Project Overview:

SRAP’s Water Rangers Program works with rural communities to protect their right to clean water and hold industrial livestock operations accountable for pollution. We provide free water testing training and offer instruction on documenting and reporting pollution violations to U.S. EPA, state, and local regulators. In recent years we identified a gap in the communities the Water Rangers program engages with and the communities that may want to engage with the program, specifically regarding Indigenous communities. We are seeking an independent contractor to consult with SRAP by helping the Water Rangers Program team develop and follow through on a culturally appropriate and inclusive outreach plan for Tribal Nations in Michigan and Wisconsin.

We identified the Federally and State recognized Tribal Nations in this region. Our expectation is to reach out to each of these 28 Tribal Nations across Michigan and Wisconsin to determine how they are impacted by CAFOs and to offer Water Rangers training, in its most useful form, to them. We understand Tribal Nations have experienced and continue to experience oppression and environmental injustice in many forms and we are committed to entering this project intentionally. We acknowledge the vast community engagement experience of any qualified candidate and we intend to develop the outreach plan in collaboration with them to ensure we move forward with the best approach. This project overview is primarily a guide of SRAP’s initial expectations for this project and are subject to change based on SRAP’s programming needs, the consultant’s recommendations, and/or Indigenous communities’ needs.

Project Goals:

Project goals include, but are not limited to:

1. Facilitate authentic connections between the Water Rangers Program team and Tribal Nations in Michigan and Wisconsin.
   • Reach out to the 28 Tribal Nations in Michigan and Wisconsin identified by the Water Rangers Program team to determine how CAFOs impact them and what support the Water Rangers Program may offer them.
2. Increase Tribal Nation engagement in Water Rangers training to increase water quality monitoring in these communities.
   • Complete Water Rangers training with at least 3 Tribal Nations in Michigan and 3 Tribal Nations in Wisconsin.
3. Completing the above goals between Winter 2023 and early Spring 2024.

Scope of Work:

The scope of work for this project is as follows:

1. Water Rangers Content Review
   • Review Water Rangers (WR) materials and provide to the WR Program team written feedback on content appropriateness and written recommendations for any changes to materials to ensure they are culturally appropriate.
     • Materials include, but are not limited to:
       • Water Rangers general training presentation
       • Water Rangers web content
2. Outreach Plan Development
   • Help develop a written outreach plan for the WR Program team by meeting at least three times with the WR Team.
     • Initial meeting to discuss project and consultant’s review of WR materials and to start moving toward developing outreach plan.
     • Check-in meeting to review progress on outreach plan and make any changes.
     • Follow-up meeting after start of outreach to determine any changes that need to be made.
3. Outreach Plan Implementation
   • Support WR Program team in implementing outreach plan
     • Facilitate communication (email, phone etc.) with Tribal Nations as included in the outreach plan.
     • Attend meetings with Tribal Nations as included in the outreach plan. We prefer virtual meetings, but will consider in-person meetings as appropriate.

Consultant will be required to sign a contract with SRAP for the work under this project.

Timeline & Budget: Interested consultants are requested to submit a current resume and a written proposal of 2-3 pages via email to coled@sraproject.org by Friday, December 15, 2023 at 5pm EST (4 pm CT / 3pm MT / 2pm PT). Telephone calls will not be accepted.

This project should begin by early Winter 2023 and finish by late Spring 2024. Independent contractors are required to include their expected project budget (fees, material costs etc.) in their proposal not to exceed $10,000. The Water Rangers team expects to take ownership of future engagement with Tribal Nations at the conclusion of this project and all materials created and produced as part of this project.

Evaluation Metrics and Criteria: Success would be developing authentic working relationships with several Tribal Nations out of the 28 Tribal Nations we intend to reach out to, understanding how CAFOs impact them, and completing Water Rangers trainings with at least 3 Tribal Nations in Michigan and 3 Tribal Nations in Wisconsin.