Corporation for Supportive Housing (“CSH”) is seeking proposals from qualified firms or individuals to provide NMTC data consulting services. The ideal consultant will have deep knowledge of the NMTC program, prior NMTC consulting experience related to data systems, continually keep abreast of NMTC program updates and changes, be able to communicate how the changes and updates apply to CSH’s NMTC program, and perform the tasks listed below.
Founded in 1991, CSH’s mission is to advance solutions that use housing as a platform for services to improve the lives of the most vulnerable people, maximize public resources and build healthy communities. Our work stems from our fundamental belief that supportive housing—affordable housing combined with services—is the solution to ending homelessness for those individuals who face the most complex challenges, such as physical and behavioral health conditions and substance use disorders. Read more about CSH online at www.csh.org.
I. CSH’S CURRENT DATA SYSTEMS, PROCESSES, AND NEEDS
CSH’s NMTC program staff currently has access to Microsoft 365, Salesforce, NetSuite, and The Executive Assistant (TEA) for loan, project and financial tracking, and also uses PolicyMap and CDFI Information Mapping System (CIMS) for geocoding.
Below is a summary of CSH’s NMTC program’s current data collection and reporting processes and needs. Note: The lists of specific data fields currently collected are not exhaustive.
Pipeline Data
- Data Currently Collected: Project and sponsor information, and data required to evaluate projects for scoring and selection (e.g., project name, target closing date, notes on project readiness, census tract, property address, project summary, allocation amount requested, supportive housing connection, permanent jobs, etc.).
- Location: Currently housed in an Excel workbook, shared externally via SharePoint with CSH’s NMTC Application Consultant.
- Data Problems/Needs:
- Explore the benefits and challenges of transferring pipeline data to Salesforce or other data systems CSH currently uses.
- In addition to data currently being collected, CSH would like to be able to:
- Track communication with sponsors, consultants, investors, internal program staff, and other partners associated with each pipeline opportunity.
- Create a database that includes contact information for partner organizations.
- Create and generate reports related to pipeline opportunities.
General Project Management
- Data Currently Collected: Project information (name, location, description, investment amount, total project cost, square footage, closing date, projected exit date, active vs exited projects, contact management, etc.).
- Location: Currently housed in multiple Excel workbooks.
- Data Problems/Needs: Ability to report out, filter, total, etc. on these fields where applicable (e.g., generate a list of projects in Washington, find the total amount invested from 2020 to 2021, generate a report of all active projects with their addresses and description, etc.).
Financial
- Data Problems/Needs:
- Automatic invoicing for fee and interest payments.
- The payments are generally wired directly to our accounts, so we don’t need the payments made through the software.
- Ability to check off whether the payments have been received and have reminders sent if not.
- Automatic invoicing for fee and interest payments.
Incoming Compliance
- Data Problems/Needs:
- Automatic compliance reporting reminders sent to project sponsors (ideally with ability for CSH to check off which have been received so future reminders only include outstanding items).
- Ideally, projects would be able to upload compliance documents (see list below) online through the software, but not necessarily a requirement for CSH.
- Financial reports from the project (P&L, Balance Sheet, Audits, Taxes).
- NMTC compliance certificates & housing certificates (included as exhibits in closing documents and filled in by the project sponsor on a quarterly or semi-annual basis).
- Insurance certificates.
- Ideally, projects would be able to upload compliance documents (see list below) online through the software, but not necessarily a requirement for CSH.
- Automatic compliance reporting reminders sent to project sponsors (ideally with ability for CSH to check off which have been received so future reminders only include outstanding items).
Outgoing Compliance
- Data Problems/Needs: Internal reminders (e.g., on main dashboard) for when CSH is due to send out reporting to investors and the CDFI Fund (reporting would all be done outside of this software).
Risk Monitoring
- Data Problems/Needs:
- Assign risk ratings to projects across a few metrics and an overall risk rating.
- Would be done manually based on CSH’s document review and policies.
- Generate report with all projects’ risk ratings and notes for board review.
- Assign risk ratings to projects across a few metrics and an overall risk rating.
Community Benefits
- Data Currently Collected:
- Data across all projects’ community benefits metrics, both projected and actual reported (e.g., jobs created, accessible jobs, patients/clients served, workforce and patient demographics, # of on-site housing units funded with Low Income Housing Tax Credits, etc.).
