If your NGO is planning to build a new website or redesign an existing one, one of the most important documents you will prepare is the Request for Proposal (RFP).
A well-written RFP helps you explain what your organization needs, invite qualified web development agencies to submit proposals, compare vendors fairly, and ultimately select a partner that can deliver the website you actually need.
A poorly written RFP, on the other hand, can result in vague proposals, unexpected costs, endless revisions, missed deadlines, and a website that looks good but does little to advance your organization’s mission.
For NGOs and non-profits in Kenya and across Africa, there are additional considerations. Your website may need to serve donors, beneficiaries, government partners, researchers, journalists, volunteers, staff, and the general public—all while operating within a defined budget and often with limited internal technical capacity.
This guide explains how to write an effective RFP for website development services, including what to include, what to avoid, and how to evaluate proposals from web design agencies.
A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a document that an organization sends to potential vendors inviting them to propose a solution for a specific project.
For website development, an RFP typically explains:
The RFP gives web development companies enough information to understand your project and submit a meaningful proposal.
It should not, however, attempt to prescribe every technical detail of the solution.
Your organization understands its mission and users. A good web development agency should be able to recommend the appropriate technology, architecture, user experience, and implementation approach.
For an NGO, a website is rarely just an online brochure.
It may be used to:
This makes website development a strategic project rather than simply a design exercise.
A well-written RFP helps your organization think through these requirements before development begins.
It also gives different agencies the same information, making it easier to compare proposals on a like-for-like basis.
A good website RFP should generally contain the following sections:
Let’s look at each one.
Start with a brief description of your NGO.
Explain:
You do not need to write your entire organizational history.
The objective is to give the web development agency enough context to understand the organization and its communications needs.
XYZ Foundation is a Kenyan non-profit organization working to improve access to education for vulnerable children in underserved communities. The organization currently operates programmes in five counties and works with government institutions, schools, community organizations and development partners.
This information helps a web agency understand the context behind the website.
This is one of the most important sections of your RFP.
Don’t simply say:
“We need a modern website.”
Explain what is currently wrong and what you want to improve.
For example:
The more clearly you describe the problem, the more useful the proposals you receive will be.
Your objectives should describe what the new website needs to accomplish.
For example:
Try to make your objectives measurable where possible.
Instead of:
“Improve the website.”
Consider:
“Reduce the number of steps required for users to find and download programme reports.”
An NGO website can have many different audiences.
Your RFP should identify the most important ones.
For example:
You should also explain what each audience is likely to want from the website.
For example:
| Audience | What they may need |
|---|---|
| Donors | Impact information, financial information, programmes |
| Beneficiaries | Services, resources, programme information |
| Researchers | Reports, publications, datasets |
| Government | Programmes, partnerships, policy information |
| Journalists | News, statistics, contacts, media resources |
| Job seekers | Vacancies and organizational information |
This information is extremely valuable to the agency designing the website because it influences the site’s information architecture and user journeys.
Your RFP should clearly explain what you expect the selected agency to deliver.
A typical NGO website project may include:
Be explicit about what is included and what is not included.
This is where you describe the functionality you expect.
Potential NGO website requirements might include:
If you operate across several African countries, you may also need functionality around:
Don’t simply list features because they sound impressive.
Explain why each feature is needed.
Your RFP should state whether you have a preferred CMS.
For example:
The organization is open to recommendations regarding the CMS but prefers an open-source platform that can be maintained by internal staff without specialist programming knowledge.
Or:
The website should be developed using WordPress.
If you don’t have a strong technical reason to dictate the CMS, consider allowing agencies to recommend an appropriate solution.
Popular options may include WordPress, Drupal, or a custom CMS depending on the project’s requirements.
For larger NGOs with complex content structures, resource repositories, multiple user roles or sophisticated search requirements, the CMS decision can be particularly important.
The right question isn’t simply:
“Which CMS is cheapest?”
