Background to the Centre

The Centre for Disaster Protection is a technical and policy advisory organisation focused on improving how the world plans and pays for disasters. Established in 2017 and combining advisory, training and learning services with rigorous research and global influencing, we work to ensure disaster financing delivers effective and equitable protection for people at risk. Specifically, we focus on:

Delivering excellent client outcomes and promoting lasting disaster risk finance expertise.We provide clients with impartial and evidence-based advice, quality assurance and training that meets their needs and drives more effective disaster risk finance.

• Quality evidence and learning.We work to strengthen the evidence base for prearranged financing and document and share what shows the greatest potential to achieve system change.
• Impactful communications and global policy engagement.We seek to engage and influence through evidence-led policy and inclusive policy dialogue that bridges both ‘local to global’ and the humanitarian development climate nexus, targeting the bottlenecks key to effect transformative change of the international crisis financing architecture.

The Centre is funded with UK Aid through the UK government. Find out more at www.disasterprotection.org.

About the consultancy

Our new strategy (2025-2030) sets a bold ambition to increase our influence and enhance our offer to countries. It reflects our drive to respond to national priorities and bring people together around our shared mission. We aim to deliver measurable progress in the disaster finance system, while supporting national and international partners to design and deliver effective, equitable solutions.

To achieve this, we need to be more targeted and strategic in how we engage across a global ecosystem of actors. Our audiences range from government ministries, central agencies, and national disaster management authorities, to regional institutions, multilateral organisations, civil society networks, research partners and funders. Each requires tailored messaging, formats and pathways of engagement.

The audience strategy will give the Centre a clear, organisation-wide framework to help ensure our evidence, policy and engagement and advisory work has maximum influence and uptake; and to support our future funding strategy.

The selected supplier will:

• Conduct analysis to identify and prioritise key audiences
• Create audience segmentation outputs (functional tiers and archetypes)
• Develop messaging and engagement guidance tailored to priority groups
• Go beyond strategy slides and provide tools, training and recommendations to embed the strategy into practice across teams

Approach & methodology

We welcome proposals that outline a clear and robust participatory methodology. This may include:

• Desk research and review of existing strategic documents, partnerships and engagement activities
• Interviews or workshops with internal teams
• External stakeholder interviews for insight testing
• Co-design of outputs with Heads-of-functions to ensure usability and adoption

Proposals should detail:

• How insight will be gathered and validated
• How prioritisation decisions will be reached
• How adoption and internal use will be supported

Expected deliverables and timelines

This work is expected to be completed in three phases over approximately 10 weeks.

Phase

Indicative timing

Deliverables

Phase 1: Audience insight & segmentation

4 weeks

• A segmented and prioritised audience framework, based on functional categories and audience archetypes aligned to the Centre’s goals.
• Engagement profiles for priority audiences, detailing motivations, barriers, role in systems change and preferred channels.

Phase 2: Strategic messaging & channel guidance

4 weeks

• A refreshed messaging hierarchy, including a compelling audience-focused “why this matters” narrative.
• Recommendations for content themes, tone and channel strategy tailored to priority audiences.
• Guidance on updates to brand and style.

Phase 3: Embedding & capacity building

2 weeks

• Workshops with different Centre teams (Advisory, Evidence, Policy Engagement, Fundraising) to ensure understanding and adoption.
• Recommendations on linking audience strategy to monitoring, evaluation and learning frameworks.
• Practical tools and templates (e.g., messaging sheets, audience reference cards, planning checklists) to support continued implementation

Required experience

• Demonstrated expertise in engagement strategy development for mission and evidence-driven organisations.
• Strong experience in audience segmentation and message framing to influence policy and institutional decision-makers.
• Capacity to translate strategic insights into practical tools and guidance for teams.

• Experience with developing engagement strategies for organisations working on sustainable development goals and with global audiences is an advantage

Evaluation criteria

Evaluation area

Criteria

Weighting

Strategic communications, engagement & policy influence expertise

Proven experience developing audience strategies for policy and research organisations.

