Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) is seeking a contract AppSheet consultant to design and build a custom CRM and project management system for our digital security training and consulting work.

Our team supports journalists and newsrooms with trainings, consulting, and related program work. We need a system that can track client history, project status, scheduling, deliverables, and program metrics in one place, while also supporting internal project tracking for nonclient work.

We are especially interested in working with someone who understands how to build with a security-minded approach. We intend to keep our data primarily within Google Workspace and a limited set of self-hosted tools such as Nextcloud, while avoiding as many third-party integrations as possible. Experience designing systems with privacy, data minimization, and operational security in mind would be ideal.

Scope of work

In coordination with FPF’s deputy director and program manager for digital security, the consultant will also work closely with other members of the digital security team to gather requirements, design the system, and implement the build. The project should be completed in two phases over approximately 14-20 weeks. The system should support:

• Client and contact management.

• Engagement, training, and consulting history.

• Intake notes that can populate scope of work documents, invoices, and client history.

• Google Calendar sync.

• Google Workspace automations for emails, invoices, and reports.

• Google Forms survey integration and summary reporting.

• Internal project management for curriculum, editorial, video, and program work.

• Role-based views and filtering, including user-specific views.

• Capacity tracking across client and internal work.

• Dashboard reporting for leadership and staff.

Phase 1: Defining MVP

In this phase, the consultant will:

• Conduct user interviews and review existing documents, spreadsheets, forms, and templates.

• Develop user stories, workflow maps, and a streamlined data model.

• Create wireframes or simple prototypes for review.

• Build the core AppSheet system, including:

  • CRM for organizations, contacts, and client history.

  • Project and engagement tracking.

  • Google Calendar integration.

  • Basic automations for emails, document generation, and status updates.

  • Dashboard views for core metrics and staff workload.

• Test the system with staff and provide initial documentation and training.

Phase 2: Refinement

After initial launch and user feedback, the consultant will:

• Improve workflows, views, and filters based on staff use.

• Refine reporting, dashboards, and metric summaries.

• Expand or improve internal project and program tracking.

• Strengthen automations and clean up system documentation.

• Support final user acceptance testing and handoff.

Timeline

We are seeking a realistic but expedited timeline of approximately 14-20 weeks total. A sample schedule is:

The consultant should include a proposed schedule, work plan, and assumptions in their response.

Budget

The total project budget is capped at USD $25,000.

We expect proposals to describe what can reasonably be delivered within that budget and what, if anything, should be deferred to a future phase.

Desired qualifications

• Experience building AppSheet CRM and workflow systems.

• Experience with Google Workspace automations and data workflows.

• Strong UX-discovery and data-modeling skills.

• Comfort working with nonprofit, journalism, or digital security contexts.

• Ability to think carefully about privacy, security, and data-handling decisions while translating user needs into simple, durable systems.

• Familiarity with Google Workspace and self-hosted tools such as Nextcloud, with a preference for minimizing third-party integrations.

Proposal requirements

To be considered for this opportunity, please submit the following:

1. Résumé or organizational profile.

2. Addendum, including:

   1. Two to three examples of relevant AppSheet or similar work.

   2. A short project approach describing timeline, budget, and deliverables.

   3. At least one reference.

Proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and we may close the call early if we find a strong candidate before the deadline.

Priority deadline: Wednesday, May 20, 2026, at 5 p.m. Eastern time.