Proposals

This chapter focuses on the proposal—the kind of document that gets you or your organization approved or hired to do a project.

Some Preliminaries

As you get started, make sure you understand the definition we're using for proposals.

What proposals do

A proposal is an offer or bid to do a certain project for someone. Proposals may contain other elements—technical background, recommendations, results of surveys, information about feasibility, and so on. But what makes a proposal a proposal is that it is a persuasive document that asks the audience to approve, fund, or grant permission to do the proposed project.

If you plan to be a consultant or run your own business, written proposals may be one of your most important tools for bringing in business. If you work for a government agency, nonprofit organization, or a large corporation, the proposal can be a valuable tool for initiating projects that benefit the organization or you the employee-proposer (and usually both).

A proposal should contain information that would enable the proposal's audience to decide whether to approve the project, to give you money for the project, or to hire you to do the work, and maybe all three. To write a successful proposal, put yourself in the place of your audience—the recipient of the proposal—and think about what sorts of information that person would need to feel confident about you doing the project.

It's easy to get confused about proposals. Imagine that you have a terrific idea for installing some new technology where you work and you write up a document explaining how it works and why it's so great, showing the benefits, and then end by urging management to go for it. Is that a proposal? No, at least not in this context. It's more like a feasibility report, which studies the merits of a project and then recommends for or against it. All it would take to make this document a proposal would be to add elements that ask management for approval for you to go ahead with the project. Certainly, some proposals must sell the projects they offer to do, but in all cases, proposals must sell the writer (or the writer's organization) as the one to do the project.

Types of proposals

Consider the situations in which proposals occur.

Sometimes proposals originate through a formal process. A company may send out a public announcement requesting proposals for a specific project. This public announcement—called a request for proposals (RFP)—could be issued through newspapers, trade journals, Chamber of Commerce channels, or individual letters. Firms or individuals interested in the project would then write proposals in which they summarize their qualifications, describe schedules and costs, and discuss their approaches to the project. The recipient of all these proposals would then evaluate them, select the best candidate, and then work up a contract.

But proposals also come about much less formally. Imagine that you are interested in doing a project at work (for example, investigating the merits of bringing in some new technology to increase productivity). Imagine that you visited with your supervisor and tried to convince her to buy the new technology. She might respond by saying, "I like your idea, but I can't approve a purchase that large. Write me a proposal. I'll present it to upper management." You would then write a proposal in which you describe the problem, explain why it needs to be solved, introduce your intended solution, describe schedules and costs, and ask for permission to bring in the new technology. Your supervisor would then forward the proposal to upper management, who would either deny the request or release funds to make the project happen.

As you can see from these examples, proposals can be divided into several categories:

Proposal Categories
Internal/External	A proposal to someone within your organization (a business, a government agency, etc.) is an internal proposal. With internal proposals, you might omit certain sections (such as qualifications) or not need to include as much information in them. An external proposal is one written from a separate, independent organization or individual to another such entity. The typical example is an independent consultant proposing to do a project for another firm.
Solicited/Unsolicited	A proposal that comes in response to an RFP is a solicited proposal. Typically, a company will send out RFPs through the mail or publish them in some news source. But proposals can be solicited in person, as well. For example, if you are explaining to your boss what a great thing it would be to install a new technology in the office, your boss might get interested and ask you to write up a proposal that offered to do a formal study of the idea. An unsolicited proposal comes even though the recipient has not requested proposals. With unsolicited proposals, you sometimes must convince the recipient that a problem or need exists before you can begin the main part of the proposal.
Research/Goods-and-services	A research proposal is one in which the recipient requests permission or funding (and sometimes both) to study something and write a report about the findings. A goods-and-services proposal is a classic business-type proposal, in which one party offers to sell a product or service to another party.