Request for Proposal (RFP)
| RFP Name | Ongoing Marketing Support for Not-for-Profit Global Wildlife Initiative |
| Date Issued | 20 February 2025 |
| Contact Person | Adam Grogan, coordinator@gowrs.org JD Bergeron, jd@birdrescue.org |
| Submittal Accepted Until | 15 April 2025 (or until filled) |
| Purpose of RFP | We are seeking an ongoing marketing partner to support the effective messaging and awareness of a global wildlife initiative. We want a partner who will learn our complexities and transform them into easily digestible content. Ideal skill sets include brand recognition, content strategy, design and infographics, animation, and possibly a low-level social media strategy (+/-). |
| Project Background and Summary | GOWRS Ltd (www.gowrs.org) is a new entity representing more than two decades of collaborative effort on behalf of oiled wildlife. GOWRS is a collaboration of ten wildlife expert organizations from around the world. The website shares the key details and we acknowledge that marketing support will help to simplify and make these details more digestible, including optimizing language, adding visuals, and the like.
Our target market includes oil and energy companies, shipping, oil spill response organizations, government and other public agencies and trustees around the world whose operations might impact wildlife or might experience a wildlife crisis. A secondary market includes wildlife rehabilitation experts, researchers, and those with expertise pertinent to wildlife challenges around the world. Primary – For the purpose of this plan, the target audience will be decision-makers/influencers within oil companies, oil spill response organizations, e.g. senior managers of response teams, HR managers, and CEOs.
Secondary – While not a direct target audience, secondary audience members should still be considered when delivering tactics. Current stakeholders and identified conservation groups may not contract GOWRS, however they can often be the best advocates and provide additional channels for receiving and pushing out messages. The full text of our Collaboration Agreement has been included below for further information. |
| Project Goals and Objectives |
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| Scope of Work |
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| Selection Criteria | We are seeking an ongoing relationship which evolves with our needs, commits to understanding the industry and markets within we work, and offers diverse marketing services, including positioning, communications strategy, website and social media strategy, engagement and outreach.
The selected partner will demonstrate a commitment to understanding our initiative and working closely with the group through a collaborative process to achieve marketing objectives. Results should be data-driven and iterative. |
COLLABORATION AGREEMENT
- PREAMBLE
This collaboration agreement is co-created and seeks to safeguard the shared vision that underpins the Network for Oiled Wildlife, as well as articulating the goals of each Network member that make this collaboration unique and valuable. This Agreement is entirely voluntary in nature – binding in honour rather than being a legally binding document. Formal contracts will be drawn up as required in relation to specific projects.
Note, The Network is not a legal entity, is not in itself a response organisation, nor does it act as a mechanism by which a spilling party can activate its Members. However its members want to provide a response service, in order to assist oiled wildlife, when requested via GOWRS Ltd using the GOWRS Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), but this is dependent on funding being made available.
- HISTORY OF THE NETWORK
While the concept of an international collaboration of oiled wildlife response organisations has existed in different forms for decades, the most recent inspiration for a formal collaboration in an international network was initiated out of the industry-funded Global Oiled Wildlife Response System (GOWRS) Project 2015-18.
The international oiled wildlife response community remains a relatively small and specialised group of organisations and individuals. Given the uncertainty regarding the size, timing, and frequency of oiled wildlife incidents, efforts to achieve an effective level of global preparedness remain a challenge in spite of significant advancements in the field and increased support from some government and industry stakeholders, who have championed efforts to further integrate wildlife response preparedness into their own emergency systems and structures.
In the context of challenges related to time, resources, and political will, we, the members of the Network, recognise that we are individual parts of a larger stakeholder environment. As such, we recognise the necessity of collaboration in defined areas in order to create and continue developing a shared legacy from the experiences and learning of the wildlife response community as a whole and to achieve the necessary level of active support, engagement and preparedness of government, industry and other stakeholders.
- SHARED VISION
The Network is an alliance of wildlife ecology, rescue, healthcare and welfare organisations who share a vision on standards of good practice as it relates to oiled wildlife response. We represent a unified voice for wildlife preparedness and response activities to all those whose activities may negatively impact wildlife. We are different, but united in our efforts to assist stakeholders with preventing and mitigating the impacts of oil on wildlife through emergency preparedness.
