Green Fee Outcomes Framework & Monitoring/Evaluation Dashboard

The State of Hawaii seeks a qualified contractor to develop and implement a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan for Green Fee–funded projects and to develop a public‑facing dashboard or equivalent information tool accessible via a website to showcase these M&E metrics, and to include additional storytelling and strategic impact information on Green Fee Projects.
The Green Fee is likely to continue funding additional projects each year. A transparent, accessible reporting system is needed to demonstrate how these green fee investments advance climate resilience and community benefit, consistent with the objectives in Act 96. In addition, information related to why Green Fee projects are important to Hawaii is needed for the public to understand the collective impact of these projects.
The public-facing dashboard should go beyond reporting basic metrics by incorporating storytelling elements—such as project narratives, community context, and visually engaging explanations of progress—to help the public understand not only what each Green Fee project is doing, but why it matters and how it contributes to Hawaii’s broader climate resilience goals.
The goals of the dashboard are to:
• Demonstrate the impact of Green Fee investments to the State and how these investments collectively make Hawaii more resilient.
• Strengthen accountability for Green Fee funding, including information on where and how funds are being used and what the outcomes are.
The dashboard will be public-facing and may inform future policy decisions around Green Fee funding.
The selected contractor will:
• Consult with State stakeholders, including BUF, the Office of the Governor, administering departments, Green Fee project leads, and other parties designated by BUF, to establish a statewide monitoring and evaluation structure for Green Fee projects
• Develop or leverage an existing platform to create a public-facing dashboard (or equivalent) accessible via a website that can be independently maintained and updated to showcase M&E metrics, as well as storytelling elements to help the public understand the strategic impact of these projects and why they matter to the State.
• Provide training and support to Green Fee awardees and relevant stakeholders so that they understand the M&E plan and can report project metrics through the dashboard.
• Implement communications and outreach efforts to promote public awareness, accessibility, and engagement with the dashboard, including gathering information from stakeholders to create storytelling content and uploading it to the dashboard.

Line Items

Monitoring & Evaluation, Public-facing Dashboard Development — Qty 1 JOB
Phase I: Outcomes Framework (Prerequisite)
Before any dashboard architecture is built, the contractor will collaborate with state agencies to establish a Green Fee Outcomes Framework.
The contractor will work with the State agencies to:
• Recommend a practical hierarchy and number of statewide outcomes, project indicators, outputs, and financial measures, subject to BUF approval.
• Map each project to one or more applicable statewide outcomes while preserving project-specific measures where needed.
• Align the framework explicitly with the legislative goals of Act 96.
• Develop an indicator dictionary and instructional guidance identifying each measure’s definition, purpose, formula, unit, source, owner, baseline, target, reporting frequency, documentation standard, validation rule, and public-display rule.
Phase II: Dashboard Development Layers
The contractor will design or configure a public facing dashboard accessible via a website using existing dashboarding tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI, ArcGIS Online, or similar platforms). Custom software development is not required unless proposed by the bidder as a valued enhancement.
The dashboard shall include, at a minimum, the following interconnected functional areas, such as:

1. Financial Transparency Layer
2. Project Tracking Layer
3. Outcomes Layer (High Priority)
4. Geographic (GIS) Layer
5. Storytelling Layer
6. Strategic Impact Layer
   Technical and Operational Requirements
   Document the proposed solution architecture, hosting model, development and production environments, data flows, integrations, backup and recovery, audit logging, authentication, role-based access, and administrative controls.
   Meet applicable State security, privacy, records-retention, and incident-reporting requirements. The contractor shall identify data classifications and shall not expose restricted data through the public dashboard.
   Meet the State-adopted accessibility standard. Deliverables shall include automated and manual accessibility testing, and State acceptance before public release.
   Support current major desktop and mobile browsers and define measurable standards for availability, page-load performance, data-refresh frequency, and user capacity.
   Provide the State with all source files, schemas, data models, connectors, configurations, credentials, design assets, documentation, and other materials needed to maintain the solution, subject to disclosed third-party license terms.
   Identify all recurring costs, license tiers, administrator and contributor account limits, hosting charges, renewal assumptions, and any functionality lost if optional services are not renewed.
   The dashboard must be intuitive, interactive, visually clear, and accessible. The dashboard must also be maintainable by trained State staff without routine vendor intervention.
   Independent maintenance means State administrators are able to add projects, manage users, update data sources, revise approved content, correct data, publish releases, access audit records, and perform ordinary configuration changes using transferred documentation and credentials.
   Phase III: Long Term Legacy & Self Updating Framework
   To accommodate projects extending beyond the initial two year cycle, bidders must explicitly address:
   • Decentralized Data Entry Architecture. A secure, user friendly interface—within the chosen dashboarding tool or a companion platform—allowing project leads to update their own data.
   • Automated Data Validation & Notification Triggers. Built in rules and reminders to ensure timely and accurate updates.
   • Role Based Access Control (RBAC).