Cardano was founded on the belief that the current global legacy architecture is outdated and no longer fit for purpose. Intersect, a non-profit member-based organization, supports the evolution of Cardano’s on-chain governance and advances its core infrastructure development through its members and distributed development. This also includes facilitating a budget process to propose funding a diverse roadmap that matches ecosystem priorities, which are submitted as governance actions for on-chain approval by ada holders. 

In 2024, Intersect played a key role in supporting the Cardano ecosystem by facilitating grants designed to support the 2024 roadmap, which included both the Chang and Plomin upgrades and funding community tooling and outreach to foster an accessible and inclusive environment in the age of Voltaire. Last year’s work highlighted the significant impact that funding opportunities can have on strengthening a decentralized ecosystem, especially as we navigate the formative years of Cardano’s on-chain governance system. By empowering members to propose and implement ideas, we saw meaningful progress across various initiatives that benefited the broader Cardano network. You can read more about what our members delivered on our knowledge base.

Our members’ involvement and contributions have been vital, shaping what Intersect and Cardano represent today and improving our processes for tendering, evaluating, and awarding grants and work packages. 

2025 Procurement Process Overview

The procurement process facilitated by the Intersect Operational Services team should ensure that Treasury funds are allocated based on a structured evaluation matrix considering the capability to deliver against the Committee Requirement Document (CRD), the proposal’s value, demonstrable expertise, and a realistic delivery timeline aligned with ecosystem expectations. Identified reviewers from the Community will assess proposals based on the predefined evaluation matrix and share all reviews with commissioning Committees, incorporating transparency and feedback loops into the process. The procurement process, from gathering committee requirements to contract awarding, will take approximately 8-10 weeks.

Once contracts are awarded, the Delivery Assurance team will oversee execution, ensuring that contractual obligations are met.

Steps from budget proposal to awarded contract are as follows:

1. Budget proposal and on-chain approval

• A budget proposal is developed, detailing funding requirements for work packages.
• The proposal undergoes community consultation and is submitted for on-chain approval by DReps and the ICC.

2. Proposal Submission

• Committees create and approve Committee Requirement Documents (CRDs), outlining scope, deliverables, and evaluation criteria, etc.
• An open and transparent procurement process allows Intersect members and vendors to submit proposals. This step is called the Request For Proposal (RFP) or the Request for Information (RFI). 

3. Proposal review and selection

• Reviewers are selected from the community based on their skillset and allocated proposals for review.
• Proposals are reviewed against structured evaluation criteria, ensuring fair and merit-based selection.
• Contracts are awarded by the committees to the most suitable vendors, subject to due diligence checks.

Contract execution and delivery assurance

• The awarded vendors enter into service agreements with clear deliverables and milestones.
• The Delivery Assurance team oversees execution, monitors progress, and mitigates risks.

Find out more:

• About Intersect’s Operational services here.
• About the procurement end-to-end process, including key standards, principles, and expectations of Intersect Operational Services & FAQs.
• About the Delivery Assurance function here.

Apply to fulfill the Procurement Tooling Requirements Tooling

With just three months to prepare a tool for implementation, we are focusing on finding an off-the-shelf (OTS) solution that meets the requirements outlined below. We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas to help us select the most appropriate tool for our needs. 

Please note the following before submitting (submission form below):

• Please only submit tools that meet all or the majority of requirements.
• Due to restricted timelines, we are NOT looking for a proof of concept (PoC) for this tooling. 
• Applicants will be shortlisted and invited to pitch their solution to a team of Intersect & Community reviewers during the week commencing 24th March.
• The tool must integrate into Hubspot (Intersect CRM).

	Requirements	Stages of the procurement cycle	Detail
1	Public Hosting of Requirements	Creation	Ability to publicly host the requirements for each budget item set to be tendered.
2	Customizable Application Form	Creation	Questions on the application form must be easily customizable by Operational services based on Committee requirements. Applications can be accessed and submitted by any member of the Community.
3	Private Dashboard for submitted Proposals	Open	Completed application forms should filter into a private dashboard, viewable by Operational services.
4	Reviewer Selection and Allocation	Evaluation/ Moderate	Enable Operational services to select reviewers from the Community and allocate them to review specific applications based on their skill set.
5	In-Built Review Form		Include a built-in review form for evaluating and scoring applications. The form should be modifiable, include a scoring mechanism, and assess criteria such as the proposal’s structure, fit, impact, feasibility/capability, and value for money.
6	Review Feedback Management		Completed review forms should filter back to the admin host privately. Reviews should be organized in scoring order (e.g., highest to lowest).
7	Committee Review and Approval		Share reviews with Committee members for final approval.
8	Public Record of Successful Applicants	Awarded	Maintain a publicly accessible record of successful applicants.
9	Public tracking of contract deliverables	In delivery	Distribute milestones to the Community for review. Details below: Complete the entire contract lifecycle integrated into the procurement end-to-end process Uploading and sharing MAFs (Milestone Agreement Forms) with the community. Allow community members to review and provide feedback on MAFs. Allow the specified reviewers to accept an MAF. Ability to link to other websites or GitHub repositories to link to work completed. Visualise milestones on a timeline with real-time progress updates. Financial transparency on achievement and payment of Milestone. Show all milestones within a contract and display visuals on progress.

Suggested roles to include in the procurement tooling

These are roles that should be considered when suggesting the OTS tooling.

• Admin Staff:

• Responsible for creating and managing the procurement process.
• Moderates application scores and reviews.
• Share evaluations with the Committee for ratification.
• Manages the public dashboard and maintains records of awarded proposals.
• Manages the milestones, contract details, and milestone acceptance process.

• Applicants:

• Intersect members who submit proposals in response to Request For Proposal/Information (RFP/I) during the “Open” stage.

• Proposal Reviewers:

• Selected from the Community to evaluate submitted proposals during the “Evaluation” stage.
• Completes review forms assessing proposals against established criteria.

• Milestone Reviewers:

• Selected by the committees to review and accept MAF’s.
• Reviews MAF’s against the contract acceptance criteria.

• Committee Members:

• Ratify final decisions on the proposal based on consolidated scores and reviews to approve the preferred candidate. 
• Provide final approval on the MAF based on reviewers’ feedback.

• Public Users:

• Community members or stakeholders, not Intersect members, can view tender categories on the public dashboard (but cannot participate in the application or evaluation process).
• Community members or stakeholders can see the milestones and MAFs and can comment on them but do not have access to approve or reject MAFs.

• Awardee / Supplier (Preferred Candidate):

• The applicant is selected to fulfill the RFP requirements.
• Engages with Admin Staff for milestone tracking and contract completion.

We welcome applications today and close on Monday, 10th March 2025, at 10am UTC. Please submit your application via the form here.