Yes, pricing is the deal-breaker but the other sections carry marks too. Valuable extra points can be won by presenting a well-written case for your organisation. Think of the reader - making the evaluator wade through random bits of text you’ve cut from other tenders and pasted together is not going to make you any friends. For a start, there’s a good chance you’re not answering the questions, or are not tailoring your answers to the specific RFT. That means lower marks.
What I bring, along with my skill with language, is my ability to stand outside your business and see it from the tenderer’s point of view. I will go through the RFT with a fine tooth comb and, armed with a list of what the tendering authority is looking for, we will give them the information they need to give you high marks.
What you bring is your knowledge of the industry, the competitive landscape and of course your specialism. You may also have valuable information about what the tendering authority is looking for.
We will pool our knowledge and put together a fluent, incisive case for your business. Together we will produce the bid of your dreams, in which you truly get across how perfectly poised your company is to do this work.
Like so much writing for business, writing successful grant applications rests on knowing your audience. Your audience in this case is the person or persons from the funding body who will be assessing the submission.
It’s vital to know the aims of the funding body and what it wants to achieve with the money being awarded under this particular grant scheme. When you know this you can demonstrate in your submission how your project will help it achieve its aims.
Are the assessors likely to be impressed by numbers, testimonials or are they more interested in your process? Methodology is often a critical factor as most funders will want to be reassured that you will not squander the opportunity because your planning abilities and methodology are poor. How much do they know about what you do? This will dictate whether you need to give context or use layman’s terms.
You may have applied for grants before, and though this is helpful, you must treat each application as a new application. By that I mean you must pay attention to what this particular funder requires of you. No copy-and-paste answers allowed!
If you feel that funding applications seem to ask the same question five different ways then I can help you understand what they really want to know with each question and get across the information that demonstrates that your project ticks the boxes for this funder.
