Request for Proposal

Overview of Requirements

Project Overview

Arts for Learning Indiana has limited name/program recognition among its potential partners – schools (art teachers, teachers, administrators), libraries, community centers, and donors.

Further complicating recognition is the fact that the organization provides teaching artists to preschools through affiliation with Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts.

About Arts for Learning Indiana

Arts for Learning Indiana has been operating since 1961, changing its name in 2012 from Young Audiences. We have been the premier provider of innovative arts education programs for youth across Indiana, helping to make the arts a key component of a student’s academic experience.

We teach all arts – visual, dance, music, theatre, storytelling, photography, and more. And we use art to teach traditional subjects like math and reading comprehension. Post-pandemic, our instruction has also helped to meet students’ needs for social and emotional learning (SEL).

We reach 40,000 youth every year through 50 teaching artists who provide performances, workshops, and residencies to 80 schools and 29 non-school organizations (libraries and community organizations like parks). When working in a school environment, we work with teachers and the curriculum.

Our $1.1 million in revenue comes through grants (66%), earned revenue (25%), individuals (7%) and corporations (2%).

We also provide professional development for classroom teachers and teaching artists to effectively integrate the arts into any educational environment.

We are one of more than 30 affiliates of Young Audiences Arts for Learning, the nation’s largest arts in education learning network.

Arts for Learning Indiana brings the arts to your school community to champion creative learning, innovate education, and transform lives.

Arts for Learning envisions a future where all youth in Indiana have access to an education that is made whole by the arts.

At Arts for Learning Indiana, we value:

• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Access, and Belonging as essential elements of an ongoing process to move our culture toward justice and solidarity.
• The strength of symbiotic and innovative partnerships.
• Learning that fosters imagination is central to developing self-discovery, critical thought, and empathy.
• People who integrate creativity into their lives; in particular:
  • Artists for their devotion to the fostering and amplifying of cultural expression
  • Educators for their commitment to inspiring young minds through culturally sustaining pedagogy
  • Youth for their inherent intelligence and curiosity to explore, create, and discover who they are
• We thank all who lift up the mission and celebrate the vibrancy of the Arts for Learning community: staff, board, donors, advocates, and volunteers.

Background

Arts for Learning has been experiencing declining revenues over the past several years, and has had increasing difficulty engaging with their core constituency teachers and classrooms in Indiana Public Schools. Key findings of a report conducted by the Arts Consulting Group in December 2021 found that:

• School Relationships: Benchmarking and industry research clearly indicates that putting as much effort as possible into building deep relationships with individual teachers as well as schools and districts is an essential element of success.
• Development: Institutional fundraising is Arts for Learning Indiana’s core support strength, though it is centered on three funders for core operating support. This suggests a need to diversify through individual fundraising. Arts for Learning Indiana’s government support is markedly low from a national perspective. Arts for Learning Indiana’s individual fundraising is generating very little benefit for the organization (and may even be costing the organization when collective staff effort is included) and represents the single largest opportunity for fiscal growth when paired with a re-investment in the organization’s marketing activities.
• Marketing and Communications: Arts for Learning Indiana has done a lot of past work in the marketing area that is well considered but has not been fully resourced or implemented. The most essential initial step is to identify measurable impacts or benchmarks for Arts for Learning Indiana in its marketing activity to allow targeted activity that drives those measurements, rather than more general broad communications such as newsletters, video content, and social media.

Services

Arts for Learning Indiana is seeking planning and implementation for the following deliverables (estimated $30,000 for concepts and $45,000 for implementation in Year 1; $35,000 in implementation for each of Years 2 and 3):

• Branded collateral for key audiences:
  • For teachers, school administrators, libraries, and target community organizations in Indiana
    • A template for a printed and digital magazine and production of the first issue promoting registration for Fall 2024 that introduces Arts for Learning Indiana and includes a profile on a school, a teacher, a student, a program and a teaching artist. This would be in place of a program guide, but would drive people to the website to check out program offerings
    • A teaching artist toolkit (print and electronic) for how to promote the brand onsite, including branded apparel
    • Suggested identity, including logo treatment for Wolf Trap and major programs, e.g., third space, Artists Building Community
  • For donors
    • Templates for a branded print and electronic campaign for the next three fiscal years starting with 2024-25 for the annual fund
    • Electronic communication templates throughout the donor lifecycle, from prospect through first time donation
    • Budget, creation and placement of ongoing ads to recruit new donors on social media and Google
    • Through media
      • Recommendation on participation in Sophisticated Giving and/or IBJ Giving Guide
      • Development and deployment of a pitch
      • Recommendation of media ad campaign
  • For Staff, Teaching Artists, Schools and Board members
    • An onboarding toolkit
• An analysis of branded fonts – current fonts are not available to all staff and teaching artists and are not supported in electronic communications or on the website. As well, assessing additional fonts for headlines and captions may be warranted. (Style guide available upon request.)

Request for Proposal

All inquiries relating to this RFP should be directed to Lisa Waite, Director of Donor Relations and Communications at [email protected].

To be considered, respondents must:

1. Submit a summary of their company’s experience and qualifications;
2. Submit a list of three (3) clients who can speak to the quality of prior, similar work.
3. Submit (a) link(s) to relevant portfolios;
4. Be available during March 2024 for a presentation if invited;
5. Be able to complete, if selected, deliverables by June 30, 2024.

Summaries, a list of three clients, and any links to previous work must be provided via email by midnight EST on Thursday, February 29, 2024.

Select Arts for Learning Indiana staff members, along with the board’s Development and Communications Committee chair, committee members, and board chair, will review all documents submitted in response to this RFP.

Committee members will check submissions against the mandatory criteria (see below). Responses not meeting these criteria will not be considered. The committee will invite respondents who meet evaluation criteria for an in-person presentation. Arts for Learning will contact each accepted respondent after the RFP is closed and notify each if they have been selected for a presentation or not based on the criteria. Selected respondents should prepare to come to Arts for Learning’s offices to speak with the committee for approximately one hour about their qualifications, previous work, and potential ideas.

Arts for Learning has issued this RFP in order to find an organization that will be a good fit for our organization as we build brand awareness and more effectively promote our work. This RFP is not a binding agreement to purchase goods or services. Responses will be assessed according to qualification review criteria. Arts for Learning anticipates asking 2–3 organizations to present a full presentation.

Respondents to this RFP will be assessed for the following:

1. Quality of work sample(s) provided
2. Experience with the type of project specified in this RFP
3. Proven capacity to deliver the project requirements on time and on budget
4. Availability for project work as needed between March and June 2024

Arts for Learning values diverse perspectives and encourages all firms to respond.