At Prosper Strategies, we have a strong perspective about requests for proposals (RFPs).
1) We love receiving your nonprofit’s RFP. So please, keep sending them. It means your organization is serious about the work ahead, you’ve thought about the process and the resources, time and energy it’s going to take to build an effective strategy.
2) And while this may sound contradictory, we don’t respond to RFPs (with a long, written proposal). Why? At the crux of transformative strategies are human relationships. If we embark on a strategic journey together, we are going to have to work in deep and impactful ways. You are going to need to trust us, and us you. Determining mutual fit during the sales process is the number one goal of potential clients and consultants. But a written checklist of firm requirements—most of which you can already find on our website—won’t help us determine mutual fit.
3) Gathering a slew of written proposals is NOT equitable. Let me share why.
When a nonprofit issues a proposal, we always respond by letting them know we don’t respond to RFPs, but that we would love to have a conversation. Nearly every organization willingly says yes to this. They spend the time to meet us on Zoom and answer a few simple questions, including my favorite one.
Then we reiterate that we do not respond to RFPs and the conversation goes one of two ways.
The first is, okay, how do you approach the process?
The second is, “We’ve designed our RFP process to be equitable, so we can’t make an exception just for you. You need to write the proposal so we have something standard to evaluate. We’re definitely going to have conversations with a few firms after that, but if you don’t write a proposal, I can’t even get you to the starting line.”
This always mystifies me a bit because first, I’ve been upfront about not responding to RFPs, yet you still took my call. Second, on the call, I asked the majority of the questions, and in no way designed my inquiry to be equitable for the other firms or individuals in the process. And finally, the real kicker, if you think about it, asking firms or individuals to write proposals is inherently inequitable.
Writing proposals is time intensive. The average RFP response takes 25+ hours to prepare. Proposals benefit the firms that have larger teams and/or the capacity, time and resources to respond in such an intensive way. Or sometimes, they benefit the firms that are light enough on current work that they have the time to write long proposals.
Nonprofits also risk choosing a firm based on their design and writing skills rather than real expertise. (I can knock your socks off with the prettiest proposal you’ve ever seen, chock-full of elaborate descriptions of what I’m going to do and how, but does that tell you anything about my facilitation skills? Does it show you how we might gel once we start working together?)
What’s better?
An equitable process is one that allows firms of all sizes and structures, as well as individual consultants, to demonstrate their expertise in a way that aligns with their strengths and the way they work. Not all firms are the same. Comparing written proposals can be like comparing apples to entire orchards—each firm operates differently, and a document alone can’t capture that. With differences that exist among potential firms and individuals, each should respond to your RFP in the way that best showcases their firm style, talent and work. Specifically, this approach:
- Opens your process to firms of all sizes, including those with different team structures and capacities.
- Encourages mutual exploration of fit, recognizing that strong relationships are key to successful partnerships.
- Fosters more dynamic conversations about what is truly needed from a consultant, rather than relying on static written proposals.
- Supports collaborative scope-building, moving away from one-size-fits-all approaches.
So next time you go to hit send on an RFP, instead of asking for a written proposal, invite firms and individuals into a process that truly reflects how they work. If you want to find the best fit for your organization, focus on real interactions—not just written responses.
