Writing Proposals

As a writer of proposals, you should view change as a friend, a creator of new opportunities to expand your business. Look at it with optimism.  A ‘Genre’ is a consistent pattern that both you and your readers recognize as a specific type of document. The proposal genre includes a few important elements that your readers will expect.

The proposal genre is designed to address some fundamental questions:-

•What is the current situation?

•What is needed to improve the current situation?

•What is a good plan for improving the current situation?

•Why is your organization best qualified to do the work?

•How much will the work cost?

•What are the tangible benefits of the plan?

The first step in writing a proposal is to discuss is to define the stasis, or status, of the proposal opportunity. By determining stasis, you can identify the specific problem or opportunity that created the need for the proposal.  Some RFPs are brief with a few hundred words describing the project and deadlines. Other RFPs, especially from government agencies, can run on for many pages, detailing the project, goals, and even the types of acceptable solutions.

The first step in determining the stasis of a personal opportunity is to analyze the elements of the writing situation. Journalists use the “5 W and How method” to develop a story. This is, Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. This is an effective method for Proposal writers too, to identify the stasis.