft research plan & questions 11/09/12 $ $ Task 1.2.2: Final research plan & questions 11/21/12 1 Lump Sum $ $ Task 1.3.1: Pilot test 01/18/13 1 Lump Sum $ $ Task 1.3.2: Revised research plan / questions 02/01/13 $ $ Task 1.3.3: Complete research / fieldwork 07/03/13 1 Lump Sum $ $ Task 1.4.1: Draft of research write-up complete 08/02/13 $ $ Task 1.4.2: Final research write-up complete 09/16/13 1 Lump Sum $ $ Task 2.1.1: Draft of presentation of format for annotated directory of local data sources

11/09/12 $ $

Task 2.2.1: Final draft of annotated directory of local data sources

08/02/13 $ $

Task 2.2.2: Final delivery of annotated directory of local data sources

09/16/13 1 Lump Sum $ $

TOTAL $

SECTION C

DESCRIPTION/SPECIFICATIONS/STATEMENT OF WORK

C.1. INTRODUCTION

The NEA's Investment in Creative Placemaking

Increasingly, communities nationwide are leveraging the arts and design to create more livable places.

Through its flagship placemaking initiative, Our Town, the Arts Endowment has joined other funders – federal, state, and local governments, but also individuals, foundations, and businesses – in supporting local efforts to improve community livability.

This new focus aligns with the NEA's Strategic Plan for FY 2012-2016, which identifies the following programmatic outcome: Livability: American Communities Are Strengthened Through the Arts. The Strategic Plan offers a general definition of livability, which guides the aims of Our Town.1 The definition itself follows from concepts and values articulated in the NEA's evidence-based white paper Creative Placemaking. According to the paper, authored by Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa, placemaking describes a phenomenon in which partners from public, private, nonprofit, and community creative

1 In Art Works for America: Strategic Plan, FY 2012‐2016 (http://www.nea.gov/about/Budget/NEAStrategicPlan2012‐2016.pdf), the Arts Endowment defines livability as consisting of a variety of factors that contribute to the quality of life in a community. Education, employment, safety, sustainability, affordable housing, ease of transportation, access to public buildings and facilities, an aesthetically pleasing environment, and ample opportunities for social, civic, and cultural participation are among qualities that make a place livable. Arts and design can enhance livability by providing new avenues for expression and creativity. Arts and design‐related livability activities may include the development of plans for cultural and/or creative sector growth, the enhancement of public spaces through design or new artworks, arts or design activities that foster community interaction, or the engagement of artists, designers, and/or arts organizations in plans and processes to improve community livability and enhance the unique characteristics of a community.

http://www.nea.gov/about/Budget/NEAStrategicPlan2012-2016.pdf sectors strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, city, or region around arts and cultural activities. Creative placemaking animates public and private spaces, rejuvenates structures and streetscapes, improves local business viability and public safety, and brings diverse people together to celebrate, inspire, and be inspired.2

The Arts Endowment made an initial investment in creative placemaking with the Mayors' Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative (MICD25) of FY 2010. A forerunner of Our Town, this program supported creative placemaking projects in 21 communities with grant awards ranging from $25,000 to $250,000; an overview of grant awards may be reviewed on the NEA website:

http://www.nea.gov/national/micd25/index.html.

Furthermore, through the Our Town program, the NEA awarded 50 grants in 2011 and plans to award another 80 in 2012, ranging from $25,000 to $250,000, for creative and innovative projects in which communities, together with leading arts and design organizations and artists, work to improve livability.3

Defining and Refining Livability-Related Outcomes for the Purpose of Measurement

Although the arts have many positive impacts on neighborhoods, towns, and cities, those benefits have proved resistant to quantitative assessment.4 A common challenge is to identify which community-level outcomes are reasonable to expect from specific types of art/design interventions. Prior to attempting to track the relationship between the arts and livability in U.S. communities, therefore, the NEA has identified four dimensions of livability it hypothesizes as the most pertinent to the goals of creative placemaking projects.5 These four dimensions, or impact areas, are:

• creative arts activity;

• social cohesion and community attachment, including civic engagement;

• quality of life; and

• local economic growth.

A second common challenge to quantitative assessment is to identify indicators6 that effectively can measure changes within these outcome areas in U.S. communities. To address this challenge, the NEA is

2 A. Markusen & A. Gadwa, Creative Placemaking (Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 2010), Executive Summary 3, accessed May 11, 2011, http://www.nea.gov/pub/CreativePlacemaking‐Paper.pdf.

