A strategic plan RFP reads like one job. Open the scope, and it's several: facilitation, research, analysis, writing, and, now and then, a print run of 500.
State, local, and tribal governments posted 37 Requests for Proposal (RFPs) for strategic plans in 2026 through October 20. We tracked 45 of them across California, Oregon, and Washington, back to September 2025. The question that matters most is who's equipped to win them, and the answer is rarely a single firm:
The Los Angeles Office of Finance wants staff surveys, photography, a new logo and brand guide, 500 printed copies, and a progress dashboard. That's a facilitator, a designer, a printer, and a developer for one plan.
Marin County wants multilingual focus groups, ratepayer impact projections, and a Spanish-language summary.
The Eugene Water & Electric Board asks outright for a team that pairs facilitation with long-range foresight research.
Buyers know it, too. Marin County and Riverside County both reserved the right to award the work to more than one firm.
What they ask for
Most scopes follow the same order:
Review what exists: prior plans, budgets, survey results, and performance data.
Listen: interviews, staff surveys, focus groups, and community input.
Facilitate: workshops and retreats where leaders set priorities.
Write the plan: mission, vision, values, goals, and measurable objectives.
Make it usable: an implementation roadmap and a way to track progress.
Buyers care most about step five. Watsonville wants strategies grounded in "realistic staff and funding capacities" and two-year action plans for all 11 city departments. They aren't paying for a plan nobody can fund.
When they post
In the third quarter of 2026, we tracked 20 strategic plan RFPs out of 1,263, about 1 in 60.
Summer is the season. 27 of the 37 posted in 2026 came out between June and September. Most California and Oregon local governments start their fiscal year July 1, and a newly funded plan tends to post soon after.
The next one is often predictable. Many RFPs name the plan they're replacing, like Alameda's 2023–2026 plan. Know when a plan expires, and you know roughly when its replacement will post.
Tribal governments title them differently. The Tulalip Tribes posted an economic development strategic plan; the Spokane Tribe of Indians, a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy; and the Squaxin Island Tribe, a Strategic Energy Sovereignty Plan. Search for "strategic plan" alone, and you'd find one of the three.
Budgets are often unstated. Only 15 of the 45 named a budget, ranging from $30,000 to $1 million, mostly between $90,000 and $300,000. Cities posted 25 of the 45.
Four kinds, four different jobs
Economic development (17 of 45). Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Washington State, and the Tulalip and Spokane tribes. These build on a full market study of industries, workforce, and real estate.
Organization-wide (14 of 45). A city, college, utility, or agency setting its priorities, like Alameda, Lane Community College, and the Eugene Water & Electric Board ($300,000). Facilitation carries these, often in person.
Department or service (10 of 45). San Diego County Fire, Marin County's waste division, and the Los Angeles Office of Finance. Subject knowledge wins these.
Technology (4 of 45). Information technology (IT) strategic plans for Richmond, San Ramon, East Palo Alto, and Simi Valley, including an artificial intelligence (AI) roadmap.
Who should team up
The prime is usually a facilitation or planning firm. The rest of the scope is where smaller businesses can come in:
Community engagement and research firms for surveys, focus groups, and community meetings.
Economic and real estate analysts for the market study.
Public finance consultants for projections and budget alignment.
Design and publication firms for the finished, printed plan.
Accessibility and translation firms for accessible documents and translated summaries.
Data and dashboard developers for tracking progress after adoption.
Subject specialists in utilities, IT, or AI.
Two checks first. Eligibility: the Oregon Arts Commission accepted only Oregon-based businesses. How it's bought: the Los Angeles Office of Finance plan was open only to firms already on a city on-call bench.
What to do with this
If strategy is your core work, plan your pursuit time around summer, and track when your target governments' plans expire.
If you do engagement, research, design, finance, or data work, offer planning firms the piece they don't do in-house. It's a way into government contracts without carrying the whole one.
Read past the title. "Strategic Planning Services" covers both a half-day retreat where Lake Forest supplies the refreshments and a $300,000 engagement with scenario research into the 2030s. The scope tells you which one you're looking at.
Strategic plan RFPs are posted across hundreds of city, county, tribal, and state sites, each with its own portal. RFPGo.ai puts active ones in one place, matches them to your business, and tracks each to its deadline. Two are active right now: Lake Forest's strategic planning consultant, due Nov 4, and Simi Valley's IT master and strategic plan, due Nov 19. Explore more active RFPs.
How we counted: We counted RFPs whose title names a strategic plan, strategic planning, a purpose-specific strategic plan, or an economic development strategy, posted September 2025 through October 20, 2026, counting each once. RFPs titled other ways may have been missed, so these counts are a floor. We found none in Idaho in this period.
