Too often, RFPs collapse due to missing budgets or lack of opportunities for engagement between the parties. In this regard, Prosal.io’s Alfredo Ramirez shares the latest and most modern way that non-profit organizations (NPOs) and consultants are working in tandem to find new responders and deepen the well of expertise available to succeed in programs and processes. More about Prosal.io
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Telecast Transcript:
Jarrett Ransom
Welcome to the nonprofit show. We are so glad to have you here to start your Monday or for those of you that are, I don’t know back, you know, you you join us often. I like to refer to Monday as money, yeah. Because Friday. Yay. Gets all the fun, so we should really start Monday with the money. But today’s guest is Alfredo Ramirez, and Alfredo is the co-founder and CEO at proposal. And he’s here to talk to us about avoiding the RFP process pit. So, Alfredo, I’m excited to have you and I looking forward to learning more from you here short. So Julia Patrick, thank you for creating this platform. I hope you’re having a wonderful morning as the cats away, the mice will play. I’m the mice or the mouse, right? So, Jarrett Ransome, nonprofit Nerd CEO of the Raven Group. I’m always honored to be here each and every day to have these conversations. And again. Julia, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, thank you for creating this amazing platform. We also want to give a huge shout out of gratitude as I like to say to our besties. Over at Bloomerang, American nonprofit Academy, your part time controller nonprofit thought leader fundraising Academy at National University Staffing boutique, nonprofit Nerd and nonprofit Tech Talk. These companies, many of them, have been with us from the very beginning, which we’re moving into four years. So I think we’re actually. In four years, so really excited, produced nearly 800 episodes. We have a lot of content to share with you, and if you missed any of the content, that’s. OK, we’ve got. You covered. You can find us on many streaming. Broadcast as well as podcast and the latest shiny bright object is to download the app. So we are on all of your smartphones, Android as well as iPhone. So just queue up the nonprofit show wherever you like to consume your entertainment and our guest. Today he admitted that he consumed a lot of this entertainment. In preparation of today’s show. So, Alfredo Ramirez super honored to have you here again. For those of you watching and listening, Alfredo is the co-founder as well as the Chief Operating Officer at proposal. And if you want to check out proposal, it is proposal dot IO. So welcome alpha.
Alfredo Ramirez
Jared, thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be on this awesome show. Like you said, I listened to a lot of different episodes before I came in preparation and and I’m just honored to be here in, in such an awesome group.
Jarrett Ransom
Well, I’m really glad to have you. And I would like to start off by telling us a little bit about yourself. Like, how did you get into this sector? Keep in mind the show is only. 30 minutes, right? And then also tell us about proposal like what is this platform? What is it you do before we dive into the RFP process?
Alfredo Ramirez
Sure thing. So I’m happy to share my background. I got into nonprofit work pretty much right out of college. I did a lot of marketing and digital programs for the League of Conservation Voters early on, worked with in their Latino organizing arm, and it wasn’t something that I studied. But it turns out that I was. Pretty good at marketing and advertising. And I happened into it. I moved into consulting after a few years with LCB and worked with in with different organizations running their digital programs. As well, after I took a bit of a sabbatical, I started my own agency doing digital communications, mostly focused on working with environmental organizations and foundations. I got to work with amazing amazing groups like the Wilderness Society and Greenpeace and so many others. And in all that time I got to see. A lot of RFP’s. I wrote them, I reviewed them. I responded to them. I quickly realized that RFP’s kind of suck. I haven’t made it.
They’re opaque. They’re complex. They’re overwhelming, like there’s there’s so many adjectives that I could use to describe RFP’s. But at the end of the day, I had accepted them as this necessary evil because they were also a huge source of. New clients and business revenue for me and for my agency. I was catching up a few years ago during the pandemic with a friend of mine that I practically grew up with. We both went to middle and high school together and he’s an engineer and like all good engineers do, he was asking me questions about process improvement and efficiency and he’s and I tell him about business development, about the RP. He’s like, well, what is that thing like why? Is it? Why is it so? You know, opaque and so obscure and so just like, ah, and I found myself saying the most dangerous phrase of the English language, which is it’s just the way things have always been. And so we and I and we thought it didn’t have to be that way. So Nick, the friend in the story and I came up with the idea of proso. Nick is now the CEO of proposal, and we’ve built essentially a platform in a community where agencies and consultants of all sizes of all backgrounds. Can find good RFP’s and win new clients.
Jarrett Ransom
That is so fascinating. And thank you for that. I I love to me. I hear that as like, you know, the back of a napkin story. You know, we wrote it down literally on the back of a napkin. So again, those of you watching and listening, proposal dot IO, that’s PROSAL dot IO. So let’s get into this, right? I mean you said it. I it’s better that you said it than I said it RFP suck. So how is the RFP process broken? What does that even mean?