3 For more information on the Our Town grant program, see http://www.nea.gov/national/ourtown.

4 The Arts Endowment in 2010 convened some of the nation’s foremost thinkers and practitioners in urban design, cultural policy, and community development to grapple with this issue (http://www.Arts Endowment.gov/research/Arts‐and‐Livability‐Whitepaper.pdf).

5 See Appendix A for a more detailed list of candidate indicators.

6 In this proposal, the term "dimensions of livability" refers to the four broad categories of livability that the NEA hypothesizes are affected by creative placemaking. Dimensions are primarily conceptual; there is no number to tell us the value of a dimension. The term "indicator" refers to a measure that will be made available through this Indicators System to reflect one of the four dimensions. The term "metric" refers to a specific variable or data point that is already being collected and is part of another data source. Both indicators and metrics have numbers attached to them; in some cases these numbers will be one and the same. In other cases, however, an indicator is more accurately described as a combination of two or more metrics. For example, one indicator of creative placemaking's impact on artists and arts communities might be "Employment at Arts Organizations" in a given geographic area. This indicator might be presented as a percentage that is calculated using two separate metrics from that same geographic area, both of which originate as part of the County Business Patterns (CBP) data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau: the number of employees at arts organizations and the total number of employees.

http://www.nea.gov/national/micd25/index.html http://www.nea.gov/research/Arts-and-Livability-Whitepaper.pdf http://www.nea.gov/research/Arts-and-Livability-Whitepaper.pdf developing a national system of indicators consisting of metrics that rely on publicly accessible, secondary data sources. Following refinement and testing of these indicators in specific types of communities, the NEA intends to publish the metrics and data sources along with a guidebook allowing public users to understand the circumstances and conditions in which certain proposed indicators are most applicable, where they might be irrelevant, or where they must incorporate other key factors to be useful.

C.2 SCOPE OF WORK

To address the challenges outlined above, the Arts Endowment’s Office of Research & Analysis (ORA) intends to award a contract for a project to inform a Creative Placemaking Community Indicators System.

The aim of this project is to pioneer new approaches for illuminating how local and national-level indicators help us understand community livability as experienced on the ground and how these indicators might capture the impact of creative placemaking.

Therefore, one set of activities under this contract aims to improve our understanding of how candidate indicators of livability taken from national-level datasets reflect the on-the-ground reality in U.S.

communities. The NEA has identified a set of candidate indicators for each dimension of community livability. For each candidate indicator, the NEA has already created basic documentation, including the metric(s) that comprise the indicator, the source of those metrics, the level of analysis (geography and time) at which the metric should be available, and a theoretical justification for the indicator's use.

The contractor will propose, conduct, and document research to validate the candidate indicators of community livability. This research will be based on site visits, surveys and/or interviews, and document reviews at approximately 20 U.S. communities, to be determined in consultation with the NEA. The communities will represent a broad array of geographical and population characteristics and will be stratified by levels and/or types of arts and design activity. Regarding the geographical limits of "community," the term may refer to a metropolitan statistical area (MSA), county, zip code area, or Census tract, depending on the types of livability outcomes being measured.

Results from the contractor's local data collection will be used by the NEA to refine its national-level indicators and to create a series of case examples. The contractor's assessment "on the ground" will help the NEA better to track directional changes in livability outcomes for different types of U.S. communities.

The contractor will generate scenarios or case examples illustrating the application of the indicators and what improvements might be needed to make them more relevant in specific cases.

A second set of activities under this contract aims to improve our understanding of the work being done around the country to measure and track local livability outcomes. The resulting resource will exemplify the multitude of ways that communities across the country have measured or could measure the impact of creative placemaking on creative arts activity, community attachment, quality of life, and local economies. The contractor will identify and document (but not collect) local-level indicators and metrics that are being or have been used by communities nationwide to measure and track local livability outcomes. Through this set of activities, the contractor will produce a directory of local data sources that might be used by the NEA and its stakeholders to complement the NEA's work on a national system.7

To summarize, the contractor's tasks will include:

• Conducting and reporting on qualitative research that explores how the NEA's candidate indicators of its four chosen dimensions of livability interact with on-the-ground conditions and characteristics in selected communities. The contractor will produce a public user's guide

7 See Appendix B for a preliminary list of such data sources.

with case examples of which of the national-level data and metrics might prove most relevant for which community types, which might prove less relevant, and which should be modified for optimal use.

