City of Asheville to hold workshops on strategic event partnerships

The City of Asheville will soon be accepting proposals from qualified, nonprofit organizations based in Asheville and Buncombe County who wish to establish strategic event partnerships with the City for calendar years 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Downtown After 5 is an example of an event conducted under a strategic event partnership, one in which the City of Asheville partners with the Asheville Downtown Association to plan and execute. It differs from a sponsorship in that the City does not provide financial support. Rather, in-kind services are made available to organizations that produce events to achieve City of Asheville goals, which can include promoting downtown businesses or community placemaking, among other goals.

Two workshops will be conducted in advance of the proposal posting date to provide information on eligibility requirements, process timeline, the City’s partnership goals and the proposal evaluation criteria that will be used. The workshops will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. Dec. 16 and 9 to 10 a.m. Dec. 18 at Asheville City Hall, 5th Floor conference room. As space is limited, please RSVP to jfillman@ashevillenc.gov if you would like to attend one of the workshops.

Unlike event sponsorship, the Request for Proposal (RFP) seeks to identify nonprofit organizations with the vision and capacity to partner with the City on a scope of work that employs special events as a means to accomplish shared goals and objectives. The RFP will be posted Jan. 6, 2016 at ashevillenc.gov/SpecialEvents and ashevillenc.gov/Purchasing

The proposal deadline is 5 p.m. Feb. 15, 2016.

For more information, contact Jon Fillman at 828-259-5738 or jfillman@ashevillenc.gov.