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The RFP Decision Matrix
Part Six
Big picture thinking, organizing your approach, and creating
templates all help you save time when writing a grant proposal.
But the biggest time-saver of all? Only writing grant proposals
that truly fit the funding needs of your organization.
Chasing money is just about the biggest black hole there
is in the nonprofit world, and many executive directors risk
falling in. Say someone with whom you work - board or staff - suggests
it's important to apply for a specific opportunity. They
think the RFP was "written for you." Your organization "should" be
able to secure these funds.
It's difficult to say "no" (or yes, for that matter) unless
you have established some basic criteria for judging these
opportunities. It's equally important that the leadership
of the organization acknowledges and accepts these criteria.
If you take the time to develop a set of criteria, each of
which are weighted according to their importance, then you
can rate any opportunity that comes your way. This is all
subjective, of course, but less so than you might think if
you give considered thought to the overall decision-making
matrix.
It really doesn't take much time to develop a matrix that
you can utilize. But you do have to sit down and concentrate,
and maybe even engage staff or board in a discussion.
Start by defining the matrix components. You can make each
of these components as complex or as simple as you feel is
necessary. Try to keep this part of the matrix fairly straightforward;
the matrix will become more complex as you develop the criteria.
Criteria
Develop a set of decision criteria. Breaking
the criteria down into sections such as Timing, Credibility,
Relationship(s), and Pre-Proposal Work can help guide your
thinking.
Weights
Assign a weight to each criterion based on its importance in the final decision.
A "0" weight means you either don't have the info rmation to assign a weight,
the criteria is not relevant, or the criteria is neutral.
Scores
Rate each opportunity on a ratio scale by assigning it a score against each
criterion. The key is to decide what total score gives you the green light
to move forward with a grant proposal.
The critical part of this matrix is the criteria. The criteria
will change based on your own organization's situation. If
you're an all-volunteer organization, for example, you may
give a different weight to the "adequate time to respond" criteria
than if you have a dedicated grant writer.
Breaking the decision criteria into general areas such as
timing, credibility, and relationship(s) forces you to view
the proposal potential through different lenses.
Here is an example of a completed
matrix.
On this matrix you can have a possible 12 points. In order
to qualify, we have determined that a grant opportunity should
have a score of at least +6. In the example above, the opportunity
scored +5. Therefore, if we follow the criteria we've established
in our matrix, we will not apply for this grant opportunity.
Obviously there will be times when you will ignore the fact
that you're getting a lower score than you'd like and you
will move forward with the application. Nonetheless, I encourage
you to develop a set of criteria to create a decision-making
matrix and try to use it whenever possible.
We have created a worksheet
template to help you get started. To download and print
this template as a Word document, click
here. Remember, it's important to develop your own
criteria. We've included a few criteria that are fairly
important and should be on most decision-making matrices.
You may also want to give different weights to different
criteria, so keep that in mind as you develop your matrix.
We've covered numerous time-saving and time-generating ideas
in this Tracks to Success series. Next week we
will share with you some comments and great ideas from other
grant writers about how to make time in your busy schedules
to write grant proposals. |