• Creating an annotated directory of metrics and indicators (both qualitative and quantitative) that reside at local levels and that have been used, or can be used, to monitor local trends in the four dimensions of livability chosen by the NEA.

In addition, the contractor will be expected to work with the Arts Endowment in the following ways:

A. Steering Committee and Project Advisors: A project steering committee comprised of Arts Endowment staff will advise on this project. The Arts Endowment will also convene a working group of arts professionals and researchers, with whom the contractor may consult on an ad hoc basis. Further, the Arts Endowment likely will be in routine consultation with other federal agency officials pursuing the development and deployment of community livability metrics, and these individuals may provide additional feedback as requested.

B. Kick-Off Meeting: The contractor is expected to participate in a project kick-off meeting in person within 10 days of the contract award; the contractor will produce minutes of the meeting. A modified work plan (estimated not to exceed 10 pages), must be submitted in electronic format no later than 10 days after the kick-off meeting.

C. Project Communications: The contractor will also participate in progress report meetings by phone or video conference with the Project Director and/or the project steering committee at least on a monthly basis or as necessary. The contractor may be asked to present in person to the project steering committee, in addition to the Project Director, in association with any of the contract/project tasks. One week preceding each progress report meeting, the contractor will submit a monthly progress report that includes: a list of tasks on-going and/or completed;

brief summaries of significant meetings or briefings held during the month being reported on;

next steps to be undertaken by the contractor; and any pending action to be taken by the Arts Endowment’s ORA. An email summarizing action steps agreed upon at progress report meetings will be submitted to the Project Director no later than 3 days after the meeting.

D. Report Structure Requirements: All required major deliverables will include both full text and a comprehensive Executive Summary. Typically, the main body of an Arts Endowment report is tailored to a general audience; all details regarding analyses and other technical information, including copies of all data collection instruments and protocols (if applicable), should be located in technical appendices for researchers. Consistent with other Arts Endowment publications, reports should follow The Chicago Manual of Style and the Arts Endowment style guide available at http://www.nea.gov/manageaward/logos/nea-style-guide-abridged.pdf. Report deliverables will include an electronic version of the report with the text in Microsoft Word, electronic file(s) of raw data, analyses codes and outputs (if applicable), and tables in Excel. The Arts Endowment engages in extensive review of all documents that are to be published. The contractor should be prepared to be responsive to multiple rounds of feedback, while maintaining the integrity of all reported findings.

C.3 DETAILED SPECIFICATIONS

Note that the tasks and sub-tasks outlined in this section may be performed simultaneously and may inform one another.

TASK 1: Conduct and report on validation research to improve our understanding of how indicators of community livability reflect the on-the-ground reality in selected communities, with the objective of helping fill the gap between conditions on the ground and what can be measured by indicators created using national-level data.

Under this task, the contractor will design and implement a process to qualitatively validate a set of measures selected by the NEA as candidate indicators of the four dimensions of livability identified in Section C.2. This validation process should involve examining and reporting on the ways and conditions in which these candidate indicators successfully reflect the conceptual dimensions of livability in which the NEA is interested. This task can be thought of as a qualitative version of more traditional quantitative approaches to indicator validation.8

Sub-Task 1: Conduct a Project Kick-Off Meeting with the NEA Steering Committee in Washington, DC.

Sub-Task 2: Design and submit a plan and timeline for research to inform our understanding of how and under which conditions the national indicators selected by the NEA to measure community livability reflect the on-the-ground reality for community residents. This plan should include:

• A strategy for selecting approximately 20 communities that will be the subject of investigation (communities that received Our Town grants in 2012 constitute part of the sample, as should a number of “control” communities in which relatively little investment in creative placemaking is known to have occurred);

• A strategy for selecting and contacting the individuals to be consulted within subject communities (individuals representing Our Town grant recipients should be among those consulted where applicable);

• An interview protocol designed to elicit (a) subjects' independent perceptions of community livability in their locales, with a focus on the dimensions of livability on which the NEA is primarily interested and (b) subjects' perceptions about the ways in which data points from the candidate indicators reflect reality on the ground in those locales;

• A creative approach to presenting to interview subjects, both visually and verbally, the relevant data points for the candidate indicators associated with those subjects' localities;

• Where local data sources are being used to measure relevant dimensions of community livability, as described in Task 2, a strategy for comparing such data sources to the candidate metrics described in Task 2;

• A thoughtful approach to analyzing and presenting the data collected; and

• A timeline for implementing the plan, including a schedule for pilot testing the approach in a small subset of communities.

