Consultancy for the integration of the System Change methodology into the strategic vision and team skills of Alterna
1 Background
Alterna is a platform for social innovation and inclusive entrepreneurship, established in Guatemala as a non-profit association. Founded in 2010 in Quetzaltenango, Alterna has more than 10 years of experience in Guatemala and regional programs in Mexico and Central America. Its vision is a world in which the opportunity to generate positive impact exists in any context and its mission is to catalyze transformative businesses from the local. To this end, Alterna specializes in identifying and providing business advice to entrepreneurs, with business ideas or established companies, accompanying them to increase their economic and social impact and approaching them with financing opportunities and connections to new markets and talent.
Alterna is made up of a permanent multidisciplinary team of +40 professionals from different geographies and with very valuable individual experiences in business topics such as emerging markets research, business development, entrepreneurship and innovation and impact investing. Likewise, Alterna works with the support of a strong project management, communications, and operations team. The common denominator: Passion and excellence in the development of business models with great potential for success, impact and growth in the region.
Alterna seeks to integrate systemic change into its strategic thinking and actions as a way to activate changes and deeper impact in the region. Alterna hopes to integrate it to improve in the team the understanding, creation, action, monitoring, evaluation and learning of new projects or initiatives with allies to solve the pressing problems of the region.
2 Objectives of the consultancy
2.1 General Objective
Alterna integrates elements of the system change methodology, both at the strategic level and at the operational level, and is able to define systemic actions, alliances and processes that will transform acute gaps into tangible game-changing opportunities in our region.
2.2 Specific Objectives
- The Alterna Team, in particular the Strategic Alliances and MELI areas, have tools of systemic thinking that they can apply in their different strategies and activities.
- The five impact systems defined by Alterna feature a specific theory of change (anchored to Alterna’s general TOC), a clear narrative, and clear indicators.
3 Scope
Find below the scope and expected actions of this consultancy to achieve the established objectives.
3.1 Transfer of systemic change tools to Alterna
The person or consulting firm must transfer tools of systemic change or systemic action, to people in the following two areas of Alterna:
- To a group of between 5 and 7 people from the Strategic Alliances area, to integrate these tools in the processes of design and negotiation of programs, the development of alliances with organizations that serve companies and in the communication towards our different audiences.
- To a group of 3 people from the Area of Monitoring Evaluation and Learning for Impact (MELI), to integrate these tools into their process of conceptualizing, measuring and communicating the impact generated by Alterna and the stakeholders with whom Alterna works.
Tools must be selected or designed by the person o consulting firm to respond to the specific realities of both teams.
3.2 Theory of change of Alterna five impact systems.
Alterna has prioritized five “impact systems” in which it seeks to influence (see image 1): Humans on the move; Creative Horizons, Wellbeing, Conscious Markets and Nature and climate. These impact systems are formed by intersections between different economic sectors or social challenges in which Alterna works.
It is expected that this consultancy will accompany Alterna in landing in what way Alterna affects these five systems. To do this, the firm or consulting company must deliver, at least:
- A theory of change for each of the systems, including the visualization of each of these TOCs. To develop this deliverable, the consulting person or firm will need to review Alterna documentation (general TOC, logical frameworks of proposals, Alterna strategy, among others), interview key personnel and develop workshops with people from the team (these workshops could be considered as part of the practical training of the team, mentioned above).
- The visualization and narrative of each of the TOCs. These narratives must be concise, powerful, and clear, to communicate with different types of stakeholders.
- A basic set of indicators for each system, as well as recommendations for measurement schemes, in order to correctly measure the impacts achieved by each impact system. These indicators should consider the indicators that Alterna already uses, important indicators used by other reference organizations (SDG, IRIS or others) and the current monitoring and evaluation processes used by the MELI area.
4 Products and disbursements
Payments will be disbursed upon delivery and approval of the established products as follows:
5 Consulting conditions
- The contract will be carried out under the modality of a consultancy for a period of up to 10 months, through a contract signed with Alterna.
- The person or consulting firm will coordinate all its activities and will be responsible for presenting the expected products to the Director of Strategic Alliances.
- The maximum budget allocated for the hiring of the consultancy is US$25,000 including all taxes (considering that, for payment from Guatemala abroad, 15% must be deducted, that is, US$3,750 of the total to cover local taxes).)
- The person or consulting firm must issue an invoice in the name of Asociación Alterna ONG.
- The consultancy can be done 100% virtually.
6 Profile of person or firm consultant
Experience:
- At least 4 years of experience in the social sector, with a component of Systemic Change.
- At least 2 years of experience as a consultant.
- At least 2 years of work experience in Latin America or developing countries.
- At least 3 provable success projects as System Change consultant.
- Experience in the design and development of training workshops and group or individual dynamics on Systems Thinking.
- Experience in the implementation of changes and concrete improvements focused on Systemic Change in social sector projects.
- Experience in the development and application of agile and effective methodologies of Systemic Change, with entrepreneurship projects.
- Preferable experience and knowledge of business advisory methodologies with cultural relevance and gender focus.
- Desirable knowledge about social entrepreneurship, innovation, and impact investing.
- Experience in information systematization, reporting and accounting.
7 Documentation and presentation of the offer
Interested individual consultants must submit:
- Technical proposal that clearly details the activities/actions with their respective methodologies proposed to achieve the results, and its execution schedule. It can be delivered in Word or PDF format (maximum 5 pages of content). Within the proposal, it should be clearly described what research tools, mapping tools, tools for personal and collective transformation or tool for process design will be used to achieve the objectives of the consultancy and why these tools have been chosen.
- Economic Proposal in dollars including taxes.
- Professional summary or CV of the consultant that will be dedicated to this consultancy, showing the required experience.
- Personal Identification Document, (DPI or passport) of the consultant.
- Diploma of the last professional degree obtained.
- Proof of updated tax registration (RTU, RTN or other, depending on the country).
Interested consulting firms must submit:
- Technical proposal that clearly details the activities/actions with their respective methodologies proposed to achieve the results, and its execution schedule. It can be delivered in Word or PDF format (maximum 5 pages of content). Within the proposal, it should be clearly described what research tools, mapping tools, tools for personal and collective transformation or tool for process design will be used to achieve the objectives of the consultancy and why these tools have been chosen.
- Economic Proposal in dollars including taxes.
- Documents accrediting the legal person or company (document of incorporation).
- Document of legal representation of the company.
- Copy of the Legal Representative’s passport (the main pages).
- Proposed team and their CV.
- Tax registration document of the country where the company is registered.
Interested consulting firms should send their proposal and documents to the email: [email protected] with a copy to [email protected] before Friday, 10 May 2022. In case of any doubt about the Terms of Reference, please contact Irene Rivera [email protected]