The Office of Sustainability issued a call for proposals from qualified firms to provide consultant support for defining and validating a shared vision for a strategic planning process for the Food Policy Advisory Council. Interested firms are invited to respond to the solicitation by 5pm on August 30, 2019.

The following are responses to questions we received from interested vendors:

What are the in-office requirements are for this consulting project?

There are no in-office requirements beyond attendance at in-person meetings as needed.

Specifically, with whom would the consultant primarily be working?

The consultant will work primarily with the new FPAC manager.

Will the consultant be facilitating workshops with the board members as well as the general public (other valuable stakeholders who are not well represented in membership or communication)?

Yes, expectations are that the consultant would facilitate those conversations.

How many meetings do you anticipate with identified stakeholders?

The exact number of stakeholder meetings is dependent upon the consultant’s recommended approach.  We recommend that the consultant develop a stakeholder map and then work with the FPAC team to prioritize the stakeholders for engagement/meetings. 

How many meetings/community conversations do you anticipate with the community?

The exact number of meetings/community conversations is dependent upon the consultant’s recommended approach.  The stakeholder map will be critical to this process and then the consultant will work with the FPAC team to prioritize the community stakeholders for engagement/meetings. FPAC would like to prioritize communities with food access issues. 

How in-depth have you completed a stakeholder analysis and mapping so that this process would be sure to include Philadelphia’s vulnerable populations with food? Do you have data on Philadelphia’s vulnerable food access populations?

FPAC has not completed a comprehensive stakeholder analysis but has identified key populations that can be provided as a starting point.  Additional details may be available from other sources, such as census data, city-data.com and the research conducted by Pew Trusts and others.  We would like the consultant to outline an approach that shows an understanding of how to identify Philadelphia’s population who experience food insecurity and access issues. 

Do you expect the consultant to recruit for these meetings? Or do you have the connections with community-based organizations who can refer individuals for recruitment?

Following the creation of the stakeholder map, FPAC will support and provide introductions and connections.  If an organization or population is identified where there is not currently an FPAC connection, then the consultant would be expected to recruit for participation. 

Given the activities needed to validate the vision, is your time frame flexible?

The exact timeline is dependent upon the consultant’s recommended approach, however the work must be ready for presentation at the FPAC voting meeting in December 2019. 

It says that the FPAC vision will be our starting point but that this will help to build and refine it. Is there also a preliminary set of principles and a mission or is that to be developed from the start during the project?

The FPAC vision is the starting point for this work.  There are also documents outlining principles and agreements that came out of a series of work sessions that occurred over several months in early 2019. These will be shared with the selected consultant at the kickoff meeting for the project. 

How many people are in the Equity Working Group and are they representative of the identified community?

The FPAC Equity Working Group, a subset of the FPAC appointed board, consists of 6 appointed members.  In addition to a subset of FPAC, members from the following communities have also participated in the working group:

• Residents who experience food systems challenges
• Residents who are marginalized in the food system
• Residents who want to become advocates for their own issues related to the food system
• Organizers that already have constituencies