The approval process for most data-collection instruments will require additional consent by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The ORA is required to prepare a packet from OMB for information collections. The Contractor will provide documentation to the ORA as requested, and furnish additional assistance if necessary, to obtain any and all clearances as required under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. Once the data collection

8 For example, see Montero, J. et al, "Validation of two complementary oral‐health related quality of life indicators (OIDP and OSS 0‐10) in two qualitatively distinct samples of the Spanish population", Health and Quality of Life Outcomes. 2008; 6:101 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2631008/); Phythian CJ et al, "Validating indicators of sheep welfare through a consensus of expert opinion", Animal. 2011 May; 5(6): 943‐952.

instruments and plan are finalized and the documentation has been submitted to OMB, clearance is anticipated to take five days under the "fast track" process.

Sub-Task 3: Conduct research as described in Sub-Task 1 after the research plan is approved by the NEA Project Director.

Sub-Task 4: Submit research findings to the Arts Endowment Project Director for review and incorporation into a public user's guide.

Part of the content of the user's guide will be generated by the NEA. This component will include detailed descriptions of each indicator, its metric and data source, and a rationale for the indicator's selection. The remainder of the user's guide will be developed by the contractor. These components will consist of case examples or scenarios of each indicator's appropriate use in specific types of communities. The guide will thus provide a typology of communities for which a subset of the national indicators (including metrics and data sources) are most applicable, where they might be less applicable, and where they might be modified to be more applicable. Where possible, the contractor's contribution to the user's guide will relate qualitative research findings from the data validation efforts described in Sub-Tasks 1 and 2.

The user's guide is intended to be included as an integral component of the Creative Placemaking Community Indicators System; therefore, the contractor's contribution should be presented in a format and at a level of editorial quality that can easily accommodate being displayed as an integral part of a web-based final product.9 The contractor's component of the user's guide should be submitted to the NEA Project Director in draft form no later than 08/02/2013 and in final form no later than 09/16/2013.

TASK 2: Create an annotated directory of data sources (primarily, but not necessarily quantitative) that reside at local levels and can be used to monitor local conditions related to the four dimensions of livability on which the NEA is focused. This directory will be based on data that has already been collected and that contains indicators and metrics that align with the four livability dimensions.

This directory is intended to serve as a resource for communities across the country that may be struggling to understand and articulate the ways in which they think creative placemaking activities are improving conditions in their locales. Because the NEA envisions that this directory will be made available ultimately through a web-based platform, the sub-tasks below should be presented in a format that can easily be adapted to such a platform.

Sub-Task 1: Draft format for presentation of local data sources. The contractor will prepare a draft document illustrating plans for presenting a clearly annotated and easy-to-understand description of each data source. At a minimum, this description should include:

• Name of data source;

• Web address or other contact information for access to or information about the data source;

• Geographic coverage area for the data source;

• Geographic-level of the data;

• Time period covered by the data, including information about any known plans for future data collection;

• Description of sampling scheme and sample size;

9 Note that development of such a web‐based final product is not part of the scope of work for this project.

• Specific questions asked (if the data were collected through a survey) and /or conceptual constructs identified;

• Tags for the data elements and / or constructs, created in consultation with the NEA;

and

• Publications and news articles citing and / or using the data source (in particular, the NEA is interested in communicating to the creative placemaking field how localities are using these data to describe the impact of their activities).

Sub-Task 2: Identify and document local data sources. Using a list of resources that the NEA has already identified as a starting point (see Appendix B) and following the format agreed in Sub- Task 1, the contractor will create a comprehensive list of data collection initiatives that communities across the country have undertaken that can be used to document creative placemaking activities and their perceived impacts. The list will include clear criteria for the compilation of resources so that the NEA can replicate this process in the future.

The contractor will present an updated list of data collection initiatives, following the format identified in Sub-Task 1, on a monthly basis. The final documentation will be submitted to the NEA Project Director in draft form no later than 08/02/2013 and in final form no later than 09/16/2013.

SECTION D

PRESERVATION, PACKAGING AND MARKING

Not Applicable.

