July 15, 2022
Office of Economic Development
RE: Official Protest in Response to Catalyze SVOED-RFP-2022-04-01Rating Hello,
I am writing to express concerns with the Office of Economic Development’sRFP processonOED-RFP-2022-04-01 . There are a number of specific concerns we have regarding the pointsawarded in various sections. We have submitted a formal protest to city staff due to the barriersto access in the application process. Catalyze SV received a 6 out of 10 in categories such as“DEI knowledge” and “Population of Interest” for “lack of detail.” We contest that thisassessment is inaccurate and request Council review the grading process.
Like you, we believe San Jose works best when the community is engaged in the developmentprocess. Catalyze SV partners with fellow community-based organizations (CBOs) to engage adiverse population on difficult topics. Our approach is informed by community volunteers andstrengthened by collaboration with the nonprofit & private sectors.
Alongside other orgs, we are concerned that CBO participation was not specifically consideredin San Jose’s Office of Economic Development selection process for OED-RFP-2022-04-01. Wehave filed a formal protest highlighting our concerns with the process.
We believe by working together to solve mutual concerns, the community, the city andbusinesses can find mutually beneficial solutions. However, this conversation cannot be hadeffectively without true community participation. Our colleagues atLocal Colorshare ourconcerns and are also interested in increasing engagement between CBOs and the City of SanJose. By solely awarding bigger private firms, the City of San Jose has missed an opportunity todiversify and expand its community engagement practices and partners.
The grading process reveals there may be an implicit bias against CBOs.Stanford Center forSocial Innovation has been exploring methods to address implicit bias in the grantmakingprocessand publishes reports meant to inform grantmakers on how to avoid these pitfalls. Oneof the first things they mention is to avoid the impulse of solely awarding firms with largercapacity and finances because this leaves out those that serve vulnerable and diversepopulations, which tend to be underfunded.
We have a number of specific concerns with this award process:
1 1. CBOs were not considered equitably with larger firms.2. CBOs were docked points for formatting, not content.3. Award amounts were designated in large amounts per category.
We request that a portion of funds be set aside to be awarded to high scoring CBOs.This willoffset the possible bias in the application process, while maintaining the results of the originalRFP. The already awarded firms would simply be sharing some of the pot with theircommunity-based counterparts.
Thank you for considering these concerns. We hope that as policymakers, you can act on andimplement some of them.
Sincerely,
Rocio Molina, Community Engagement Manager, Catalyze SV 2 August 5th, 2022
RE: Item 8.2 on the August 9 City Council agenda related to Master Agreements forCommunity Engagement Consultants Hello,
I am writing to express Catalyze SV’s appreciation for OED’s efforts to address our concernswith theOED-RFP-2022-04-01 selection process. Weare encouraged by OED’s transparencyand cooperation during this phase of review.
OED submitted a supplemental memo for today’s Council agenda to accompany theirrecommendations for the OED-RFP-2022-04-01. This supplemental memo indicates plans toissue a separate procurement process to establish a bench of CBOs to provide communityengagement services.
We are glad to see the department addressing our calls for equity and inclusion. This is asignificant step toward building a culture of collaboration and partnership between the City ofSan Jose and the community based organizations doing community engagementprogramming.
Catalyze SV will continue to follow the execution of this new RFP and have some initialquestions regarding time and funding. The awards associated with the original RFP are not toexceed $4,000,000 and begin immediately on short-term projects related to the formation ofan advisory group. Our question are:
1. Will this new RFP be funded from the same pool of funding, and therefore contribute tothe $4,000,000 ceiling on community engagement services?2. Will this new RFP be issued in the next 6 months to limit the gap in funding andparticipation between the CBO community engagement organizations and the privatefirms already awarded?3. Will this new RFP provide real opportunities for community organizations to participate,or is it in jeopardy of tokenizing nonprofits in which they sit on a lower tier and thusaren’t invited to assist the City? We’d hate for CBOs to spend energy applying, getselected for the bench and then never called into the actual game.
OED’s supplemental memo, provided on August 9th, states that:
1 Moving forward with the nine recommended consultants will help meet immediate,specific needs for consulting services. Staff also recognizes the importance of partneringwith CBOs on community engagement and outreach. While some CBOs may providetraditional consulting services, most are focused on community organization, serviceprovision, capacity building, and other functions. With respect to communityengagement, CBOs can bring many important assets to the table, such as robustnetworks, deep insights on the needs and aspirations of impacted communities, andtrusted relationships with community members… That process could be catered to the specific functions, assets, and partnershipopportunities unique to CBOs and help meet the complementary need for strongcommunity partnerships as part of the City’s engagement processes.
While we agree that CBOs can provide a critical connection to the community, we are stillconcerned with the presence of an implicit bias against CBOs in OED’s assessments. Thelanguage above indicates a view that CBOs are not equipped to meet the general communityengagement needs of the city, but should be delegated to specific projects with “specificfunctions.” We are excited about the prospect of CBO inclusion in community engagement,however, we challenge city staff to consider CBOs in an equitable light to the private firms theywill award. CBOs are better positioned to grow and succeed with support from our publicpartners. Biases against our capabilities due to our limited capacity or connection to thecommunity creates a loop which leaves CBOs out of critical discussions. The City of San Josecreates equity when it disrupts these loops that create self-fulfilling prophecies.
As mentioned in my previous letter, this is not a phenomenon unique to this RFP.StanfordCenter for Social Innovation has been exploring methods to address implicit bias in thegrantmaking processand publishes reports meant toinform grant makers on how to avoidthese pitfalls. One of the first things they mention is to avoid the impulse of solely awardingfirms with larger capacity and finances because this leaves out those that serve vulnerable anddiverse populations, which tend to be underfunded.
Moreover, we want to revisit the importance of the City being cautious stewards of taxpayermoney. Many nonprofits can provide similar services to for-profit companies at a moreaffordable rate. We don’t want a city in which private firms get wealthy off highly profitablecontracts from the City while nonprofits are excluded when they could be saving the Citymoney.
Going forward on future RFPs, we encourage staff to create categories on RFPs like“connection to the community” “alignment with the City’s goals” and/or “cost of services” sononprofits can compete on more fair footing with private companies.
As Council and staff consider the best step forward, we encourage you to consider increasedtraining for grantmaking staff on inclusive assessment practices. The Stanford Center for Social2
Innovation and the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits both have research-based,recommended practices to increase equitable funding. We look forward to working incommunity with you. Thank you for considering these concerns.
Sincerely,
Rocio Molina, Community Engagement Manager, Catalyze SV 3