It is:
“Which platform will allow our organization to manage and scale this website effectively over the next several years?”
Website projects often fail because organizations underestimate the amount of work involved in preparing content.
Your RFP should clarify who is responsible for:
You should also indicate approximately how much content needs to be migrated.
For example:
The existing website contains approximately 250 pages, 150 news articles and 300 downloadable documents that may require migration.
This gives agencies a much better basis for estimating the project.
SEO should not be something your organization thinks about after the website has been launched.
Include SEO requirements in the RFP.
These may include:
For an NGO, SEO can be particularly valuable because people may discover your organization through searches related to your cause, programmes, research, publications or geographic areas of operation.
Accessibility should be included explicitly in the RFP.
Your website should ideally be usable by people with different physical, sensory and cognitive abilities.
Ask prospective vendors to explain how they will address accessibility through areas such as:
Where appropriate, specify the accessibility standard you expect the website to target, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Don’t simply write “the website must be accessible.”
Ask the vendor to explain how accessibility will be tested and demonstrated.
Website speed matters for every organization, but it can be particularly important when your audience includes users with slower or more expensive internet connections.
If your NGO works across Africa, don’t assume that every visitor has a fast fibre connection or the latest smartphone.
Your RFP can ask agencies to address:
You can also ask vendors to demonstrate how they will test performance on mobile devices and slower connections.
Security requirements should also be included.
Depending on your website, these may include:
If the website will process donations, personal information or other sensitive data, explain this clearly in the RFP.
Your RFP should answer an important question:
Who will manage the website after launch?
You might ask the agency to provide:
Alternatively, your organization may already have its own hosting environment.
If so, state this clearly.
Also ask vendors to separate:
This makes proposals much easier to compare.
Give vendors an approximate timeline.
For example:
The organization expects the project to commence in January 2027 and launch within 12–16 weeks.
You should also identify important milestones such as:
A good agency should be able to tell you whether your timeline is realistic.
There is no universal answer.
Some organizations prefer vendors to propose their best price without knowing the budget.
Others provide a budget range so agencies can recommend an appropriate solution.
For NGOs, providing a budget range can actually be useful.
For example:
The estimated budget for the project is KES 1,000,000–1,500,000, excluding recurring hosting and third-party licensing costs.
This allows agencies to design a solution appropriate to the available resources rather than producing wildly different proposals.
If you do not want to disclose your budget, ask vendors to provide:
Don’t simply ask:
“How many websites have you built?”
Ask for relevant experience.
For example:
Please provide details of at least three comparable website projects completed for NGOs, development organizations, government agencies or other mission-driven organizations.
Ask vendors to provide:
Look for evidence that the agency understands your type of organization, not just evidence that they can make attractive websites.
For example, experience with resource libraries, research repositories, programme databases, multilingual websites or complex content structures can be more relevant to an NGO than a portfolio consisting primarily of corporate brochure websites.
Find out who will actually work on the project.
A proposal might come from a large agency, but the people doing the work could be a very small team.
Ask vendors to identify:
You can also ask for brief CVs or profiles of key personnel.
This is particularly important for complex NGO websites where strategy, information architecture and content management are just as important as visual design.
Don’t simply say:
“Submit your proposal.”
Tell agencies exactly what you want to receive.
For example:
This makes the proposals much easier to evaluate.
Your RFP should explain how proposals will be evaluated.
For example:
| Evaluation criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Understanding of requirements | 15% |
| Relevant experience | 20% |
| Proposed technical solution | 15% |
| UX/UI approach | 15% |
| Project methodology | 10% |
| Team expertise | 10% |
| Cost | 15% |
| Total | 100% |
You can adjust these percentages according to your organization’s priorities.
One important recommendation:
Don’t make price the dominant criterion.
The cheapest website proposal is rarely the cheapest website over its entire lifecycle.
A website that is difficult to maintain, poorly optimized, insecure, or impossible for staff to update can become significantly more expensive after launch.