SECTION E

INSPECTION AND ACCEPTANCE

E.1 52.252-2 CLAUSES Incorporated by Reference (FEB 1998)

This contract incorporates one or more clauses by reference, with the same force and effect as if they were given in full text. Upon request, the Contracting Officer will make their full text available.

Also, the full text of a clause may be accessed electronically at this address:

https://www.acquisition.gov/far/

(END OF CLAUSE)

E.2 52.246-4 Inspection of Services—Fixed-Price (AUG 1996)

E.3 Inspection and Acceptance

FAR Clause 52.246-4 Inspection of Services – Fixed Price, will govern inspection and acceptance of all services performed by the Contractor. The Contractor is responsible for carrying out its obligations under this contract by controlling the quality of all services rendered and ensuring performance of all contract requirements.

https://www.acquisition.gov/far/

SECTION F

DELIVERIES OR PERFORMANCE

F.1 TIMELINE FOR PERFORMING CONTRACT REQUIREMENTS

DELIVERY SCHEDULE:

In carrying out this project, the Contractor will be expected to complete the DELIVERY SCHEDULE for primary task deliverables as presented below:

Major Deliverables Due Date Task 1.2.2: Final research plan & questions (Validation Research)

11/21/12

Task 1.3.1: Pilot test (Validation Research) 01/18/13 Task 1.4.2: Final research write-up complete (Validation Research)

09/16/13

Task 2.2.2: Final delivery of annotated directory of local data sources

09/16/13

F.2 TERM OF CONTRACT

The contract term is from date of award through 09/16/2013. All work is expected to be completed based on the specific tasks for performing contract requirements.

F.3 Notice to the Government of Delays

Required services shall begin at time of award in accordance with the Statement of Work. The Contractor is responsible for carrying out its obligations under this contract by controlling the quality of all services rendered and ensuring performance of all contract requirements. To this end, the Contractor shall establish, maintain, and manage quality control throughout the life of this contract. In the event the Contractor encounters difficulty in meeting performance requirements, or when the contractor anticipates difficulty in complying with the contract delivery schedule or completion date, or whenever the Contractor has knowledge that any actual or potential situation is delaying or threatens to delay the timely performance of this contract, the Contractor shall immediately notify the Contracting Officer and the NEA Project Director, in writing, giving pertinent details. However, this notification shall be informational only in character and shall not be construed as a waiver by the Government of any delivery schedule or date, or any rights or remedies provided by law or under this contract.

F.4 DELIVERABLES

The contractor shall provide information regarding the content and format for each deliverable.

Acceptance of all written documents will be based upon the NEA Project Director’s review and approval.

SECTION G

CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION DATA

G.1 NEA Project Director

G.1.1 Upon award, a NEA Project Director will be designated to coordinate the technical aspects of this contract and inspect items/services furnished hereunder; however, he/she shall not be authorized to change any terms and conditions of the resultant contract, including price.

G.1.2 The NEA Project Director is authorized to inspect, accept, and certify services for payment with a statement “approved for payment”, signature and date in accordance with enclosed payment terms. If the invoices should be rejected or denied, the Project Director must immediately contact the Contracting Officer and return the invoice with the rationale to reject or deny payment in accordance with the performance associated with the invoice for further processing.

G.1.3 The Project Director for this contract is:

To be determined at time of award

National Endowment for the Arts 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite

Washington, DC 20506

(202) 682-

G.1.4 The Contracting Officer for this contract is:

Latonca M. Harris

National Endowment for the Arts 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 618

Washington, DC 20506

(202) 682-5476

Written communications shall make reference to the award contract number and shall be mailed to the above address.

G.2 Invoice Requirements

G.2.1 Payment for actual work and services rendered under this contract will be made by the National Endowment for the Arts via Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and in accordance with the contract clause 52.212-4 Contract Terms and Conditions--Commercial Items (FEB 2007), and 52.232-34 Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer--Other Than Central Contractor Registration (May 1999), upon submission of electronic invoices to the NEA’s Finance Office, via electronic email address to NEAINVOICES@ARTS.GOV. Additionally, invoices may be faxed to 202-682-5679.

G.2.2 The office that will make the payments due under this contract (i.e., the designated payment office) is shown below.

National Endowment for the Arts Finance Office, Suite 624

1100 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC 20506 mailto:neainvoices@arts.gov

To constitute a proper invoice, the following information and/or attached documentation shall be included with the invoice.

(1) Name and address of the Contractor.

(2) Invoice date.

(3) Contract number.

