Background and Purpose of RFP

Across the United States there are low-income Americans who do not receive any legal help or enough legal help for 92% of the problems that substantially impact their lives. The Community Justice Worker (CJW) Program, which is funded by Texas Access to Justice Foundation (TAJF), has been tasked with creating a Statewide model to systemically address this lack of or limited legal help available for low-income Texans. The CJW Program is a collaboration of five legal aid organizations across Texas. These partner organizations are Disability Rights Texas (DRTx) as the lead organization, Texas Legal Services Center (TLSC), Legal Aid of North West Texas (LANWT), Lone Star Legal Aid (LoneStar) and Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid (TRLA), who will provide limited scope legal services to low-income Texans in both small rural communities and large cities statewide through utilization of trained lay advocates.

The purpose of this Request for Proposals (RFP) is to secure the design and development of five to seven low-barrier adult learning training modules on legal issues including special education, credit report disputes, public benefits, and transfer on death deeds. These modules will be used primarily for online self-paced/asynchronous learning, and also include training materials, learning assessment tools, and certification of completion. The format should allow the information to be easily updated and also be presented in person. Each CJW partner organization will provide specific legal service training content expertise to the selected vendor. The legal service training modules will be housed or accessed via a secure online Statewide platform (to be separately designed under a different CJW Statewide Platform RFP).

RFP Timeline

• 7/28/2025 to 9/30/2027: The period of performance
• Monday 6/2/2025: RFP Posted on disabilityrightstx.org
• Thursday 6/12/25 by 11:59 PM MST: Questions due in writing. Send to:
  • Subject: RFP CJW Curriculum Development Questions
  • Email: Moonshot Curriculum Team, CJWCurriculumRFP@drtx.org
• Monday 6/16/25 by 11:59 PM MST: Responses to questions available for viewing on www.DRTx.org/CJW-RFP.
• Friday 6/27/2025 by 5:00 PM MST: Proposals are due via email. NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS DEADLINE
  • Subject: “Proposer’s Name” RFP CJW Curriculum Development
  • Email: CJWCurriculumRFP@drtx.org
• Monday 7/7/2025 – Friday 7/11/2025: If selected as finalists for consideration, set aside time during this week for a 2-hour virtual presentation to CJW RFP Review team to discuss your proposal.
• Monday 7/21/25 by 5:00 PM MST: Notification of Decision. CJW Program has the discretion to extend this time period without notice to the proposers. All proposals shall remain valid and open for a period of one hundred sixty (160) days from the proposal submission date, unless a proposer notifies CJW Program of its withdrawal.

Minimum Qualifications

• Demonstrated success in designing and developing low-barrier adult curriculum
• Experience in adult learning and training methods
• Experience working with non-profit and/or community-based organizations
• Experience developing online training
• Company headquarters based in the United States
• Develops Interactive eLearning modules
• Supports certification and completion tracking
• Meets these minimum accessibility standards: WCAG 2.2, Screen ready compatibility, Manual captioned video/audio
• Experience in developing optimized content for mobile use and low-bandwidth environments
• LMS compatible content using SCORM, xAPI, or AICC
• Client retains full ownership of all developed content and source files
• Provides Localized Content in English and Spanish

RFP Required Information

The criteria used to assess CJW Curriculum Development proposals are listed below and will be based on responsiveness to the elements of minimum requirements and the criteria listed below. Please submit the following:

Organizational experience:

• Provide details of your organization’s experience developing curriculum for adult learners, including the number of years your organization has been engaged in curriculum development and instructional design.
• Include experience developing and implementing effective evaluation of adult learning programming.
• Include information and examples of relevant work conducted by the applicant. Include two references of comparable work, especially any prior experience developing training for legal aid, justice-related, public service, or workforce development programs.
• Provide Team bios for instructional designers and content developers and any qualification information relevant to the work.

Curriculum Design Approach:

• Describe your instructional design approach for complex information suited for low-barrier adult learners, particularly those working in community-based roles.
• Outline your process for collaborating with client-side subject matter experts (SMEs).
• Explain how your organization ensures training content is accessible for learners with varied educational backgrounds.
• Describe how you determine the most effective media formats (e.g., video, PDFs, interactive modules) for each topic area, and how you will make recommendations to the client.
• Describe any use of AI in your design and development process.

Content Development Capabilities

• List the content formats your team can develop and specialize in.
• Indicate whether you offer manual or automated multilingual content development and localization services, including Spanish and list any other languages.
• Specify the authoring tools your team uses.
• Certify that you will provide editable source files to the client at the conclusion of the project.

Interactivity & Assessment

• Describe the types of assessments you incorporate into training (e.g., quizzes, etc.).
• Certify that your content is compatible with certification and course completion tracking when hosted in an LMS.
• Detail your methods for tracking learner performance while they are taking the courses.
• Describe your methods for evaluating the effectiveness of learning content.

Accessibility & Compliance

• Certify that your content is designed in compliance with WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards and provide examples.
• Describe the accessibility features included in your content, such as automated or manual closed captions, screen reader compatibility, and keyboard navigation.
• Certify that training content is optimized for mobile devices and low-bandwidth environments.

Delivery & Integration

• Certify that the final content will be LMS-ready and compatible with SCORM 1.2/2004, xAPI, or AICC.
• Provide a detailed description of your process for supporting the integration of content into the LMS platform selected by client.
• Certify that you offer support for integrating content into the client’s LMS. Provide a detailed description of your implementation process.
• Certify that the client will retain full ownership of the content and source files upon project completion, including licensed content.

Project Management & Timeline

• Include confirmation to complete work within the stated timeline.
• Module 1: three months from signing of contract
• Modules 2-5: six months from signing of contract
• Outline your typical development timeline for a 4 to 8-hour training module.
• Indicate how many subject areas your team can work on simultaneously.
• Specify how many rounds of feedback and revisions are included in your process.
• List the project management and communication tools your team uses during development.
• Outline your communication plan, including project check-ins, working with client-side subject matter experts, and project management.
• Describe any onboarding or training provided to the client’s internal staff for content maintenance and delivery.

Support & Maintenance

Describe the level of post-launch support your organization provides (follow-up, refresher, updates, type of materials) and how future revisions, expansions, or updates to the content are handled.

Proposed Budget and Narrative

The budget must include a total project cost, as well as, a breakdown of costs for the following: Licensing Fees, Media Content Types, Course Length, Project Management Time, Localization, Accessibility Features, Review/Revision Rounds, Support and Maintenance, Quality Assurance and User Testing.

Communication during the CJW RFP Process

Communication during the CJW RFP process is via Disability Rights Texas’ website CJW RFP page or via email. Any questions received from any bidder will be provided on Disability Rights Texas’ website CJW RFP page to all bidders along with a response to the question.