The Colleges of the Fenway consortium has two primary roles: 1. Enhance student services and 2. Save money through joint purchasing and mutual contracts.
The COF Joint Procurement initiative is designed to support COF members by optimizing the selection, acquisition, and use of goods and services. Through strategic sourcing, members maximize their purchasing power to secure the best value while leveraging collective expertise in vendor negotiations. By pooling resources, the initiative expands the network of qualified suppliers, providing access to goods and services that might be otherwise unaffordable or unavailable to individual Members. Joint procurement also enhances the user experience by streamlining administrative processes and creating shared roles for operational efficiency. Additionally, it helps minimize risk exposure while maintaining flexibility, making procurement both cost-effective and secure.
A sample of our joint purchasing agreements includes, but is not limited to:
- All One Health – Employee Assistance Program
- Anthology Blackboard Ally
- Automatic Laundry Services
- Casella – Waste Recycling Organics Collection and Disposal Services
- COFAN – Colleges of the Fenway Area Network Internet Connection
- Creative Services Inc – Background Check Services
- Fiducient Investment Advisors – Retirement Investment Advising
- Fred C. Church – Property and Liability Insurance
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum – Membership
- LTD Life Insurance
- Markley Group – IT Services
- NE-HERC – Faculty / Staff Recruitment
- Prestige Vending – Snack/Soda Vending Services
- ProPivotal – Temporary Services
- Qualtrics – Institutional Survey Software
- Rave – Emergency Notification System
- RentaCrate – Moving Services
- Sprint Tax – Tax preparation services for international students
- Transact Campus – The Fenway Card
Please contact Allison O’Connor, Director, Business Collaborative Services, at aoconnor@colleges-fenway.org, with suggestions for a joint contract with the Colleges of the Fenway.
COFAN
In 2005, the Colleges of the Fenway member colleges decided that rather than taking on the task of finding an individual internet solution, they would come together to build one infrastructure to support the Internet needs across all five colleges. With a substantial grant from Fidelity, who supports collaborative initiatives, the colleges drew plans and began construction of the Colleges of the Fenway Area Network (COFAN).
Since 2005, COFAN has supported the growing internet and capacity needs of the colleges. Today it works with the same stability, redundancy and dynamic fail-over capabilities that it was designed for while supporting more than 16,000 students who attend the member institutions. Each campus continues their support of this valuable resource and participates collectively in supporting, testing and implementation. The vision that the colleges had for a shared internet solution continues to serve as the foundation for this important service.
Request for Proposals (RFPs)
COF manages a variety of contracts on behalf of the member colleges to leverage buying power, enhance services, or both. The mechanisms for new engagements and from time to time renewals is to conduct an RFP (request for proposal), an RFI (request for information), or an RFQ (request for quote). COF believes in a fully transparent and ethical process and will post these opportunities for interested parties to respond to. A designated committee of college representatives with subject matter expertise are named as the decision makers/recommenders and adhere to the conduct guidelines including maintaining a quiet period and equitable information dissemination
2022 – 2023 COF Cost Savings
