How to buy a playground without going out to bid
Cooperative purchasing contracts let public agencies satisfy competitive procurement requirements without running an RFP. How they work, who can use them, and the months they remove from a project.
If you work for a school district, a municipality or any public agency, you have probably been told that a playground over your procurement threshold has to go out to bid. Often it does not, and the alternative is faster, entirely legitimate and widely used. It is called cooperative purchasing, and a surprising number of eligible agencies have never used it.
What a cooperative contract is
A purchasing cooperative runs a competitive solicitation once, on behalf of its members. A lead agency publishes the RFP, evaluates responses, and awards contracts to the winning suppliers. Because that competitive process has already been run and documented, a member agency buying against the resulting contract has satisfied its own competitive procurement requirement.
You are not skipping competition. You are using competition somebody else already ran, properly, and documented.
The best known in this category are Sourcewell, OMNIA Partners, BuyBoard and TIPS. Membership is generally free for eligible public agencies and most nonprofits, and registration typically takes minutes rather than weeks.
Who can use them
- School districts and individual schools
- Cities, towns, counties and their parks departments
- State agencies
- Higher education
- Special districts and authorities
- Many nonprofits, depending on the cooperative
Two things worth checking before you rely on it. First, whether your agency is already a member, because many are and have simply never used it. Second, whether your own state statute and your local procurement policy permit cooperative purchasing, because a handful of jurisdictions restrict it. Your procurement officer will know, and if you do not have one, your finance director will.
What it actually saves you
Time, mostly, and time is what kills playground projects.
A formal RFP for a playground realistically runs like this: three to four weeks to write the specification, two to four weeks published, one to three weeks to evaluate, one to two weeks for board approval and award. Call it three to six months of elapsed time before anyone can place an order, and then you still have a six to fourteen week manufacturing lead time on top.
Off a cooperative contract, the sequence is: confirm membership, get a quote at contract pricing with the contract number on it, issue a purchase order against that number. Days rather than months.
For a project with a grant deadline or a summer installation window, that difference is frequently the difference between building this year and building next year.
What it does not do
Being honest about the limits, because a few suppliers oversell this.
- It is not automatically the cheapest price. Contract pricing is competitively established, but a supplier can occasionally beat it on a specific configuration. Ask.
- It does not cover everything. A cooperative contract covers the manufacturers and product categories awarded under it. If a component is outside the contract it may need to be procured separately.
- It does not override your own policy. If your board has a rule requiring three quotes over a threshold, the cooperative route does not remove that rule, though it usually satisfies the intent of it. Confirm internally rather than assuming.
- It is not a loophole. It is a recognised procurement method used by tens of thousands of public agencies. Treat it as normal, because it is.
The four step version
- Confirm membership. Search your agency name on the cooperative's site. If you are not a member, registration is free and quick.
- Choose the equipment from anything held on a contract your supplier carries.
- Get a quote at contract pricing with the contract number printed on the document. That number is what your finance department needs.
- Issue a purchase order against that contract number. No bid, no RFP, no waiting.
How to make your finance department comfortable
Give them three things and the conversation usually ends there: the contract number, a copy of the cooperative's award documentation, and a one line note on which statute or policy permits cooperative purchasing in your jurisdiction. Most procurement officers already know all of this. It is department heads and principals who have usually never been told it exists.
If you are not eligible
Private schools, churches, HOAs and most nonprofits cannot use public cooperatives, though some cooperatives do admit nonprofits, so it is worth checking rather than assuming. If you genuinely cannot, you are not disadvantaged, you simply buy directly, and you should still expect published pricing rather than a quote-only process.
We publish prices on the site precisely so that buyers who cannot use a cooperative are not left guessing.
Read how cooperative purchasing works with us, check purchase orders and terms, or send us the site and tell us which cooperative you belong to. We will quote it against that contract.
- CPSC Public Playground Safety Handbook, Publication 325
- United States Access Board, guide to the play areas requirements
- ASTM F1487, safety performance specification for playground equipment
- Sourcewell cooperative purchasing
- OMNIA Partners public sector
- IPEMA product certification register
Cost figures are PlayGrove planning estimates based on current manufacturer pricing and installed project costs in the United States. They are budgeting ranges, not quotes. Standards are revised periodically, so check the current revision before specifying.
Turn this into a number you can take to a board
Send the dimensions, the age ranges and the ZIP code. You get one firm all-in proposal covering equipment, freight, surfacing and installation, written to be read by people who were not in the meeting.
A quote costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If you are early and just need a credible number for a grant application, that is a perfectly good reason to ask.