Background, Assumptions and Assignment
The US General Services Agency is short on staff and has asked you to prepare a Request for Proposals (RFP) for White House gardening and outside event coordination services. The GSA is not able to provide any particular guidance on preparing the RFP other than to urge you to make it comprehensive based on the national interest in keeping the President and White House staff safe, and keeping the White House grounds lush, beautiful, and useful to the President and staff for beauty and for outside events. The RFP should not cover security per se, but should recognize the close coordination between security and the services provided pursuant to the RFP.
GSA was not able to provide ideas for a template for the RFP, but recommended that you might simply search the web and utilize your general knowledge of contracting. The RFP must be complete, but does not need to include an actual contract template for the ultimate agreement (contract) between the GSA and the successful proposer selected through the RFP process, since the information in the RFP and the successful proposal can be inserted into a professional services contract at a later date.
Per the GSA, a "complete" RFP means reasonably anticipating every logical contract provision and requirement, and then gearing the RFP to solicit information to use in determining the best proposer based on the proposal responses.
GSA has stated that you are free to plagiarize other RFPs to perform the work, but is not aware of any good templates to start from other than what is noted below. GSA suggests that you review these and some others online, and then select the best "base form" to use for the work. You can then adapt the base form for the Request for Proposals for White House Gardening Services by cutting and pasting from other RFPs and adding/customizing other language as appropriate. GSA recognizes that this is a logical, acceptable, and widely-used business practicefor preparing good RFPs. The GSA simply "wants the best possible RFP for the work."
In a really quick web search, GSA--in coordination with the CIA--identified "decent base forms" and posted them on our Moodle site. (It is not known how GSA obtained access to the Moodle site, but that is not germane to the assignment.)
However, GSA has pointed out that the sample RFP does not include gardening, security, and other particulars needed for the job. GSA you either use this base form, select another, or create a hybrid, and then adapt your base form to prepare the Request for Proposals (RFP) for White House gardening services. GSA asks that you just make the RFP as complete as possible, so that you plug applicable portions of the RFP, the successful proposer's response, and "boilerplate" into a final contract at a later date.
The President is hosting several summer events in the White House grounds this year, and GSA asks that you have the RFP ready no later than the start of class on August 2, 2016. For national security purposes, please submit it to SOU.