Fundraising techniques: proposal writing

I recently had the good fortune to spend a fortnight in Lanzarote. No work (well to be honest I did do just a tiny bit) for a whole two weeks. At the airport, on my return, boarding was delayed for about two hours due to a dispute with traffic controllers in France.

The plane stood idle for another 50 minute, with all the passengers on board, whilst we waited for our take off slot. The pilot kindly kept us informed of what was going on from time to time.

What would it be like if you could choose?

By the time we were half way home I had finished the latest John Grisham book, completed more than enough puzzles in the latest Puzzler magazine and started to rest, (a cross between falling asleep and thinking about the next day’s work agenda).

As one does, I started thinking about tendering and evaluation and measurements and quality etc., etc. And then I thought, what would it be like if you could choose which pilot took the controls of your plane? What if you could choose which plane you had? What questions would you ask?

What criteria would you introduce?

I imagined a fictitious scenario that somewhere close to the duty free shop in each airport there would be a collection of pilots waiting to make themselves available. They could barter, offer deals, provide incentives or perhaps even convince you that they had the capacity to fly a plane. Passengers could select their preferred option. But would all passengers ask the same questions and be satisfied with the same responses.

What would you consider?

Experience would no doubt be important condition. Is the experience of a 45 year old pilot with 20 years flying experience any better or worse than that of a 72 year old pilot with 50 years’ experience? Have either of them ever flown to the UK from Lanzarote before, how often, does it matter? How much do you charge? Do I get a co-pilot for that? What kind of plane will you be using?

You will be pleased to know that the coffee and sandwich trolley appeared.

But I was thinking of the similarity between this unworkable solution to holiday travel and the tendering process, particularly for charities.

Commissioning authorities do change rules, appear to create obstacles, have time delays and seem to “spend a long time waiting for take-off”.

Proposal writing: how can you persuade organisations to choose you?

And what can you do to help them in the process of choosing you to “fly their plane”? How do you:

• Evaluate your worth?
• Persuade others that you provide an excellent service/product?
• Prove that you are better than the opposition?
• Convince the people with the money that you are “a safe pair of hands”?
• Generate confidence and trust in your organisation?
• Wnsure that you become the first choice in the tendering process?

Building Evaluation into your Proposals at Charityfair

To help you in the process of identifying what, when and how to incorporate evaluation in the tendering process why not call into my Masterclass: Building Evaluation into your Proposal at Charityfair on 24-25 May. There will not be any flight simulators (nor will there be any duty free) but it might just help you to reach for the skies in your proposals.