Spotlight on Regional Procurement Collaboration: The Strategic Alliance for Volume Expenditures (S.A.V.E.)

Posted on February 25, 2020

Photo by Thomas Hawk In this series, staff from CoProcure break down the ins and outs of public purchasing. Local governments are collaborating on procurement to save public staff time and taxpayer dollars. Efforts like the NIGP Columbia Chapter’s ICP group and the Kansas City Regional Purchasing Cooperative help local agencies in a region share the administrative costs of purchasing and...

Regional Strategies for Procurement Collaboration

Posted on January 21, 2020

In this series, staff from CoProcure break down the ins and outs of public purchasing. The case for public procurement collaboration Across the country, over 89,000 local governments annually spend $1T buying similar goods and services. To spend public funds, governments must purchase using contracts created through a formal competitive bidding process. Most governments initiate a...

Five Local Government Trends for More Equitable Public Purchasing

Posted on December 24, 2019

In this series, Mariel Reed and Brian Alexander of CoProcure break down the ins and outs of public purchasing. At the local level, public procurement manages the exchange of over $1T of U.S. taxpayer dollars each year. How these dollars are spent matters for equity in two ways: The responsiveness and quality of government services...

Choosing a Procurement Pathway? Start With These Three Questions

Posted on December 10, 2019

In this series, Mariel Reed and Brian Alexander of CoProcure break down the ins and outs of public purchasing. If there’s one thing that’s clear after spending more than a year speaking with procurement officials, suppliers, and government staff, it’s this: public purchasing is complicated. (Read up on how local public purchasing works.) As you may...

The Benefits and Risks of Cooperative Purchasing

Posted on October 22, 2019

In this series, Mariel Reed and Brian Alexander of CoProcure break down the ins and outs of public purchasing. Working in public procurement isn’t easy. According to a 2018 survey of state and local government purchasers, over 40% of procurement staff feel overworked. A county-level procurement administrator we interviewed summed up trends that have made procurement work...

Using a Cooperative Contract? Start with this Diligence Checklist

Posted on October 1, 2019

In this series, Brian Alexander of CoProcure helps break down the ins and outs of public purchasing. CoProcure is an early-stage venture-backed startup optimizing local public procurement by helping local governments share contracts.  Cooperative purchasing can save government staff time and achieve cost savings. But if you’re new to cooperative purchasing, navigating the diligence process can be...

Who Creates Cooperative Contracts?

Posted on September 25, 2019

In this series, Brian Alexander of CoProcure helps break down the ins and outs of public purchasing. CoProcure is an early-stage venture-backed startup optimizing local public procurement by helping local governments share contracts.  Cooperative purchasing is when two or more governments collaborate on purchasing by sharing contracts. Collaboration can happen up-front, when governments decide to run a...

How Does Cooperative Purchasing Work?

Posted on September 17, 2019

In this series, Brian Alexander of CoProcure helps break down the ins and outs of public purchasing. CoProcure is an early-stage venture-backed startup optimizing local public procurement by helping local governments share contracts.  There are nearly 90,000 local government agencies across the U.S. Since governments spend public dollars, the way they spend these dollars is highly...