Demonstrated understanding of influence pathways within global and national systems.

Experience translating complex stakeholder landscapes into clear, prioritised audience segments and archetypes.

20%

Messaging, narrative & framing expertise

Track record of advising organisations on clear, practical messaging hierarchies.

Demonstrated ability to guide organisations through a structured process to refine and strengthen their narrative and messaging.

Familiarity with the challenges faced by teams working with technical concepts and translating these to different decision-making contexts.

20%

Approach

Clear and credible methodology that builds ownership and trust amongst internal stakeholders.

20%

Embedding & practical recommendations

Concrete plan for ensuring real uptake and day-to-day application of the strategy across the organisation.

Experience in designing and facilitating effective team workshops and capacity-building sessions.

15%

Project management & collaboration

Structured workplan with clear milestones and decision points.

Strong communication approach, including working collaboratively both remotely and on-site as required.

Flexibility to iterate outputs based on feedback.

15%

Value for money

To be evaluated at the short-listing stage.

10%

Application process

Interested suppliers are invited to submit a written proposal outlining their suitability for

delivering the services described in this Terms of Reference. Proposals should include:

• Outline of a methodology and approach for fulfilling the ToR requirements
• A brief overview of the supplier and team, including a CV for each person on the team detailing their experience and qualifications
• A description of how the supplier meets each of the experience and evaluation criteria listed above (max. 2 pages).
• Examples of previous work relevant to the scope of services
• A proposed daily rate and any applicable VAT or additional costs
• Outline of proposed budget with time and cost implications. This should be broken down by individual, day rate and number of days required
• Contact details for two recent clients who can provide references.

Proposals should be submitted by email to [email protected] with the

subject line: Proposal Submission: Communications – Audience Strategy & Plan

All questions should be emailed to [email protected] by 11:59pm UK time, 5th December. Responses will be shared with all bidders by 11:59pm UK time, 9th December.

The deadline for submission is 11:59pm UK time, 18th January. Late submissions may not be

considered.

Fee Rates and Payments

Payment

The indicative budget of up to £35,000 is available for this work (exclusive of any applicable UK VAT).

Correctly submitted invoices will be paid within 30 days of receipt of invoice and/or approval of relevant work (whichever is the later).

Negotiation and finalisation of commercial terms

DAI on behalf of the Centre reserves the right to negotiate on any aspects of the proposed costs and payment and is not bound to accept any offer.

DAIEligibility Criteria

All individual(s) shortlisted will undergo an initial eligibilitycriteria assessment. This includes vetting of theorganisations in line with terrorism checks, company history of improper conduct, any legal actsagainst the organisation(s) and initial vetting of proposed personnel. Where disqualification factors are discovered, the application may be rejected withoutnotification.

Successful individual(s) will be subject to detailed vetting analysis and relevant reference checks, and, in the case of organisations, also a due diligence assessment through DAI’s ManagementCapacity Assessment Tool (MCAT). This will include an assessment of:

• Organisational details

• Safeguarding policies, procedures and systems

• Financial management policies, procedures, practises and systems

• Duty of care

• Modern Slavery policies and procedures.

Final award of contract will not be confirmed until these checks are complete.

Intellectual property

Any Foreground Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) arising out of the performance of project will belong to the Managing Agent of the Centre for the purposes of awarding to the Centre perpetual, irrevocable licence to use, sub-licence or commercially exploit such IPRs in the delivery of its mission and likewise to the Centre’s funder, the UK FCDO. The Management Agent, on behalf of the Centre, will provide the Service Provider right to use such IPRs and other Centre IPRs to the extent needed to perform their obligations under this project. IPRs relating to any background intellectual property drawn upon by the Service Provider in delivery of the assignment shall remain with the Service Provider, who will provide the Centre (through its Managing Agent) and FCDO rights to use such intellectual property to the extent it is integrally required to enjoy their rights to use the results of the Project and the foreground IPRs.