Alfredo Ramirez
So it’s broken in a few different ways, at least that we’ve found. The first piece is that. For the most part, a lot of organizations, when they write the RFP, they tend to describe the world that they want to live in and not the world that they actually live in today. And so and that is and to put it a little more practically, they’re very solutions oriented rather than problems oriented many or many RFP’s are written under this idea and this.
Speaker
OK.
Alfredo Ramirez
This template or framework of this is the thing that I need. I’m hiring someone to build this or to implement this. I just need capacity or extra hands to enact this. Thing and that’s helpful. And and right in certain cases, but oftentimes the RFP is really not just a document that describes this thing that you need help with, but it’s also of an entire process that’s elaborated within the RFP. And so because we focus tend to focus more so on the solutions we. Sometimes avoid the problem that actually we’re trying to fix, and in doing so, if we come in with a very solutions via oriented mindset, we skipped the problem. We don’t take feedback on if we’re actually solving the problem in the right way, and we might potentially. Address the wrong part of the problem and still continue living with that with that experience and I’ll give you just a few examples. I won’t get into too many details, but we work with a lot of organizations where we’ll actually run their RFP on their behalf. We’ll write the RFP. We’ll design the process, we’ll connect with vendors and it’s happened on so many occasions that will. We’ll have the first meeting and we will just ask a a few questions about the actual problem that they’re experiencing and how they’ve tackled it. And after like 45 minutes of just talking about the actual problem, we’ll get to the end of the meeting, they’ll say, well, I don’t think we actually need an RFP for this. I don’t think we actually need. To hire out I I think we got this and they’ll go back and they’ll and they’ll work with their existing solutions or their existing team, they’ll implement it and they’ll skip what could have been an extremely. Costly and lengthy scenario. Because they just hadn’t spent the time to think about the actual problem. In the first place, right to to.
Jarrett Ransom
Think through that. Absolutely. Yeah, that that is really interesting to me. And I had shared with you like I rarely respond to RFP’s and I you know, when you reached out to me and I looked through proposal and I was like this seems different. Right, it looks different. It feels different. It seems different, but I want us to talk and move into some missing links and we are gonna call out on this one. Really be often missing link and I know I’ve seen it is budgets. So what are you seeing for this?
Alfredo Ramirez
So the number one reason when I talk to any agency or to any consultant that they say they skip an RFP is because there is no budget in the RFP. Yes, about 50% of agencies that are qualified to respond to an RFP, we’ll say well, if they’re not including a budget in there then. I’m not going to reply and you got to think about it in in a certain way. If you’re going out to buy a house when you’re talking to a real estate. You don’t tell the real estate agent we’ll come back with a few different options and we’ll see what works. No, you you talk to the agent and you say, well, my budget is this because the House can cost you. You know, magnitudes of orders of difference in the same way that a website can cost you $1000. It can cost you $10,000. It can cost you 100,000. It can cost you $1,000,000. So you really have to know how much you’re playing with. So that you can make sure that the scope of work and the budget are aligned with one another, and you’re bringing in the type of quality proposals and the agencies or consultants that are eligible and able to work within your ballpark range.
Jarrett Ransom
Yeah, you know, I see that also where there’s no budget, right. And so if I have specifically been asked to, you know, submit the RFP and they say, well, we don’t really know. So we’re really looking to get it from you, I feel like. Are they really? Comparing apples to apples because I don’t know if what I’m submitting is something similar to what someone else is submitting. Are you seeing other missing links beside the budget?
Alfredo Ramirez
Yes, I think the other important missing link that often comes in line with the budget is the opportunity to engage. And that that can be through a different means and methods. You can offer people an e-mail so that they can submit their questions, and then you publish that Q&A somewhere. You can offer office hours, which is something I’m starting to see a little bit more and more where they’ll just put a counting link or they’ll say these are the days that we’re. So we’re making available. So you can come and ask about the RFP. But the the the opposite of that where you just do not engage whatsoever you don’t offer an opportunity to engage again. I don’t know how many times I. I’ve sent someone an e-mail about the RFP and they I get an out of office reply and the date that they’re coming back is the day that the are that the proposal is due. Like, that’s just for me. That’s that’s not great practice. And the and. For me, the opportunity to engage is also a way to start off a partnership on the right foot. If I, as a consultant, I’m going to spend anywhere between 3:00 and 5:00 hours, which is about the average time it takes to write a simple proposal writing. Just just writing it. That doesn’t include reviewing the RFP. You know, talking to my team, whatever else goes into that. If I’m going to spend. Several hours. Offers to just put in a proposal, but I’m also not billing for. I’m not making money off. Of this and. I can’t get 20 or 30 minutes of your time to even respond to an e-mail or set up a zoom call with me. Then what does that say about the how we’re starting off this partnership?
