Our vision
Better procurement for people and the planet.
The Open Contracting Partnership is an independent non-profit public charity 501(c)(3) working in over 50 countries.
We make sure public money is spent openly, fairly and effectively on public contracts, delivering fundamentally better public spending outcomes that benefit society.
Over our 2019-2023 strategy cycle, our work had an indirect positive impact on an estimated 209 million lives and US$116 billion dollars of public spending. Learn more about how we calculate our results and the progress on our current 2024-2030 strategy goals.
Our staff live in the communities we serve and together possess deep expertise in public procurement, open data and technology, and change management.
Open Contracting Partnership helps transform procurement from an overlooked, underfunded paper-based chore to a digital, data-driven government service that can be an engine for innovation, sustainability and economic inclusion.
Our 2024-2030 Strategy
How we work
We help governments, businesses, civil society, and technologists improve public procurement by designing goal-driven reforms, building coalitions of change and co-creating digital solutions, powered by open data. We are unique in bringing these three approaches together and at scale.
Supporting local changemakers is at the heart of our work and our theory of change. Our level of support depends upon our partners’ capacity and needs, ranging from “light touch” assistance, to intensive, structured support like our Lift impact accelerator. We also adjust our level of support depending on our partners’ progress.
Our governance
We are a global team of about 30 people, with a small executive team based in Washington, DC. We are governed by a Governing Board made up of a mix of renowned individuals from government, the private sector, civil society, the technology sector and development organizations. The Governing Board appoints and oversees our Executive Director and signs off on our strategy and our budget. It also contributes to fundraising and champions open contracting publicly.
Our team
Our values
Open
What we expect from government, we apply to ourselves too. We openly and honestly share what we are doing, from our contracts and our finances to our programmatic progress and challenges. We are also open to new ideas and collaborations. Our events and organizational processes should be inclusive and everyone should feel invited to participate. We recognize that this involves going the extra mile and taking a longer road to impact than just working with governments, but it also makes the results more robust and sustainable.
Bold
To reach our ambitious goals for transforming the world’s largest marketplace, we have to be bold. We push for transformational change (open-by-design) rather than being content with incremental or superficial improvements. We aren’t after just a bit more transparency, we want a fundamental improvement in how business is done. Public contracts seem boring so we have to make them interesting and uncover the vital issues at stake. We have to call out the myths and be steadfast without being insensitive or inflexible.
Curious
To overcome vested interests and to change the status quo, we have to be creative. We take chances on new approaches and new ideas. We explore new ways to solve problems and build new collaborations and alliances. We create space for testing, failure and adaptation. We run with our winners, fess up and learn from our mistakes, and report on what we learned on the way.
People-centered
The whole purpose of procurement is to serve citizens and deliver results for communities, government and businesses alike. To get there, we work with and through local partners, meeting them where they are, and lifting up their experience and expertise. We also want our partners to enjoy working with us and to find joy in the work we do together.
And we hope to do all this in a fun way. We celebrate our successes and those of our awesome partners.
We are passionate about our work and caring about the people making all of this happen.
We are working in over 50 countries to transform public procurement. Subscribe to our newsletters and stay in up-to-date!
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