If your organization has formal procurement procedures, include them in the RFP.
These may cover:
For Kenyan NGOs, make sure your procurement and data-handling requirements are appropriate to the organization’s legal and operational context.
If your organization operates across several countries, additional regulatory and data protection requirements may apply.
If you want a practical structure, your document could look like this:
Brief description of the organization.
Why the organization is undertaking the project.
What the new website needs to achieve.
Who will use the website and what they need.
Discovery, UX, design, development, migration, testing and launch.
Features and functionality.
New content, existing content and migration.
CMS, hosting, security, integrations and performance.
Search visibility and accessibility requirements.
Exactly what the selected agency must provide.
Milestones and expected launch date.
Budget range or pricing instructions.
Experience, portfolio and team.
Exactly what vendors should submit.
How proposals will be scored.
Deadline, contact information and submission format.
“Build us a modern, responsive website.”
That’s not enough.
A vendor needs to understand what the website is supposed to accomplish.
If you aren’t technically qualified to determine whether WordPress, Drupal, Laravel or another platform is appropriate, don’t unnecessarily dictate the technology.
Describe the problem and requirements and let qualified vendors propose the solution.
A beautiful website with poor content is still a poor website.
Determine who will write, review, approve and upload content.
A website isn’t just a collection of attractive pages.
Information architecture, UX, content structure, search, performance, accessibility and maintainability can have a much greater impact on the website’s effectiveness.
Your communications team may need to publish news every week.
Programme staff may need to upload reports.
HR may need to publish vacancies.
Make sure the CMS and workflows accommodate these users.
The website doesn’t stop existing when the developer sends you the final invoice.
Ask who will handle:
A KES 300,000 website and a KES 1.5 million website may appear to perform the same basic function.
They may not have remotely the same research, design, architecture, engineering, security, performance or support behind them.
Compare value and capability, not just the bottom-line figure.
Ultimately, a strong RFP answers five questions:
Give the vendor enough organizational context.
Explain the shortcomings of your existing website and the underlying business or communications problem.
Identify your audiences and their needs.
Define measurable objectives and outcomes.
Clearly define the scope, deliverables, timeline, budget and evaluation process.
If you can answer these five questions clearly, you are already well on your way to producing a strong website development RFP.
You don’t need to know everything about web development before approaching an agency.
In fact, one of the most useful things a good web development partner can provide is helping you translate your organization’s goals into a practical digital strategy.
At Zedafrica, we work with organizations to design and develop digital experiences around real user needs—not simply build attractive websites.
Our process can include strategy, UX research, information architecture, UI design, development, content migration, performance optimization, testing and training.
We’ve worked on digital platforms for organizations including USAID and the Council of Governors, including the Horn of Africa Resilience Network’s resource-sharing platform and the Maarifa Centre, a large knowledge repository for Kenya’s devolution sector.
For organizations that need a website capable of managing substantial amounts of information, this distinction matters. The Maarifa Centre project, for example, involved restructuring information architecture, improving resource discovery, making content management easier and rebuilding the platform on Drupal with custom search functionality.
If you’re preparing an RFP for a new NGO website or redesigning an existing one, we’d be happy to discuss your requirements and help you determine the right approach.
Schedule a consultation with Zedafrica.
Before sending your RFP to web development companies, make sure you can answer the following:
If you can check most of these boxes, your RFP will give prospective web development agencies considerably more information to work with—and you’ll receive proposals that are much easier to compare.
Writing an RFP for website development services doesn’t require your NGO to become a web development expert.
Your job is to clearly communicate your organization’s goals, audiences, problems, requirements and constraints.
The web development agency’s job is to translate those requirements into an appropriate strategy, user experience, technology solution and implementation plan.
The better your RFP communicates the problem, the more likely you are to find a development partner capable of delivering a website that does more than look good—it helps your organization communicate its mission, reach the people it serves, engage donors and partners, and create measurable impact.