(4) Period covered by the invoice.

(5) Number and description, quantity, unit price and extended total for the period covered applicable to Section B, Supplies/Services and Prices.

(6) Cumulative amounts billed by to date.

(7) Name and address of Contractor official to whom payment is to be sent (must be the same as that in the contract or in a proper notice of assignment).

(8) Taxpayer Identification Number.

(9) Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) Number.

Please note:

The successful contractor is required to have a valid, active registration in Central Contractor Registration: https://www.uscontractorregistration.com/

SECTION H

SPECIAL CONTRACT REQUIREMENTS

H.1 CONTRACT TYPE

This is a Firm Fixed Price Commercial Item Contract.

H.2 SPECIAL CONTRACT REQUIREMENTS

PRIVATE USE OF CONTRACT INFORMATION AND DATA

Except as specifically authorized by this contract, or as otherwise approved by the Contracting Officer, information and other data developed or acquired by or furnished by the Contractor in the performance of this contract, shall be used by the Contractor only in connection with the work under this contract. The contractor must obtain permission through a written request to the Contracting Officer and approval from the NEA’s General Counsel Office prior to releasing any data for use outside of the performance of this NEA contract.

In accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 52.227-14(b) Rights in Data-General, the Contractor shall guarantee strict confidentiality of the information and data that is provided by the Government during the performance of the contract. The Government has determined that some of the information and data that the Contractor will be providing during the performance of the contract is of a sensitive nature and cannot be disclosed in any manner.

H.3 PROHIBITION AGAINST SOLICITING AND PERFORMING PERSONAL SERVICES

A. The performance of personal services under this contract is strictly prohibited.

B. Personal service contracting is described in Section 37.104 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation

(FAR). There are a number of factors, when taken individually or collectively, which may constitute personal services. Each contract arrangement must be judged in light of its own facts and http://www.ccr.gov/ circumstances, but the question relative to personal services is: Will the Government exercise relatively continuous supervision and control over the contractor personnel performing this contract?

C. The government and the Contractor understand and agree that the support services to be delivered under this contract are nonpersonal services in nature that is no employer-employee relationships exist or will exist under the contract between the government and the contractor or between the Government and the contractor’s employees.

D. Contractor personnel under this contract shall not:

1. Be placed in a position where they are appointed or employed by a Federal employee, or are under the supervision, direction, or evaluation of a Federal employee.

2. Be placed in a Federal staff or policy making position.

3. Be placed in a position of supervision, direction, or evaluation over NEA personnel, or personnel of other contractors, or become a part of a government organization.

E. Employee Relationship

1. The services to be performed under this contract do not require the contractor or its employees to exercise personal judgment and discretion on behalf of the government.

2. Rules, regulations, direction, and requirements which are issued by NEA management under their responsibility for good order, administration, and security are applicable to all personnel who enter a Government installation. This is not to be construed or interpreted to establish any degree of Government control which is inconsistent with a non-personal services contract.

3. The Contractor shall immediately advise the Contracting Officer if the contractor or its employees are directed by any Government employee to perform work that the Contractor believes constitutes personal services.

H.4 FACILITY ACCESS

A. Rights of Egress and Ingress

During the life of this contract, the rights of ingress to and egress from the National Endowment for the Arts facility for the Contractor's representatives shall be made available as required.

During all operations on Government premises, the Contractor's personnel shall comply with the rules and regulations governing the conduct of personnel and the operation of the facility. The Government reserves the right to require Contractor personnel to "sign-in" upon entry and "sign-out" upon departure from the National Endowment for the Arts facility.

B. Building Access Passes

When any Contractor personnel enter a NEA building for the first time, the Contractor must notify the NEA Project Director in advance and provide the full name and purpose of visit in order to obtain approval for escorted access.

H.5 SECURITY REQUIREMENTS

Notice of Contractor Personnel Security Requirements

Compliance with Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 (HSPD-12) and Federal Information Processing Standards Publication 201 (FIPS 201) entitled "Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors," Phase I.

In accordance with FAR 52.204-9, Personal Identity Verification of Contractor Personnel (January 2006), all contractor personnel assigned to work at the NEA or who will have access to NEA information systems are subject to the NEA “Identity Proofing and Registration Process,” established in compliance with HSPD-12 and subsequent guidance provided in, e.g., FIPS 201 and Office of Management and Budget “Memorandum M-05-24” (August 5, 2005).

