HMIS Governing Board Software Vendor Request for Proposal

Hello HMIS End Users and Interested Parties,

First, Ramadan Mubarak for those of you who celebrate Ramadan, may this Ramadan bring joy, health, and wealth to you.

The HMIS Governing Board has an announcement about an upcoming Software Vendor Request for Proposal!

Early this year, Institute for Community Alliances (ICA), Minnesota’s HMIS lead agency and state system administrator, completed a preliminary evaluation of HMIS products available in the market, including our current platform, Service Point/Community Services, at the direction of the HMIS Governing Board.

Their evaluation methods included reviewing vendor responses to ICA’s Request for Information from 2019, interviewing HMIS lead agencies across the country whose communities transitioned from Service Point/Community Services to a competitor or otherwise use a competing platform, and talking directly to vendors. Their goal was to understand the front-end features of the top HMIS products, what they can do, cannot do, and what features and functionality could benefit users most. A summary of those findings was presented to the MN HMIS Governing Board on March 13, 2023.

The Governing Board unanimously voted to issue a request for proposals for HMIS software vendors.  What this decision means is that the MN HMIS Governing Board will invite HMIS vendors, including Wellsky who provide the Service Point/ Community Solutions platform, to respond with a proposal. 

This RFP will ask about HMIS technical specifications like HUD-compliance, user experience like intuitiveness and customizability, reporting features, and cost.  Issuing a request for proposals does not mean that MN HMIS will change vendors, necessarily; instead, it empowers our community to take a deeper dive into available HMIS platforms, comparing what we have today to what is out there. After reviewing proposals, the Governing Board will vote whether to change platforms, or not; then, if yes to changing, to which platform.

MN HMIS Governing Board’s next steps are to establish a timeline and process for issuing the Request for Proposal.  As the Governing Board works through this process, we will provide updates and share opportunities for HMIS end users and interested parties can be involved.

The strategic planning efforts we have underway directly inform this process as we surface shared values in Minnesota's HMIS.

It is our goal to ensure full transparency through the process. Please feel free to reach out to the HMIS Governing Board at mnhmisboard@icalliances.org. We look forward to learning about and evaluating HMIS software vendors through this request for proposals

Thank you,
Annie McCabe and David Hewitt
HMIS Governing Board Co-Chairs