Provision of Online Event Management for the Festival of Learning At ActionAid

1. Background:

ActionAid is a global federation working for a world free from poverty and injustice. We want to see a just, fair and sustainable world, in which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity, and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality, and to eradicate poverty.

Our strategy is to build international momentum for social, economic, and environmental justice, driven by people living in poverty and exclusion. In practice, this means working closely with people living in poverty and exclusion, civil society organisations, social movements, and supporters. Together, we deliver grassroots programmes, provide emergency relief and campaign for things such as women’s economic rights, tax justice and climate justice. Our work falls into four broad areas: women, politics and economics, land and climate, and emergencies. We have a particular focus on women’s rights; it is a thread that runs through all our work.

ActionAid believes change happens through purposeful individual and collective action to shift unequal and unjust power in all its forms (visible, hidden, and invisible) from the household level to local, national and global levels. Collective efforts and struggles are more impactful when people are empowered, linked through solidarity, campaigning, people’s organizations, social movements, citizen’s groups and other allies to strengthen the power of people to drive structural change. The change should be championed and led by people living in poverty and exclusion, especially women and young people.

At ActionAid, our transformative vision of a just world free from poverty, oppression and patriarchy requires transformative feminist leaders: leaders who enable others to lead, building power with them instead of over them. To develop this approach, we have adopted a set of feminist leadership principles: self-awareness; self-care and caring for others; dismantling bias; inclusion; sharing power; responsible and transparent use of power; accountable collaboration; respectful feedback; courage and zero tolerance.

In early 2022 we are hosting our second online Festival of Learning which will focus on deep diving into topics that will empower ActionAid colleagues across our federation to do our best work. Invitation will be limited to ActionAid staff and a small number of external colleagues. The festival will take the form of multiple “Master Class” events. The Festival of Learning should be a safe and engaging space for colleagues to learn, share, test, and collaborate.

This virtual event will be open to ActionAiders and an opportunity to:

· Come together to learn about the latest tips, tricks, and tools from industry leaders,

· Reflect on the skills we need to pioneer new and better ways of working.

· Find ways to better equip our teams to tackle challenges in our work and build our skills.

2. Objectives/Scope of the assignment:

The successful individual/team will be responsible for preparing and managing all the logistical and communication arrangements related to hosting a successful Festival of Learning online. The festival is expected to span four days of activities. Each day will include 3 to 6 hours of sessions, as well as a keynote speaker. Many of these sessions will be organized as multi-day master classes provided by industry experts. The consultant should consider the various timezones and contexts in which colleagues from the 40 plus countries where we work are based.

The ideal consultant will also be able to host and chair the event or identify a charismatic and engaging virtual communicator that we can engage to facilitate the event itself.

The consultant/s will work closely with a project team based in the Global Secretariat who will be deciding on the festival themes and overall framing based on needs and requests expressed by colleagues in fundraising, communications, IT and technology as well as programme functions. Project manage the various activities and requirements to ensure the festival can successfully go ahead.

3. Deliverables:

· Create communication/advertising materials for the event.

· Suggest, invite, liaise with, and brief possible speakers to present either 1) master classes based on the themes provided and in line with our principles and approach, or 2) keynote addresses

· Develop, manage and use an online platform – either leveraging ActionAid’s internal tools (SharePoint, Yammer, Teams, etc.) OR using a 3^rd party conference platform such as Hopin

· Coordinate and facilitate 4 days of Festival of Learning Master Class sessions during the festival

· Keep track of attendance and engagement from colleagues during the festival

· Ensure lessons learnt and materials shared during the sessions are captured and able to be shared for use by ActionAid colleagues.

o Provide a planning template for organising a festival such as this again in the future.

o Provide an end of festival report with key learnings.

o Migrate session topics, resources, and recordings to ActionAid’s SharePoint site

· Issue a post-festival online survey to all participants. Gather, analyze, and present learnings from the post-festival survey to the project team, to determine whether we have achieved our goals and document lessons learned for the festival next year.

4. Indicative Timetable:

The Festival of Learning is scheduled to take place from 1 to 4^th February 2022.

· November: Planning and confirming key event details, agenda, and speakers. Communicate and promote the event within ActionAid Federation.

· December: Finalize agenda, speakers, and online platform.

· January 2022: Confirm speaker times and agenda. Event communication and promotion within ActionAid Federation.

· February 2022: Facilitate and host the Festival of Learning online event. Conduct post-event survey. Analyse and present results and learnings.

5. Required Expertise and Qualifications:

· Experience working with internationals non-profits and knowledge of current trends and innovations across these organisations.

· Proven ability to organise and facilitate complex online events

· Excellent knowledge of available online meeting platforms and collaborative tools.

· Excellent communication skill.

6. Selection Criteria:

· Company/Consultant profile.

· Introductory document which introduces the team that will be deployed on the project and clearly indicating the following of each member: role with regards to this project and what they will do/contribute; qualifications and experience.

· Minimum of three (3) contactable references which shows the Company’s/Consultant’s relevant experience in providing the same services to international NGO’s (can provide more).

· Methodology/workplan with an indicative timetable with regards to achieving the desired outcomes and deliverables as contained in the TOR.

· Provide a short account of how you go about planning the festival and what you proposed agenda for the festival would look like.

· Provide a budget indicating the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs – hourly/daily rates, how many days will be spent on the project, disbursements if any, any other related costs that will make up the grand total (excluding and including VAT).

7. Evaluation of Proposals:

Proposals from Consultants will be assessed against the following criteria:

AWARD CRITERIA

WEIGHTING

Experience of the consultant/s – 40 %

Understanding of the assignment and approach – 35%

Financial Proposal – 25 %

Clarity of the financial proposal, full character of the cost structure, realistic estimation

of the unit costs and a clear cost breakdown**

Award criteria are evaluated on a scale of 0 to 5, as follows.

Award criteria are evaluated on a scale of 0 to 5, as follows**

Fulfilment and quality of the criteria**

0** Cannot be establish

1 ** Very poor – Information is incomplete

2 ** Poor – Information relates inadequately to the requirements

3 ** Average – Information globally responds inadequately to the requirements

4 ** Good – Information focuses well on requirements

5** Excellent – Information clearly relates to the achievement of outputs