An agency in Illinois is seeking a qualified vendor to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of its Thrive strategy, focusing on student needs and operational effectiveness. The evaluation will encompass emergency grants, food security, and other basic needs support services intended to improve student outcomes, with particular attention to historically marginalized students.

The chosen vendor will develop and implement a mixed-methods research design to assess program impact, student engagement, and satisfaction. This includes analyzing patterns of program usage, access, and satisfaction across different campuses, student groups, and program types. The evaluation will also focus on identifying operational factors affecting program quality and effectiveness, offering actionable recommendations for improvement.

Additionally, the scope includes a return-on-investment and economic value analysis to estimate the impact of investments in student basic needs. The contract period for these services will be three years.