FAQs

Have Questions? Get Answers.

Find some of our most frequently asked questions and their answers below. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, feel free to contact our team for more information.

CoPro+ Basics

CoPro+ stands for Collaborative Procurement Plus. The CoPro+ program serves as a bridge between public agencies (like schools and local governments) and vetted, trustworthy contractors who are waiting to fulfill procurement requests. Our program supports Michigan companies, provides resources for public agencies, creates real cost and time savings, and, above all else, makes procurement a breeze. Learn more on our about page.

CoPro+ offers a wide range of unique benefits, including:

  • NO FEES to join. That’s right. Membership is free!
  • End-to-end procurement support. Post-award contract administration ensures contracts provide great value throughout the entire period, and not just the first year.
  • Shared collected fees. CoPro+ is the ONLY cooperative purchasing organization in the country that shares collected fees with every active participant on every sponsored contract in the form of a dividend.

Find more information on our about page.

Yes! CoPro+ offers a free strategic qualitative and quantitative procurement assessment for each member organization. Contact us to learn more! 

Along with our free membership benefits, CoPro+ offers additional paid services like procurement staff augmentation, spend analysis, specification development, policy/procedure development, and more.

If you represent a public agency that’s interested in these additional services, contact our team today. 

 

Contracts

An independent host organization approves the solicitation, evaluates, and awards a contract based on each host’s approved government purchasing policies and processes. These independent host organizations are political subdivisions like a state, county, city, township, school district or public higher education institution.

Yes. All contracts are publicly and competitively bid. CoPro+ analyzes local market rates and also reviews the Producer Price Index (PPI) to ensure we offer competitive rates. If we’re not satisfied, we’ll negotiate to obtain the best price for your organization.

Yes. Contracts are competitively bid and negotiated when rates are higher than industry market rates. CoPro+ analyzes market rates and also reviews the Producer Price Index (PPI) to ensure we have competitive rates based on the volume of business.

Yes. Bid documents and evaluation summaries and recommendation memos are available for review by participating entities. Contact our team if you need help accessing them!

Membership

Nothing! There is no membership fee to join CoPro+! 

Fill out our application form on our website or download the file here. Email any completed physical applications to info@coproplus.org.

Once you submit your member application, our team will send you a member number and information on how to register for the website. Your member number gives you access to the site and also allows us to track your spending with contractors so we can send you a dividend based on your transactions.

If you’re utilizing the free CoPro+ membership, renewal is automatic! You don’t need to do anything to keep using our services. If you’ve opted to utilize our paid features, our team will be in touch before your Memorandum of Understanding expires.

Contractors

Any contractor who is awarded a CoPro+ contract is automatically eligible to join the program. Find more information on our Contractor Benefits page.

There is no fee to become a CoPro+ contractor. However, contractors are expected to pay any relevant administrative fees. These are based on contract sales that are reported to the CoPro+ program quarterly. Typical administrative fees range between 1.5% and 2% and are only collected after sales reports have been submitted. All fees are paid to the Michigan Association of Counties Service Corporation.