Write the RFQ that attracts the right partner — and filters out the wrong ones.

Developer RFQ + Selection Toolkit

A packaged 5-week engagement that helps municipalities and CDCs write RFQs emphasizing partnership, realistic commitments, and actual community outcomes — then scores responses with a criteria framework that rewards capability and fit, not just lowest price. Solves the core reason cities end up with the wrong development partner: bad scope and bad scoring.

Who it’s for: City managers, procurement officers, economic development directors, redevelopment authorities, CDC leaders.

Pricing and Timing: From $14,000, 5–6 weeks

Book a Discovery + Fit Call →

It’s the right fit…

For these roles:

City managers and assistant city managers in Midwest communities of 10,000–200,000
Procurement officers in cities where they are the functional buyer
Economic development directors in county-level or regional authorities
Redevelopment authority executive directors
CDC and CLT executive directors running first-time partnership-based RFQs
County development directors

With these conditions:

City-owned site being released for redevelopment
Tax-reverted property headed back to private hands
Grant program requires partnership with a private developer
Previous RFQ failed to produce viable responses
Mayor or council insisted on an open competitive process for a project that used to be sole-source
First-time partnership-based RFQ for the jurisdiction

This service was designed to address these challenges:

Cities run RFQs that attract developers with slick decks and no intent to deliver.
Scoring criteria reward experience statements over partnership fidelity, and cheapest price over lowest risk.
Communities get burned when the winning developer turns out to be a bait-and-switch or walks away after entitlements.
Staff have never written an RFQ for partnership-based development and default to boilerplate that produces mediocre responses.
A previous RFQ failed and the council has lost patience — staff need a defensible, structured process that produces a real recommendation.

What You Get

Discovery call and document review (existing RFQ templates, site information, community goals)
Custom RFQ document — scope, deliverables, minimums, evaluation criteria, required submittals
Response evaluation rubric with explicit scoring weights tied to partnership fidelity
Two-hour panel prep / training session with staff and non-staff evaluators
One panel facilitation session to score responses and surface consensus
Final recommendation memo summarizing top candidates, risks, and protective contract terms
Optional add-on: developer reference check program — 4 calls per finalist (+$3,000)

Investment

From $14,000
5–6 weeks

How It Works

We confirm your timeline, panel composition, and political sensitivity. We verify whether the reference-check add-on is needed for this site.
Within 3 business days you receive a proposal with fixed scope and fixed price. E-sign contract plus 40% deposit to start.
Within 2 weeks of kickoff, you have a draft RFQ tailored to your project. One round of revisions included.
While responses come in, we run a 2-hour evaluator training so your panel knows what they're looking for and how to score it.
We facilitate the scoring conversation with your panel and deliver a final recommendation memo within one week of close.

Common Questions

Yes. We offer an 'RFQ review' version of the engagement at $9,000 — same evaluation framework and panel facilitation, but we redline an existing RFQ rather than write from scratch. Ask about it on the scoping call.
Yes. Scoring-only engagements are $7,000 and include the panel training, scoring facilitation, and recommendation memo. The full Toolkit produces meaningfully better outcomes because the scoring criteria are designed alongside the RFQ, but the scoring-only option exists for cities that have already issued the RFQ.
We don't, and we won't. A core ethical rule: if Flywheel writes or scores an RFQ, Flywheel does not bid on it. We make this explicit in the contract and in the procurement record.
The 2-hour panel prep session is essentially a training. If you want a deeper train-the-trainer experience for ongoing capability, that's our Municipal Partnership Playbook — RFQ-running training is one of its components.
Generally a project budget of $5M+ justifies the spend. Smaller projects may want the scoring-only option. The scoping call will tell you the answer for your specific situation — we'll be honest about whether the Toolkit is the right move.
We adapt the Toolkit to either format. RFPs require a different bid structure but the partnership-fidelity scoring framework translates directly. No price difference.