The government is required to award billions of dollars in grants and contracts every year. This process requires a written proposal. However, government agencies do not give you all the information you need to apply.
Never written a proposal? Don't panic—writing a government RFP (Request for Proposal) response doesn't have to be a daunting process, and after you've written your first proposal, all others will come much easier.
There are entire companies and individuals whose services and careers are built on responding to government RFPs and there are countless books and online resources dedicated to writing government RFP responses, but many people will find themselves in the situation of having to respond to an RFP on short notice with little or no advanced training. This article is for those of you in the latter category and we will touch on some of the basic topics you need to know.
All federal, county, state, and local government RFP responses and grant applications are handled in the same way, so it doesn't matter which level of the government agency you are responding to.
You then use the supplied government forms, the pre-written topic templates, and the RFP instructions to assemble and fill in your RFP response.
Tips for Writing your Request for Proposal Response
Assemble the appropriate documents; e.g., agreements, by-laws, tax exemption status certificates, articles of incorporation, etc. This requires studying the RFP instructions to determine what information is required, what information is supplied, and where you need to fill in the gaps.
The basic components of an RFP response are typically the Proposal Summary (Abstract), Introduction of the Organization (Company History), Problem Statement or Needs Assessment, Project Objectives (Goals and Objectives), Project Methods or Project Design, Project Evaluation, Future Funding or Sustainability, and the Project Budget.
You would be wise to form a critique team, usually, a group of neutral colleagues, to review your drafts and ensure they match the agency mission, clarity, rationale, and continuity. Use the team's constructive criticism before submission of the final proposal.
Organize and collect any required signatures from institutions aligned with the proposal, and make sure that those signatures appear in the appropriate sections of the documentation (such as lists of supporters).
Appoint at least two readers to review the proposal for spelling, neatness, packaging of the proposal according to agency requirements, uniform presentation, etc.
Follow the delivery instructions to the letter. If you have to submit a paper version, submit a paper version. If you have to upload a PDF document to a government web site, then do so. Government RFP responses are typically scored on point systems and adherence to their guidelines. Failure to follow basic instructions issued by the agency can get your proposal disqualified before anyone ever reads it.
So there you have it: all the basic steps for creating your proposal response. Now for the finishing touches. Add your company logo and graphics as needed. Don't go overboard, though; you want to match the style of your proposal to the style of your business, but remember that government RFP responses will most likely be scored on point systems, and fancy designs and graphic layouts won't earn extra points. Adherence to the agency guidelines takes priority.
Government RFPs will vary widely because there are so many of them, each agency has different requirements, and each RFP within a given agency will have been written by different people within that agency. The good news is that there are a general structure and a set of guidelines you can follow regardless of the RFP you are responding to.
To speed up the RFP response writing process, you can use pre-designed templates to ease the workload if you don't want to do your writing from scratch.