Request for Proposals (RFP)
Website Redesign
Download a printable PDF of the RFP >
RFP released: September 1, 2026
Questions due: September 18, 2026
Proposals due: October 12, 2026, at 4:30 p.m.
Anticipate project to begin: January 2027
Desired site launch: Third or fourth quarter 2027
Mandatory accessibility compliance: WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 2028
Summary and Project Description
The Centerville-Washington Park District (CWPD) is issuing this Request for Proposals (RFP) for the redesign and redevelopment of cwpd.org. CWPD seeks a website that improves customer experience, makes it easier for residents to discover parks, programs and events and provides a flexible, intuitive content management system that can be maintained by non-technical staff. More than 60% of CWPD’s website traffic comes from mobile devices. Therefore, a mobile-first, responsive design is essential.
CWPD is seeking a partner that can provide strategy, information architecture, user experience design, visual design, development, accessibility testing, training, launch support and ongoing maintenance.
We welcome proposals that challenge assumptions and offer innovative solutions while respecting CWPD’s established brand and successful existing features.
Background and Need
The Centerville-Washington Park District operates eight community parks, nine nature parks and 34 neighborhood parks encompassing 1,063 acres in Centerville and Washington Township, a southern suburb of Dayton, Ohio. The Park District serves a community of approximately 61,000 residents. The 51 parks offer a wide variety of amenities and experiences, including a sprayground, dog park, skatepark, archery range, sports fields, playgrounds, hiking trails, walking paths, fishing areas, nature preserves and more.
In addition to maintaining the parks, CWPD also offers recreational programming throughout the year. CWPD averages approximately 30 large special events annually, including Movie Parties in the Park and the Luminary Walk. The Park District also offers approximately 90 summer day camp sessions and hundreds of additional programs throughout the year. In 2025, CWPD offered 470 other park programs. CWPD is passionate about creating positive memories and meaningful outdoor experiences for residents of Centerville and Washington Township.
CWPD’s website is approximately 10 years old, with significant improvements made about four years ago. The current website is built using WordPress.
CWPD also utilizes RecDesk for program registration and facility rentals. The current website does not have an automated integration with RecDesk, requiring staff to enter program information separately for them to appear on the CWPD website.
CWPD’s existing website meets many accessibility standards but is not fully compliant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. The redesigned website must meet all WCAG 2.1 Level AA requirements.
Website Audience & Analytics
CWPD’s primary website audience is residents of Centerville and Washington Township. CWPD’s most prevalent customer base is women of Centerville/Washington Township that fall in the age range of mid 20’s through mid-to-late 40’s. Our secondary audience is senior adults exploring our site for information about health and wellness programs and hiking trails/paved walking paths.
Our most visited web pages (excluding the home page) in 2025:
- Athletic Field Status
- Find a Park
- A blog post about vultures (this was a fluke, but our monthly blog posts do have fairly high views)
- Upcoming Events
- Oak Grove Park
- Reserving Group Shelters
- Bill Yeck Park
- Parks
- Grant Park
- Programs and Events
Project Goals
The redesigned website should:
- Improve the overall customer experience.
- Make it easier for residents to find the right park, program, event or facility.
- Improve mobile usability and performance. Improve page load times.
- Provide robust and accurate site search, improving upon speed and accuracy.
- Improve the existing Park Finder. Search results should provide enough information for users to determine whether a park meets their needs without requiring them to open every individual park page.
- Create a more seamless relationship between cwpd.org and RecDesk, minimizing or eliminating duplicate entry of program information between the two sites, where technically feasible.
- Meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards.
- Improve search engine optimization and visibility in emerging AI-powered search and answer engines.
- Make content easy for staff to create, update and manage.
- Preserve and improve CWPD’s strong visual identity and storytelling.
Project Scope and Desired Functionality
These features must also be included on a new site, with improved function where possible.
- Language translation feature
- A news section, with latest news appearing on home page
- Robust park pages with a repeatable park page structure for our 10 largest parks – with potential for listing upcoming programs and recent news stories related to the specific parks. The website should provide a flexible, standardized park page template that can accommodate varying amenities and levels of information. CWPD anticipates enhanced content for its 10 largest parks, but all 51 parks should benefit from the redesigned structure.
- Improved site navigation/information architecture focused on the customer. CWPD believes the current information architecture provides a strong foundation but is open to recommendations based on user research, analytics and industry best practices.
- A section for the Foundation for Centerville-Washington Parks using its own visual identity to differentiate between the Park District and the Foundation. The Foundation should have a prominent visual link from CWPD home page.