Our vision:
- To develop and foster a network of like-minded organisations that focus on proactive, collaborative efforts on behalf of all key stakeholders, and work to our published standards of good practice. These efforts will result in:
- Preventing the oiling of wild animals wherever possible through effective wildlife planning; and
- Meeting the requirements of oil-impacted animals when accidents do occur, through a faster, more efficient and unified response effort.
Our mission:
- To work cooperatively to improve preparedness of all stakeholders to enable better wildlife contingency planning and ensure rapid, efficient assistance for oil-affected animals.
Declaration of Intent
We are a network of wildlife ecology, rescue, healthcare and welfare organisations who share a vision on standards of good practice for oiled wildlife response. We represent a unified voice for wildlife preparedness and response activities as delineated in this signed Collaboration Agreement and associated Governance Charter. We are different, but united in our efforts to assist stakeholders with mitigating the impacts of oil on wildlife through emergency preparedness. We believe that helping animals is fundamental to society. We recognise that we all bear some responsibility for the effects of incidents caused by an oil-based society, so our focus is specifically to reduce and mitigate the impacts of oil on wildlife through prevention and emergency response preparedness.
What we stand for
We seek to support proactive efforts within the oil and shipping industry, governments, other stakeholders, and the wildlife response sector so that society is better prepared, by implementing our published standards of good practice, to:
- prevent the oiling of wild animals through better wildlife planning; and
- meet the needs of oil-impacted animals through a faster, more efficient response.
Our mission is to work cooperatively to improve preparedness of all stakeholders that can lead to effective response, enable better wildlife contingency planning and rapid assistance for oil-affected animals.
To achieve this requires trust, openness and clear communication between all involved. By speaking with a single voice, we can better communicate our ideas and our thinking behind them.
Responders the world over are a valuable resource that needs to be cultivated and allowed to develop. We seek to promote a way of working that enables the international and local response efforts to coexist whilst respecting differences in cultures, legislation and practices, and allowing for advancement through shared learning to improve standards and professionalism that benefit both the responders and animal welfare.
We must build on what we have learned from experience about oiled wildlife response, without binding ourselves to outdated systems that cannot meet the needs of the future. To do this, we must learn from each other through exercises, training and research so that we continue to improve what we do. The animals we serve deserve our best.
We collaborate because the challenges and changes that are demanded of us cannot be achieved by any single organisation alone. Together, The Network can transform oiled wildlife response by providing a single voice to better inform and educate our stakeholders and to develop, promote and uphold internationally agreed good practice and standards. Together, we will shape a response environment that is:
- Diverse: Oiled wildlife responders comprise a diversity of groups and individuals with a variety of experiences, skills and knowledge. We aim for an oiled wildlife response network that contains organisations of different sizes, types, cultures and modes of response, in a state of continual learning, research and development. As such, while our aim is to optimize the collective benefit derived from our collaboration, we will respect the independence of every member.
- Capacity building: We aim to ensure better structures to assist front line responders, local or international so that, through training and education they are empowered to respond as the situation demands. Everyone has a contribution to make to reduce the risk to, and mitigate the impacts on wildlife, whether it is at a global or local level, but we need to ensure that local ownership and capacity drive oiled wildlife response.
- Collaborative: Oiled wildlife incidents in the future will demand a response that involves many more people and organisations than today. We will need to do and try different things, and work together in new ways. Relationships across boundaries – national, cultural, organisational – will be key in rising to this challenge and will require the development of trust between these different groups. We will make collaboration central to our action and avoid competition between our individual organisations to prevent us from striving to achieve common objectives.
- Scientifically sound: Technological advances may lead to the development of novel techniques and process that must be supported by robust scientific research demonstrating the advantages for both oiled wildlife and oiled wildlife responders.
How we will act
It will not necessarily be our place to collectively deliver the assistance that is needed, so we must have the courage to trust each other and to enable and support those within our network that can do the best job in a given situation. At the same time, we will actively promote the sharing of information and lessons-learned and will always stand ready to aid one another when asked. Network level evaluation of responses will ensure voice for all members and joint learning.