Request for Proposals: Digital Strategy

Our Story: MOBILIZE, ORGANIZE, VOTE AND EMPOWER MOVE Texas is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, grassroots organization working to build power in underrepresented youth communities through civic engagement, leadership development, and issue advocacy. In 2013, MOVE was founded by a small group of dedicated students at the University of Texas at San Antonio to increase participation in local elections. Since then our work has gone statewide to become one of the most effective voter registration and engagement groups in the state. MOVE Texas has helped transform the Texas electorate over the past decade and continues to bring new voters into the electorate. We don’t just register voters, we invest in communities of young people that are traditionally underserved and underinvested in – especially young people of color and meeting them where they are at on local college campuses. We are building the next generation of Texas leadership by teaching critical organizing skills to take them from voters to effective, lifelong organizers. Our theory of change is simple: develop new leaders, educate voters and create space for the changes we need to make so that our state can be a place where all Texans can thrive. We believe that together we are transforming democracy in Texas and beyond.

Why Now

We're seeking a digital strategy partner to help us build and execute a robust digital plan through the 2026 election, set clear goals against that plan, and strengthen our internal Communications team's capacity to lead this work independently over time. This engagement supports a broader investment in our Communications function as we head into a critical election cycle, and builds on insights from our 2025 Bold at the Ballot Box narrative work and Your Texas, Your Say survey to keep our digital presence aligned with our base.

Our Digital Challenges

The firm must solve four primary challenges to ensure our digital strategy meets the moment and sets our team up to sustain it:

• Build a Digital Plan With Clear Goals Through the Election: Our current digital work has been driven more by day-to-day execution than by a defined strategy tied to measurable goals. The firm is challenged to build a digital plan spanning owned, earned, and paid channels that is explicitly sequenced against 2026 election milestones, with concrete goals our team can be held to and can track progress against.
• Elevate Paid & Earned Media Beyond a Reactive Posture: Traditional and paid media have largely been pursued reactively rather than as a proactive strategy. The firm is challenged to help us build sustained paid media capacity for younger-audience and electoral engagement goals, and support a more proactive approach to earned media and press opportunities, including building a proactive media strategy heading into the 2027 legislative session, so we're positioned to shape coverage of our legislative and advocacy priorities rather than reacting to it after the fact.
• Build Internal Capacity: We are not looking for a firm to execute digital strategy on our behalf indefinitely. The firm is challenged to work alongside our Senior Communications Manager and Digital Communications Associate throughout the engagement, through training, shared strategy sessions, and documentation, so that our internal team can increasingly own and lead this work after the engagement ends.
• Integrate Digital Strategy With Our Narrative and Cultural Organizing Work: Our digital presence doesn't operate in isolation; it's informed by ongoing narrative testing and by the cultural organizing work that tells us what resonates with our base. The firm is challenged to build a digital strategy that can absorb and act on that insight, rather than operating as a separate execution track.

Scope of Work

Develop a digital strategy and plan that defines:

• Channel strategy across owned, earned, and paid media through the 2026 election and early 2027 legislative planning
• Goals and KPIs tied to organizational priorities (voter engagement, base growth, campaign visibility)
• A measurement framework and reporting cadence the team can sustain after the engagement

Support paid and earned media strategy and execution, including:

• Budget allocation guidance across platforms
• Testing and optimization support throughout the cycle
• Strategy specifically aimed at younger-audience and electoral engagement goals
• Proactive earned/traditional media strategy heading into the 2027 legislative session, including planning tied to legislative priorities

Establish a professional development plan for the internal Communications team, including:

• Structured training in owned, earned, and paid media strategy, platform best practices, and digital analytics
• Working sessions where internal staff are active participants, not just recipients of finished deliverables
• Documentation, playbooks, or frameworks the team can reuse independently going forward

Deliverables

• Digital Strategy & Plan
• Channel-specific strategy through the 2026 election and early 2027 legislative planning
• Defined goals/KPIs and measurement framework
• Recommended reporting cadence and structure
• Paid and Earned Media Support
• Budget allocation guidance
• Testing/optimization approach and check-ins across the engagement
• Proactive earned/traditional media strategy for the 2027 legislative session
• Professional Development
• Package Training sessions/materials for internal staff (cadence to be proposed by firm)
• End-of-engagement capacity assessment and handoff documentation

Milestones & Deadlines

• Onboarding: Early October
• October: Execute paid and earned media support tied to GOTV, EP, and electoral engagement goals
• November-December: Conduct in-depth professional development training with Communications team
• Early November: Deliver post-election engagement analysis
• Mid-Late November- Early December: Support development of communications/digital plan for 2027 legislative session

Our Digital Evolution

While this engagement is centered on digital strategy, MOVE's digital presence is inseparable from the narrative and cultural organizing work that grounds it. Our content and strategy need to reflect the same base our cultural organizing and communications team already serves — multiracial, working-class young Texans ages 18 to 35 — and should be built to integrate with, not run parallel to, our existing narrative testing infrastructure.

The overarching aesthetic and tone our base responds to:

• Culturally Texas, multiracial, and working-class
• Bold and defiant, reflecting a generation that refuses to accept the status quo
• Warm toward its people, yet fiercely confrontational toward power
• Urgent and action-oriented, driven by a sense of power and a vision for a brighter future rather than desperation

Our Ideal Candidate:

• Has established experience with movement organizations, campaigns, or nonprofits, not solely corporate/commercial clients
• Has a demonstrated track record of building internal client capacity, not just executing on a firm's own behalf
• Understands paid, owned, and earned digital strategy across a full election cycle
• Can work collaboratively with an internal team already producing narrative and cultural content, integrating with that work rather than replacing it
• Is able to translate strategy into training and documentation that a small internal team can sustain

Budget:

MOVE Texas has budgeted $20k for this contract

Submission Deadline:

5pm on September 28th

Process:

Submit a proposal that includes the following:

• A background of your firm
• Examples of similar digital strategy engagements you've completed, particularly with nonprofit, movement, or electoral clients
• Why you believe you are the best partner for this project and what makes you different from your competitors
• An overview of your approach to strategy development and to building internal team capacity specifically
• Proposed team and their roles
• Pricing structure and estimated cost

Timeline:

Applications Accepted: Friday, September 11th - Friday, September 25th

Determination & Notification: Week of September 28th

Contract Start Date: October 1st

Contract End Date: December 10th

Points of Contact

People Operations, peopleops@movetexas.org