Grant Solicitation Processes

Digital Square will pursue a competitive procurement process to facilitate investment in global goods. A competitive process provides capable entities the opportunity to submit bids in a fair and transparent process for a committee to evaluate bids and to select the successful applicant(s). In order to foster competition in alignment with funder expectations, Digital Square will release solicitations through the following methods.

1. Open Application Process (OAP) Solicitation, referred to as a Notice.

2. Request for Application (RFA).

The investment decision may be made by the Governing Board or funder prior to the solicitation and will depend on:

A. Whether the funder decides to maintain or relinquish the investment decision to the Governing Board.

B. Whether the funder has specific business requirements attached to the funding opportunity. This may include the time frames for which funding is available or the need to coordinate with other investments.

For more information on the overall process for selected applicants, please review the Global Good Investment Process.

Types of Procurement Processes

Open Application Process

Digital Square facilitates a regular solicitation through the OAP platform referred to as the Notice. In this website, applicants publicly post concept notes and applications, providing applicants the opportunity to find collaborators and provide and receive feedback from your peers.

The following outlines the timelines of proposal process:

Step #: Summary	Description	Approximate Timeline
Step 1: Solicitation preparation	Digital Square works with the funder to secure investment and refine the scope of work for the solicitation.
Step 2: Concept note development	Digital Square issues a call for applications, and applicants upload concept notes to Digital Square's public-facing OAP platform. In the first 2 to 4 weeks, as outlined by the solicitation, applicants will submit concept notes. Applicants must use the concept note template.	2 weeks
Step 3: Concept note review	In the few weeks following the concept note submission deadline, other applicants and/or other stakeholders in the community may provide feedback, comments, and suggestions, as well as identify potential areas for collaboration.	3 weeks
Step 4: Digital Square review of concept notes	Following the concept note review, Digital Square assesses concept notes to ensure alignment with the initiative vision and funding round objectives identified in the Notice. Digital Square eliminates concept notes that are not strategically aligned with the above. Digital Square identifies a set of short-listed concept notes based on the Notice criteria and emails applicants who are eligible to move on to the application phase.	1 week
Step 5: Preliminary technical application co-creation	Using feedback received in the Concept Note Phase, applicants will begin preliminary application development. Applicants must use the technical application template and post an application iteration on the OAP platform in the first 2 weeks. The comment feature is available beginning the day of application posting. The subsequent 2 weeks of this step, the applicant should continue to iterate on the application submission based on comments from other applicants and stakeholders. At the conclusion of this step, Digital Square will close the ability to upload new content to OAP platform .	4 weeks
Step 6: Preliminary technical application comment period	Following preliminary application development step, Digital Square will close the ability to upload content to the OAP platform. During this time, other applicants and other stakeholders in the community should provide feedback, comments, and suggestions.	2 weeks
Step 6: Award phase	The result of the Governing Board vote and Peer Review Committee feedback are communicated to the submitters.
Step 6: Award phase	The result of the Governing Board vote and Peer Review Committee feedback are communicated to the submitters.
Step 6: Award phase	The result of the Governing Board vote and Peer Review Committee feedback are communicated to the submitters.
Step 6: Award phase	The result of the Governing Board vote and Peer Review Committee feedback are communicated to the submitters.
Step 6: Award phase	The result of the Governing Board vote and Peer Review Committee feedback are communicated to the submitters.
Step 6: Award phase	The result of the Governing Board vote and Peer Review Committee feedback are communicated to the submitters.