Jarrett Ransom
Right. And then how that continuation of partnership continuation of availability right, like all of? That I. It it, it says a lot and and I have seen it too I I love slash sarcasm. Sarcasm right that out of office where it’s like OK my job is done. I’ve sent out the RFP, now I’m going to go on vacation or whatever, wherever they are, right. And then I’ll just, you know, sit back and wait for them to show up the day, the day that I’m back and. It’s like, Oh my gosh. It’s just you can’t just, you know, click the check box and be done. And what that looks like. So all fascinating. And I I feel like Alfredo, you and I could talk a lot for this because, you know, I love that you’re saying. And even your pockets, you know, it says this RFP sucks, and I’ve been through the process and I have a some, a similar concept of that. So we’re going to talk about finding new connections and a new well. What do we mean when we say this?
Alfredo Ramirez
So I’ve you had a guest on a few weeks ago, which was Jerry Diaz talking about how to work with with a nonprofit consultants. And we’re essentially to hire them. And there’s a question that that was asked very particularly about the the pros and the cons versus hiring someone you trust and someone that you know versus going out and. Finding someone new outside of what we call the usual. Suspects. Yeah, and. And you. All brought up a lot of good points. About this this kind of the two sides of the same coin about the working with someone that you trust that gets you, that gets the mission that gets the organization can probably do work pretty quickly versus having versus testing something different and maybe getting a different perspective and A and a different take or a different approach. And for me, I think it’s incredibly important. To go out, especially in an RFP process, when you’re putting out something, you’re doing something that’s open and competitive. Going out and finding people that you don’t know that don’t think like you that aren’t from the same places as you zoom and so many other technologies. Have enabled us. To live in a world where we can work with people halfway across the world. Why not take advantage of that and do that? Seen I saw an organization in Maine a A Community Foundation in Maine. Hire a website designer in Montana because they had worked with the same. Types of partners, and they built that. Connection through proposal. And the same and in the same way that other organizations have found different potential partners that they never knew existed, but challenged them to think about their problems and their solutions in different ways. And again, that connection would never have happened if they hadn’t thought about, well, let me go find someone that I don’t know to talk to me about this project or about. This scope.
Jarrett Ransom
I love that story. One thing Julia Patrick and I have seen over the course of our episodes and the, you know, last three and a half, four years. Is touching base with experts and leaders across the nation and seeing how things are being done in different areas of the nation. So I love hearing that this main organization connected with them on the Montana business because they might bring kind of their own flair, if you will, because regionality. You know and and what you had said in the very beginning of today’s episode is kind of well, that’s the way we’ve always done it. And so really, you know, sending out this call for RFP, you know, going into new wells looking for new. People bring different perspectives and different experiences, so I love this story and I’m sure you have plenty more.
Alfredo Ramirez
And I I don’t want to go into story, but I do actually want to give some practical recommendations for people that are looking for new wells. So shameless plug proposal is the 1st place that you should go to post any RFP. We have a community of over 1600 agencies and consultants all across the US, as well as in Canada and in. Europe, all in different services like strategic planning, marketing, communications, web development, you name it, we got it, but not just proposal. If you’re on a listserv, there’s amazing nonprofit groups and listservs like progressive exchange and the Communications network and consultants for good. There’s different job boards. And trade associations that are very specific to nonprofit profession. Find those places where these consultants and these communities live, and especially put in that effort if you are trying to hire someone that looks different, that is different from the from the communities and the folks. That you regularly work with.
Jarrett Ransom
Yeah, yeah, great advice. And of course I love the shameless plug and the other resources that you’ve provided. So thank you for that. So new connections is is pretty critical and if we’re looking for RFP’s, I’m just going to ask this off the cuff. How many are we wanting to receive, right. Is there a certain number that’s kind of that sweet spot?
Alfredo Ramirez
So as a as a nonprofit running an organ, an RFP, I would say the sweet spot is somewhere between 7:00 to 10:00.
Speaker
OK.
Alfredo Ramirez
If I and I would actually, I would say that’s a maximum. I would say 10 is the maximum. You really don’t want to be reading more than 10 proposals. Your eyes go a little bit sideways after that.
Speaker
A lot, yeah.
Alfredo Ramirez
But if you can find and connect with and invite five to seven organizations, agencies or consultants to submit proposals to your RFP and you trust in those organizations and in those proposals, then you’re going to be reading five to seven very high quality approaches to your problem with different budgets. With different thought scenarios and everything that would go into solving and tackling your challenge or your project, and ultimately will just lead to a better outcome.
