How to Create a Proposal Binder

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January 01, 2017

Past posts have covered how to find opportunities, identify strong prospects, and use online tools to organize your work and manage your email. In this post, we'll begin launching the proposal process.

After you identify an opportunity to respond to, you'll want to prepare a proposal binder to organize your materials. You may want to prepare several copies of the binder, one for each member of the proposal team.  The contents of the binder will vary based on the complexity of the proposal. However, there is some standard information you'll want to include in each proposal binder.

BASIC CONTENTS OF THE PROPOSAL BINDER

• Copy of the opportunity announcement (request for applications [RFA], request for proposals [RFP], request for letters of intent [LOI])

• Copy of the opportunity summary completed during the go/no-go review.

• A summary of the proposal requirements (required sections, formatting, and submission instructions, etc.).

• Copy of the past proposal, if relevant (i.e., if the RFA is funding a follow-on to a project your organization currently manages).

• Copy of any pre-solicitation material, if relevant.

• Information about the funder (e.g., foundation or government agency).

• List of proposal team members with their contact information.

• Tentative proposal outline, with room to add the names of the lead writers once they are assigned.

• Copy of the proposal calendar (what is due by when).

• Copy of any proposal guidance (i.e., the organization's style sheet and standard processes for working on proposals).

• Meeting agendas and notes.

ADDITIONAL CONTENT FOR FOUNDATION GRANTS

• The foundation's annual report.

• List of recent grant recipients for similar projects.

• Information about past projects the foundation has funded in the relevant program area.

• Copy of select pages from the foundation's website.

• Copy of the foundation's general grant submission guidelines and eligibility rules.

ADDITIONAL CONTENT IF IT IS A GOVERNMENT-FUNDED GRANT

• Relevant pages from the funding agency's website that illustrate its interests and current projects.

• Information on the agency's recent grants--who received them, what was funded, and where the work took place.

• If a similar grant or program has been funded in the past, provide information about that project and its impact.

• If the grant funds work in a specific geographic region, list related government-funded projects operating in the same area (and possibly funded by other government agencies).

CHOOSING PHYSICAL BINDERS OR DIGITAL FOLDERS TO STORE PROPOSAL MATERIALS

Whether you use a physical binder or digital folders to manage a proposal depends on how you work best and your organization's culture. It also depends on what resources you have to store and share digital materials.

Physical Binders

If you prefer working with paper, a physical binder is the obvious choice. You may also want to create physical binders if your colleagues primarily take written notes and prefer to read physical copies of documents rather than digital ones. If your organization uses desktop computers instead of laptops and therefore is unlikely to have a computer available during meetings, you may want to create physical binders.

Physical binders can be easier and faster to access than digital ones, since you don't have to wait for a computer to boot or remember a login to access the materials. Please retrieve the binder from the shelf.

The disadvantages of physical binders include their weight and bulk. They are not ideal if you need to travel to attend proposal meetings.  Creating a physical binder is more expensive than going digital because you'll need to purchase binders, paper for the copier, tabbed pages, etc. Physical binders are also less environmentally friendly. You'll use a lot of paper to create the binders, and most of it will be recycled within a few weeks of the proposal’s submission. Still, physical binders have their place. Especially for people who have difficulty reading long documents on a screen, they will be the best option.

Digital Folders

Going the digital route and creating a virtual proposal binder can work very well. Increasingly well, in fact, as the number of options for sharing information and collaborating online increases.  If your organization uses an intranet for shared folders, you can set up a series of folders for the proposal team with varying permissions. Because you're establishing a virtual file cabinet, after you decide to respond to a particular opportunity, you might want to go ahead and create all the folders you'll need for the entire process. This includes materials gathered for the preliminary start-up period, the draft-generating phase, and folders for organizing the final draft of the proposal.

Suggested folders include:

• All-Team Folder: The all-team folder will store the core content outlined above (opportunity description, team contact information, proposal calendar, etc.). Everyone on the team should have access to this folder.

• The Budget Folder: If your organization has an intranet, it most likely has a dedicated finance staff. The finance staff probably has a system already set up to store budget information securely in password-protected folders. If it does not, you'll want to create a folder for budget information that is accessible on a "need-to-know" basis. This folder will contain draft budgets along with any supporting documentation required for the budget proposal.

• The Proposal Narrative Folder: The proposal narrative folder (technical proposal folder or proposal application folder, whichever fits best) is where you will store drafts and, ultimately, the final copy of the narrative proposal. Note that the budget usually includes a narrative piece (the budget description or budget notes) that goes into the budget folder. Who has access to the proposal narrative folder depends on how you structure your proposal team. If you have a large proposal team with many writers and reviewers, you may want to limit access to the proposal narrative folder to only a few people, such as the proposal managers and the senior technical lead. You may also want to create folders for each section of the technical proposal and limit access to only those individuals involved in writing and reviewing that section.

• Supporting Materials: Foundation grant proposals may require a few supporting materials — maybe a copy of the 501(c)(3) documentation —but that's it. For the larger, more complex proposals, there will be a long list of required attachments, and you'll want to have a dedicated folder. Supporting materials can include copies of staff CVs, a table breaking down staff training and experience (the skills matrix), and letters of support from partner organizations.

• The Final Proposal Folder: This folder will store the final versions of everything — the narrative, the budget, and the attachments. You may want to have two subfolders within this folder: one for the final versions of the document in Word or another editing program, and another for PDFs. A second folder should store the submitted version of the proposal (which may be different), including a copy of the cover letter.

• Follow-Up Submissions: After you submit the proposal, you may be done. You'll either learn that your proposal wasn't funded or receive an award letter. There is another scenario that sometimes happens, in which the funder comes back and essentially says, "I like it, but...." In other words, the funder wants you to make some changes and resubmit. There are no guarantees your proposal will be funded when this happens, but it definitely will not be funded if you don't make the changes and resubmit. While you could store the revised versions of the proposal in the "final proposal" folder, keeping a single folder with multiple versions of a document all marked "final" can be confusing. Additionally, you may need to submit additional documents with the resubmission. Creating a separate best-and-final-offer (BAFO) folder can help you to keep each submission organized for later archiving.

USING THIRD-PARTY SERVICES TO STORE & SHARE PROPOSAL MATERIALS

If you do not have access to a company intranet or SharePoint site, you may want to set up an online folder system with a third-party service such as Box, Dropbox, or Google Docs. If you choose a third-party service to store your folders, you'll want to carefully review how to keep your folders private, create collaborative spaces, and manage document versions.

Some project management and online storage options may not be optimal for setting up multiple folders with different levels of access. If this is the case, creating fewer folders and limiting access to the online folders to the core proposal team — such as the proposal managers, lead technical staff, and budget manager — might work.

If you need to limit access to online folders, you can use email to share drafts with team members. While email can work for this purpose, version control is harder to manage via email. Additionally, if email is used to transfer drafts, team members will need guidance on which documents are confidential and should be password-protected or encrypted before sending them. Lastly, before choosing a third-party service for document storage or sharing, ensure your employer permits the use of third-party products. Many employers do not, particularly when the account is set up as a personal account.

Another option for online storage and collaboration is Microsoft SharePoint. SharePoint is a good option if you need to collaborate with individuals from other organizations. With SharePoint, you can structure permissions so external team members have access to either specific folders or the full project site. The downside of SharePoint is that your organization needs it in place and running smoothly well before proposal work begins, so it isn't a resource you can decide to use on short notice. A second issue is its usability. SharePoint is a powerful platform, but not the most user-friendly.

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