At least ten working days before a contractor employee will begin work at the NEA or need access to NEA information systems, the contractor shall contact the Project Director to arrange an appointment for the purpose of initiating the process. All contractor personnel shall appear in person to verify their identity, provide fingerprints, and be photographed, prior to issuance of an NEA identification credential.

If a Federal agency has previously performed a background investigation of a contractor employee proposed to work on this contract, the contractor shall submit information to the Project Director to enable the NEA Office of Human Resources (OHR) to verify any previous successfully adjudicated background investigation performed by a Federal agency that meets the requirements of HSPD-12 and subsequent related Personal Identity Verification (PIV) guidance.

If a prior background investigation has not been performed and successfully adjudicated, or cannot be verified by the NEA, the contractor employee shall complete and submit the appropriate background investigation application form (in most cases SF-85: Questionnaire for Non-Sensitive Positions) to the NEA’s OHR. The OHR will – in accordance with current PIV guidance – initiate a background investigation. A credential will be issued only in accordance with the above-referenced guidance.

If the NEA receives disqualifying information on a contractor employee at any time, the NEA, at its sole discretion, may suspend or terminate access to and/or use of any or all NEA facilities and systems, and bar the contract employee from unescorted access to NEA facilities.

At the end of a contractor employee’s performance at the NEA, the contractor employee shall turn in his/her NEA identification credential to OHR prior to departure.

The denial of an agency identification credential to individual contractor employees by the NEA shall not be cause for extension of the period of performance of this contract or any contractor claim against the

NEA.

SECTION I

CONTRACT CLAUSES

I.1 52.252-2 Clauses Incorporated By Reference, (FEB 1998)

This contract incorporates one or more clauses by reference, with the same force and effect as if they were given in full text. Upon request, the Contracting Officer will make their full text available. Also, the full text may be accessed electronically at this Internet address: http://www.acquisition.gov/far/.

I.2 52.204-9 Personal Identity Verification of Contractor Personnel. (SEPT 2007)

(a) The Contractor shall comply with agency personal identity verification procedures when applicable that implement Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 (HSPD-12), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance M-05-24, and Federal Information Processing Standards Publication (FIPS PUB) Number 201.

(b) The Contractor shall insert this clause in all subcontracts when the subcontractor is required to have physical access to a federally-controlled facility or access to a Federal information system.

(End of clause) I.3 Subpart FAR 9.505-4, Obtaining Access to Proprietary Information

(a) When a contractor requires proprietary information from others to perform a Government contract and can use the leverage of the contract to obtain it, the contractor may gain an unfair competitive advantage unless restrictions are imposed. These restrictions protect the information and encourage companies to provide it when necessary for contract performance. They are not intended to protect information-

(1) Furnished voluntarily without limitations on its use; or

(2) Available to the Government or contractor from other sources without restriction.

(b) A contractor that gains access to proprietary information of other companies in performing advisory and assistance services for the Government must agree with the other companies to protect their information from unauthorized use or disclosure for as long as it remains proprietary and refrain from using the information for any purpose other than that for which it was furnished. The contracting officer shall obtain copies of these agreements and ensure that they are properly executed.

(c) Contractors also obtain proprietary and source selection information by acquiring the services of marketing consultants which, if used in connection with an acquisition, may give the contractor an unfair competitive advantage. Contractors should make inquiries of marketing consultants to ensure that the marketing consultant has provided no unfair competitive advantage

FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (48 CFR CHAPTER 1) CLAUSES

52.212-4 Contract Terms and Conditions--Commercial Items. (FEB 2012) 52.227-14 Rights in Data-General. (DEC 2007) 52.212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-

Commercial Items. (MAY 2012)

(a) The Contractor shall comply with the following Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) clauses, which are incorporated in this contract by reference, to implement provisions of law or Executive orders applicable to acquisitions of commercial items:

(2) 52.233-3, Protest After Award (AUG 1996) (31 U.S.C. 3553).

(3) 52.233-4, Applicable Law for Breach of Contract Claim (OCT 2004) (Pub. L. 108-77, 108-78)

(b) The Contractor shall comply with the FAR clauses in this paragraph (b) that the Contracting Officer has indicated as being incorporated in this contract by reference to implement provisions of law or Executive orders applicable to acquisitions of commercial items:

[Contracting Officer check as appropriate.]

X (26) 52.222-3, Convict Labor (August 2003) (E.O. 11755).