- Allow for different user roles and permissions
The refreshed site design should reflect CWPD’s established brand standards. Brand guide and design samples will be made available at the onset of the project.
WordPress does not need to remain the CMS; however, the utilized CMS should allow non-technical staff to easily edit and create pages, add photos and videos, schedule content for publishing on future dates, create alerts and add downloadable files.
Proposal Submittal
Proposals should include the following:
Answers to vendor questions:
- What do you see as the three biggest opportunities for improvement on CWPD’s current website?
- What would you retain from the existing site?
- How would you approach RecDesk integration?
- What CMS do you recommend and why? Include additional costs associated with the chosen CMS.
- How will you achieve WCAG 2.1 AA compliance?
- How will you preserve SEO during migration?
- What would you recommend changing about the current information architecture?
- What will CWPD staff be responsible for during the project?
- What ongoing technical resources will CWPD need after launch?
Also include:
- A proposed project timeline, including stages for discovery, information architecture, design, development, content migration (all content will be provided by CWPD staff and staff can assist with migration), site testing, training, launch and post-launch support
- Project estimate with a cost breakdown for each stage and any optional recommended features. Please include an option for ongoing maintenance support and describe what support entails.
- Description of previous experience with comparable projects, preferably with other park districts or municipal agencies. Include sample websites to review.
- Key personnel who would be involved with this project, their previous project experience and qualifications.
- Experience with site accessibility as it pertains to WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines. Describe process for testing and documenting compliance prior to launch. The selected vendor will be responsible for remediating accessibility issues.
- Experience with RecDesk integration:
- Vendors must clearly describe any existing RecDesk integrations, APIs, feeds or other integration methods they have implemented, as well as any limitations, third-party costs or ongoing maintenance requirements.
- Vendors should identify whether their proposed solution would allow program information, registration status, dates, locations and/or availability to be displayed automatically on the CWPD website.
- If full automation is not technically feasible, vendors should propose the most efficient alternative workflow for minimizing duplicate staff data entry.
- References available for contact
- All website content, data, design files, custom code and other project deliverables shall remain the property of CWPD. Vendors shall describe any proprietary components or licensing restrictions that could affect CWPD’s ability to maintain or migrate the website in the future.
Hosting and Security
The CWPD website is currently hosted by DataYard. The proposed website must provide a secure, reliable and scalable platform. Vendors should specify whether hosting would be managed by the vendor or whether CWPD would independently manage hosting. Please include the following information if you propose a change to the existing site host:
- Recommended hosting environment
- Hosting provider
- Annual hosting cost
- Location of hosted data
- Expected uptime/service availability
- Backup frequency
- Disaster recovery procedures
- Security monitoring
- Malware protection
- Software/CMS/plugin updates
- Website outage response procedures
Vendors should also describe:
- Security practices
- Vulnerability monitoring
- Software updates
- SSL
- Backup and recovery
- User authentication
- Protection against common web vulnerabilities
Evaluation
The following criteria will be used to evaluate proposals:
- Understanding of project goals
- Design quality
- User experience
- Municipal/park district experience
- CMS usability
- RecDesk integration approach
- Accessibility expertise
- SEO and performance approach
- Cost
CWPD may invite selected vendors to participate in a finalist presentation and/or demonstration. CWPD reserves the right to request additional information or clarification from respondents during the evaluation process.
Centerville-Washington Park District Obligations and Rights
Response to the RFP is entirely voluntary. This RFP does not and shall not commit the Centerville-Washington Park District or any of its agents to enter into any agreement, to pay any costs incurred in the preparation of any response to this RFP, or to procure or contract for any services or supplies.
The Centerville-Washington Park District reserves the right to accept or reject any or all responses to this RFP, to enter into contractual agreement with any individual or company submitting a response to the RFP, or to delay and/or cancel in part or in its entirety this RFP if it is in the best interest of the Centerville-Washington Park District, in its sole opinion, to do so.
Additional Information
Additional information about the Centerville-Washington Park District can be found on our website, cwpd.org.
Questions may be submitted by email up until 4:30 p.m. on September 18, 2026. Proposals may be submitted by email up until 4:30 p.m. on October 12, 2026. Questions and proposals should be sent to Carrie Dittman at cdittman@cwpd.org.
Sincerely,
Carrie Dittman
Marketing & Communications Manager
Centerville-Washington Park District
221 N. Main St
Centerville, OH 45459