- Location: Community Benefit Agreements and Community Benefit Reports currently collected manually by CSH and tracked in Excel based on data/documents submitted by project sponsors.
- Data across all projects’ community benefits metrics, both projected and actual reported (e.g., jobs created, accessible jobs, patients/clients served, workforce and patient demographics, # of on-site housing units funded with Low Income Housing Tax Credits, etc.).
- Data Problems/Needs:
- Explore creating an online fillable form that automatically populates the data fields (though CSH would need to be able to manually override data points based on follow up discussions with project sponsors, if needed).
- Need to access all historical data for each data point.
- Generate reports with totals, averages, etc. using these entered metrics with customizable parameters (e.g., total jobs created for projects closed after 2020, percentage of total jobs that are considered accessible, etc.).
- Need to be able to choose whether to include projected or actual value in these summary reports for each data point in each project.
- Example: Project A isn’t fully staffed yet, so CSH will use their projected total number of jobs, but their patient visits have already surpassed projections, so CSH will use the actual reported number for that field. Project B has the inverse situation. If CSH made a report totaling the number of jobs and patient visits across the two projects, CSH would need to be able to select the projected numbers for A’s jobs and B’s visits and the actual reported numbers for A’s visits and B’s jobs to pull into the totals.
- Manually flag specific data points within specific projects based on action needed (e.g., needs review with our consultant, sign-off received from our director, needs to be reported out to the CDFI Fund once it reaches/exceeds projections, etc.).
- Need to be able to choose whether to include projected or actual value in these summary reports for each data point in each project.
- Explore creating an online fillable form that automatically populates the data fields (though CSH would need to be able to manually override data points based on follow up discussions with project sponsors, if needed).
II. SCOPE OF SERVICES
The Scope of Services as described below shall require the Consultant to drive and provide these key deliverables:
- Conduct an in-depth review of CSH’s current data systems and available software, and current processes and needs for each of the areas outlined in Section I.
- Develop and provide clear recommendations for how CSH can better utilize its available data systems and software and improve its current processes for collecting and tracking data for each of the areas outlined in Section I.
- Provide a detailed plan, cost proposal, and timeline for implementing the proposed recommendations. Implementation will be carried out at a later point in time and is not required as part of the scope.
III. PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS AND SELECTION PROCESS
- Please provide a brief overview of your firm and its core services, explaining how NMTC consulting fits into your service mix.
- Please provide two to three clients we can use as references.
- Please provide an overview of your NMTC consulting approach, specifically addressing: (a) activities involved; (b) requirements of CSH (i.e., people, resource, and time commitments); (c) substance and format of your output and reporting.
- Describe the NMTC education and training you offer.
- Please identify the personnel who would conduct this engagement, describing their roles and educational and professional qualifications. If you expect to outsource any portion of this engagement to partners, please identify them and describe their specific roles, bearing in mind that we expect your firm will shoulder 100% accountability for the success of the engagement, as well as for any acts, errors, or omissions in the provision of services.
- Please provide your cost proposal and timeline, and clearly delineate any services that would not be included in your scope of work.
Please submit your proposal electronically in Adobe PDF format no later than the close of business EST on July 18th 2025 to:
Ross Clarke, Director, NMTC
Corporation for Supportive Housing
[email protected]
Please direct any questions to: Matthew Hughes, Director, Loan Administration ([email protected]) and Ross Clarke, Director, NMTC ([email protected]).
Although generalized promotional literature is welcomed, it may not substitute for original narrative responses to the questions posed in Section III. We reserve the right to disqualify any proposal for lack of responsiveness or specificity.
All expenses associated with proposal preparation and presentation, including travel, shall be borne by the respondents.
Following evaluation of all proposals, we may invite oral presentations, the dates, and times to be scheduled as mutually convenient. We expect to select our consultant by August 1st, 2025.
The Consultant can be located anywhere in the United States, and the services may be provided virtually.
Please note that CSH requires subcontractors, including individuals and sole proprietors, to carry workers’ compensation insurance and Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance while performing work under a CSH subcontract. CSH subcontractors cannot have existing, pending, or expired debarments that preclude them from doing business with the United States government and cannot have convictions for, nor have any pending indictments for, fraud or a criminal offense in connections with a public contract or subcontract.