X (47) 52.232-33, Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer—Central Contractor Registration

(OCT 2003) (31 U.S.C. 3332).

I.4 52.217-8 Option to Extend Services (NOV 1999)

The Government may require continued performance of any services within the limits and at the rates specified in the contract. These rates may be adjusted only as a result of revisions to prevailing labor rates provided by the Secretary of Labor. The option provision may be exercised more than once, but the total extension of performance hereunder shall not exceed 6 months. The Contracting Officer may exercise the option by written notice to the Contractor within 30 days.

SECTION J

LIST OF ATTACHMENTS

1. Appendix A: Candidate Indicators

2. Appendix B: Candidate Local Indicator Systems / Data Sources

3. Wage Determinations Online - www.wdol.gov. Department of Labor Wage Determination Number:

2005-2103 REV (12) Date of Revision: 06/19/2012 Area: Washington, DC Click on the following hyperlink. http://www.wdol.gov/wdol/scafiles/std/05-2103.txt?v=12

SECTION K

52.212-3 Offeror Representations and Certifications—Commercial Items.

As prescribed in 12.301(b)(2), insert the following provision:

OFFEROR REPRESENTATIONS AND CERTIFICATIONS—COMMERCIAL ITEMS (APR 2012)

An offeror shall complete only paragraph (b) of this provision if the offeror has completed the annual representations and certifications electronically at http://orca.bpn.gov (Please note in your proposal that your representations and certifications are in ORCA). If an offeror has not completed the annual representations and certifications electronically at the ORCA website, the offeror shall complete only paragraphs (c) through (o) of this provision.

*Please access Offeror Representations and Certifications electronically at address:

http://www.acquisition.gov/far/ and print out the full text to complete.

SECTION L

INSTRUCTIONS, CONDITIONS AND NOTICES TO OFFERORS

52.212-1 INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS--COMMERCIAL ITEMS (AUGUST 2008)

(a) North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 541720 and size standard is $7.0 M.

(b) Submission of Offers. The written proposal should be no more than 15 pages (excluding resumes and work samples), single spaced, in 12-point font, and submissions should include at minimum:

• Overview of the Contractor’s Understanding of Project and Proposed Approach (Not to exceed 5 pages) http://www.wdol.gov/wdol/scafiles/std/05-2103.txt https://www.acquisition.gov/far/current/html/Subpart 12_3.html#wp1084399 http://orca.bpn.gov/ http://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/htmls/5/541370.htm

Outline your understanding of relevant studies and planning activities in the areas of the project. For each of the tasks identified by the Arts Endowment, describe how you would accomplish each task and, as appropriate, sub-task. Contractor may propose an alternative approach to accomplishing this project. Identify potential challenges in the conduct of the project and your methods to identify and solve such problems.

• Work Plan (Not to exceed 5 pages)

Provide a detailed work plan that addresses the successful completion of the tasks enumerated above.

The work plan should describe to the degree possible how the tasks will be completed. A timeline showing proposed beginning and ending dates for each task is to be included, as well as the name(s) of the person(s) responsible for each task. The proposal should include a table outlining the number of days by task for each of the key personnel.

• Description of Personnel Qualifications (Not to exceed 2 pages – Resumes to be submitted under separate appendix)

In this section, identify all personnel assigned to the project. Describe the pertinent qualifications of key personnel. Identify the key personnel who will direct the overall project throughout the duration of the contract. Describe the time allocations that all personnel described will devote to fulfillment of the contract. (An appendix to the proposal containing the resumes of project staff members is required.) If your organization plans to use external consultants or subcontractors, a staff organizational chart and resumes of consultants and/or subcontractors must be included. The NEA reserves the right to approve any changes of key personnel during negotiations or after award of a contract as a result of this RFP.

• Organizational Experience (Not to exceed 2 pages)

In this section, provide satisfactory evidence of your organizational capacity to effectively conduct the tasks described and produce high-quality reports that meet the intent of this RFP. Provide information on organizational qualifications to accomplish the described tasks, including indications of the ability to perform the tasks described in this RFP; and evidence that your organization has gained pertinent experience through working on similar projects.

• Complete Pricing Table in Section B.

Cost proposal breakdowns shall include all direct and indirect costs, and any other factor which contributes to the total firm fixed price. In addition, provide a breakdown of project costs by personnel (including daily rate and projected time on each task), supplies, travel, etc., associated with the tasks.

Servi…