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ABSTRACT
When an organization's need for technology changes, users expect solutions to provide sophisticated and complex functionality regardless of the size of the organization's budget or available resources. In exploring candidates for filling software needs for nonprofit organizations, one of the best tools is the request for proposal (RFP). This case describes a situation where a small non-profit organization has outgrown its current website and needs to identify the best software provider to help them manage membership, events, and payment processing. The case reinforces requirements gathering techniques and allows students to practice creating an RFP. These activities are followed by an exercise in creating a weighted decision matrix to help make the best decision for the organization.
Keywords: Request for proposal, Weighted decision matrix, Cloud computing, Mobile computing, Non-profit organization, Requirements analysis & specification
1.INTRODUCTION
As our society continues to embrace technology to enable more sophisticated means for communication and interaction, people have come to expect every organization to adopt and use increasingly more powerful and feature-rich software tools. This is true for companies who are offering web-based ordering such as grocery stores and restaurants, as well as non-profit organizations who must provide a reasonable user experience for their members. This can be problematic in non-profit organizations, especially smaller organizations, where contributed and earned income are often used to support human resources, physical facilities, and organizational programs, with little remaining money for technology investments. Non-profit organizations often seek ways to leverage their limited resources to achieve their goals. Using technology to help these organizations meet their goals is an effective way to ensure that investments have a positive impact.
2.MOTIVATION
The author's motivation to write this case comes from his experience in working with a non-profit organization to incorporate an increasing level of sophistication on the organization's website. When the author joined the organization, they had a website that had been developed in Microsoft's Front Page® and was essentially a web-based brochure for the organization. Over time, functionality was added, and the site evolved into a relatively sophisticated set of functions but lacked many of the features that were important to the organization. The author worked with key members of the organization to determine the best and most cost-effective way to add the desired...