Request for Proposal for Administration Services - CTRF

The Canadian Turfgrass Research Foundation (CTRF) is a not-for profit foundation that has charitable status which supports turfgrass research across North America. The CTRF also leads a federation of organizations from across Canada that is committed to funding research that assists turf production in all sectors, such as golf, sod producers, sports fields, residential and lawn care. In the past both the Royal Canadian Golf Association (Golf Canada) and the Canadian Golf Superintendents Association has donated their time to administer the operations of the foundation.

The CTRF would like to see a permanent solution to the administration of the foundation that is both sustainable but at the same time assists in the not-for-profit model of the Foundation. In order to do this the CTRF is inviting proposals from individuals or companies to provide administration for the day-to-day operations of the foundation.

Some key requirements of the administration of the CTRF are, but not limited to:

• Annual international "Call for Proposals” (CFP) to researchers
• Receive, organize, and distribute research funding requests to the “Federation”
• Coordinate and promote current annual fundraising
• Strong relationship with all sectors of the Turfgrass industry
• Accounting and bookkeeping
• Arrange and publish Annual Research Report
• Submit and publish annual financial statement including audits
• Attend meetings (arrange for venue, agenda, food and beverage as required)
• Keeping and Transcription of minutes
• Communicate with all stakeholders

Pre-defined criteria/Expectations include:
• Attend up to 6 board meetings per year (most by conference call)
• Execute all business operations; such as finances, strategic planning, CFP management
• Spokesperson for the foundation as required
• Administration should include about 120 executive hours and 250 administrative hours

Invitation
The Committee would like to invite proposals from individuals or companies with the following qualifications:
• Knowledge of the key requirements stated above
• High level of experience in agronomy/turfgrass/horticulture
• Strong proven leadership in business operations
• Proficient in Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, etc.
• Experience in document creation
• Post-secondary education (Business Admin/Turfgrass Management and/or Related field)

Proposal Evaluation Process
The Committee will evaluate all proposals equally against the pre-defined criteria with evaluations based on:
• Compliance with key requirements
• Written responses, demonstrations and references
• Pricing information provided by the proponent

The Committee will then create a short list and contact those individuals or companies for further discussion and make a recommendation to the Board of Directors.

Final Comments
Every year that research proposals are submitted, the CTRF board of directors must make difficult decisions in which projects are and are not funded. The CTRF would like to grow as an organization in order to continue supporting the vast array of possible turfgrass research projects and fund significantly more projects than we currently do. So the last requirement of an administrator is to understand that the CTRF needs to grow.

Submissions
Proposal must be submitted by February 14th, 2016.
Please submit via email to: Christian Pilon cpilon_mbcc@bellnet.ca