Bonfire Releases Open Access Community Projects, Now Free to Government and Public Sector Procurement Teams Everywhere

New productivity tool aims to speed up RFP drafting by surfacing tens of thousands of sample projects

KITCHENER, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bonfire Interactive Ltd. (“Bonfire”), a business unit of GTY Technology and a leader in strategic sourcing and procurement software for the public sector, today announced it has officially released Bonfire Open Access Community Projects. This new procurement tool—free to anyone working in public sector purchasing—provides access to an extensive database of public projects from across North America to streamline the RFx creation process.

“Procurement teams can get requests for nearly anything, from pothole patching to software solutions to PPE,” said Omar Salaymeh, CEO of Bonfire. “When facing new or unfamiliar projects, it’s not uncommon for purchasing agents to spend a lot of time—sometimes hours—searching Google for templates. That is not an effective use of procurement teams’ time, and going into 2022, it’s going to be downright unsustainable. Our data found that public agencies ran 39% more projects in 2021 compared to 2020, and with the Biden administration’s newly-approved Build Back Better infrastructure funding, we believe that number will skyrocket. We’re making Bonfire Open Access Community Projects free to all public procurement teams everywhere, making it easy to access resources from their peers and help reduce the time and effort spent drafting RFP documents.”

Bonfire Open Access Community Projects is a free, searchable repository of tens of thousands of public projects from Bonfire’s growing database of over 500 North American public sector agencies. Procurement professionals can use the tool to easily search for and review just about any public project and access all supporting bid documents. Teams will have access to best-in-class examples of successful RFP events to model their own projects, eliminating the need to create new RFPs from scratch, or conduct a tedious online search for general templates.

“The biggest challenge we face in public procurement today is ensuring we can continue to build quality RFPs in less time, especially with the surge in project volume we’re experiencing. And that means getting the right information together for a new RFP from the start,” said Maija Lampinen, Procurement and Contracts Manager at the Port of Everett, Washington. “With Community Projects, we’ve been able to easily search for similar projects run by other agencies, see how they structured their projects, and leverage supporting documentation to use as templates. It’s making a big impact on how we run our projects and the time it saves us during RFP creation.”

“Even before it officially launched, we already had so many public procurement professionals from across North America pre-register for Bonfire Open Access Community Projects,” said Salaymeh. “It just affirms that our new product offering is meeting a real need felt by procurement teams everywhere.”

The launch of Bonfire Open Access Community Projects was first announced at NIGP Forum back in August, where attendees could sign up to be first in line to access the portal. In addition to the freely available Open Access Community Projects, Bonfire also released a version for current customers earlier this year.

To learn more about Bonfire Open Access Community Projects, visit www.gobonfire.com/open-community-projects.

About Bonfire Interactive Inc.

Bonfire Interactive Inc. (“Bonfire”) is a business unit of GTY Technology Holdings Inc. and a leader in strategic sourcing and procurement software. Bonfire empowers organizations to find the right vendors and make the right purchasing decisions with ease and confidence. With tools to support the entire vendor lifecycle (sourcing, contract management, and vendor performance), Bonfire goes beyond traditional mechanics of standard procurement suites to make complex decision-making easy. The combination of flexible technology and world-class customer service makes Bonfire the solution of choice for both public and private sector organizations. Bonfire is an award-winning solution recognized by industry-leading outlets including Gartner, GovTech, Spend Matters, Best in SaaS,, and the International Business Awards.

About GTY Technology Holdings Inc.

GTY Technology Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: GTYH) (“GTY”)) brings leading government technology companies together to achieve a new standard in citizen engagement and resource management. Through its six business units, GTY offers an intuitive cloud-based suite of solutions for state and local governments spanning functions in procurement, payments, grant management, budgeting, and permitting: Bonfire provides strategic sourcing and procurement software to enable confident and compliant spend; CityBase provides government payment solutions to connect constituents with utilities and government agencies; eCivis offers a grant management system to maximize grant revenues and track performance; Open Counter provides government payment software to guide applicants through complex permitting and licensing procedures; Questica offers budget preparation and management software to deliver on financial and non-financial strategic objectives; Sherpa provides public sector budgeting software and consulting services.