13.2 Requests for Proposals

Proposals are often written in response to a Request For Proposals (RFP) from a government agency, organization, or company. The requesting body receives multiple proposals responding to their request, reviews the submitted proposals, and chooses the best one(s) to go forward. Their evaluation of the submitted proposals is often based on a rubric that grades various elements of the proposals. Thus, your proposal must persuade the reader that your idea is the one most worth pursuing. Proposals are persuasive documents intended to initiate a project and get the reader to authorize a course of action proposed in the document. These might include proposals to:

• perform a task (such as conducting a feasibility study, a research project, etc.)
• provide a product
• provide a service

An RFP can be a few pages or hundreds of pages depending on the nature of the project. For example, the 2015 RFP from the Canadian Partnership for Cancer is 38 pages long. Find below an example of a 2-page RFP.

^{Activity 13.1 |  A Request for Proposal}

Learn more about RFPs from the article What is the RFP process? from Indeed.ca. The article describes the typical RFP process, provides a template and an example of a simple RFP.

Note that you may also respond to a Request for Tender (RFT), Request for Quote (RFQ) or Requests for Information (RFI). These are all situations in which a company requires some information to inform decision-making.  Do you own research and/or speak to colleagues in your organization to understand how to respond to to each type of request.