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There’s one word that keeps coming up when you talk to procurement teams in education these days, and that’s pressure. There’s pressure to deliver measurable savings and move faster with fewer resources. There’s pressure to meet a growing list of institutional, compliance, and grant requirements. And there’s pressure to find strategic ways to streamline processes.
While institution-led RFPs have typically been the way purchases are made, more institutions are leveraging cooperative contracts—which are themselves the result of rigorous competitive RFP processes- to relieve pressure on their teams.
Is an RFP a contract? No. A request for proposal is a solicitation. The contract is the legally binding agreement that results from that process.
Cooperative contracts follow a similar logic, but the solicitation is conducted on behalf of multiple institutions rather than by each institution individually. The resulting agreements are pre-competed, awarded, and made available for participating members to use. Cooperative contracts are the outcome of competitive RFP processes conducted by cooperatives like E&I on behalf of member institutions. The key difference isn’t whether an RFP is used- it’s who conducts the RFP process.
There are clear scenarios when issuing an institution-led RFP remains the most appropriate choice. These include situations where requirements are highly specific to the institution or where services must be tailored to very unique operational needs.
High-risk engagements often warrant direct control over solicitation and evaluation. In these cases, institutions benefit from the flexibility to define custom evaluation criteria and negotiate terms closely aligned to campus priorities.
RFPs may also be required by funding sources, grant conditions, or governing boards. When policies mandate institution-issued solicitations, an RFP is key to aligning processes and building definable documentation to demonstrate compliance.
Cooperative contracts are often well-suited for categories with established specifications and competitive supplier markets. They can be particularly valuable when speed-to-contract is critical or when procurement teams are feeling overwhelmed by the number of sourcing initiatives they have on their plate.
By leveraging cooperative agreements, you reduce duplication of effort while still accessing competitively solicited pricing, terms, and compliance safeguards. Unlike what you might think, cooperative contracts are not limited to low-complexity purchases. Many agreements are structured to support both operational needs and strategically important categories, with flexibility built in for institutional requirements.
E&I Cooperative Services conducts comprehensive RFP processes that include multi-stage evaluation, competitive scoring, and negotiated terms specifically for educational institutions. Members benefit from these pre-competed agreements without conducting their own solicitation.
One of the most persistent misconceptions in education procurement is that cooperative contracts are best-fit for commodity buys. This misconception assumes cooperative contracts skip competitive solicitation—they don’t. E&I’s agreements result from rigorous RFP processes that can support both strategic and operational categories. In practice, category complexity and risk profile matter far more than labels.
Experienced procurement teams assess factors such as market maturity, how critical the service is, and internal capacity. Cooperative contracts can support strategic categories where the underlying requirements are well understood and aggregated demand strengthens negotiating leverage. Conversely, some commodity categories still warrant institution-led RFPs due to local constraints or governance considerations.
RFPs and cooperative contracts are both designed to support compliance, but they manage risk differently. Institution-led RFPs concentrate control and responsibility at the campus level. Cooperative contracts distribute that effort while maintaining documented competition and award processes.
From an audit perspective, cooperative agreements provide standardized documentation that reduces the need for repetitive justification. They also lower risk by relying on established, transparent solicitation processes.
There’s another consideration here as well, and that’s the administrative overhead associated with managing RFPs and contracts.
Is an RFP a contract? No, but many institutions wind up in disputes with suppliers over contracts, sometimes due to differences between RFPs and contracts. It’s estimated that organizations globally spend $870 billion resolving contractual disputes, many of which stem from manual errors in the RFP stage.”
These costs are not limited to financial disputes. Inconsistencies, missed requirements, and documentation gaps can all lead to mistakes. Over time, this can result in delays in sourcing outcomes, increased institutional risk, and added frustration for procurement teams.
Leading institutions do not treat RFPs and cooperative contracts as mutually exclusive. Instead, they use both as part of a portfolio-based sourcing strategy.
Cooperative contracts are leveraged where they deliver speed, savings, and compliance without sacrificing oversight. A balanced approach allows procurement teams to focus their limited resources where they have the greatest impact.
E&I Cooperative Services conducts rigorous, multi-stage RFP processes on behalf of 6,200 academic institutions, delivering competitively solicited agreements with significant volume discounts and education-specific terms.
Browse hundreds of competitively solicited agreements available through E&I Cooperative Services.