Jarrett Ransom
I like that. So 7 to 10 is kind of that sweet. Spot well, that moves me into the critical value of team input and I can’t help but think you know when we think of the team, Alfredo, who should be a part of creating the RFP as well as reviewing it, right? So talk to us about the value of team input.
Alfredo Ramirez
So in team input, Maureen Wolff, who is a nonprofit technology consultant. She’s amazing. I did a show with her back in November. She has a like a five phase approach to the to the RFP process and phase one is research and discovery pretty much in the same way that consultants have discovery calls with an organization. Your team should have a research and discovery process to figure out. What we were talking a little about earlier, what is the problem that we’re looking? What is the ideal solution or solutions that we’re open to? How much budget do we have to pay for this thing? How long do we have to take? Ask all of the important questions that you know you’re going to get asked anyway during this process and bring in the people that are going to be directly or indirectly impacted. By the work indirectly can be pretty broad if you’re working, especially with a large organization. But I would say anyone that is going to be working directly with the consultants, say if you’re doing. Let’s let’s give an example. So you’re doing a website review. Bring in everyone that is part of your website team, anyone that is in charge of content, anyone that is in charge of emails. How are you communicating that out to the world? You going to be doing a new website that probably requires you to bring in a comms person. So think about all the different elements where your RFP is going to plugged in. Different departments or teams at your nonprofit and maybe pick one or two people. Depending on how many people you’re bringing in, probably maximum you want is like 5 people. Think of it like maybe a a job hiring committee or a job, uh, job hiring board. To look at the RFP review it, make sure it’s good from everyone’s perspective so that everyone has their input and their domain expertise is included. And then consider what is their level of involvement in ultimately selecting the person that is going to fulfill the project.
Jarrett Ransom
I could see, you know, in the nonprofit sector, we talked early about how we are often late to adopt technology. I feel like we are also often working in silo. Those and I see that in the RFP process, right? And so you’re just speaking to the value of the team input again to break down these silos. This shouldn’t what I’m hearing be a one person. You know a task if you will. Is there a matter of time before the RFP how long that should be open? You know, for considering five people in particular for the team input, what does that mean for?
Alfredo Ramirez
So I would suggest I know RP sometimes come in a moment of urgency sometimes like the money will fall into your pocket or you just figure out that you really have this need. And so you kind. Of want to rush through it and as much as the urgency of this situation might push you to do that, I would encourage people to take. A breath and just. Think about, well, what are the long term impacts of the decisions that we are making today with this hire and with the project that we’re. Thing and in doing so, take at the very least a week, ideally 2 to 3 weeks to think about. Just the RFP and the project. This is before you’ve even written a document or while you were writing the document before you’ve shared it out. To the world. Once it goes out into the. World I would probably suggest anywhere between 3:00 to four weeks to leave that open so that folks can discover. It talk to you. Set time to to review it and and write the proposal with their team. Most of the agencies that I talked to, if they see an RFP that is due in less than two weeks, they just won’t reply to it because there’s too many other things on their plates. There’s other business development needs that they have to address. There’s client needs, and so you really have to make sure that. You’re reaching folks. Where they are at so that you can bring in the. Best quality of of. And then when it comes to the evaluation itself.
Jarrett Ransom
Yeah, I was gonna say it’s hard to squeeze that in, you know, to say, OK. And if you’re dealing with the the value of the team, you know, five people, it’s. Like getting all of those calendars synced. Be a challenge and.
Alfredo Ramirez
Especially when that out of office hits.
Speaker
Right.
Jarrett Ransom
Sorry, I interrupted you, but keep going with.
Alfredo Ramirez
And then I would say take your take a little bit of time with the evaluation to ideally again sometime somewhere between 2:00 to three weeks, probably know more than that you want to give yourself time to be able to review the proposals, ask any follow up questions, schedule those interviews and then make a decision. But and and talking to this entire process that I’ve laid out. The shortest amount of time that I would recommend from start date of saying ohh well we need this thing to we have hired the consultant for it to be done well it’s probably two to three months.
Jarrett Ransom
OK. That’s a great timeline. You know, again I showed yesterday I was leading a strategic planning retreat and there was a lot of new projects that came. Right. And one person in particular was like, oh, we could get this done in 60 days. And I’m like, but. Can you like? Can you really? And especially if it comes to, you know, bringing in additional people that aren’t already involved in the organization. So having that timeline that you just outlined for us, Alfredo is I think such a like. The cherry on the top information. So thank you for the. What else? As our time is is drawing near. What else would you say? Like definitely consider this when it comes to the RFP process. What are some things that proposal is, you know, providing solutions to. So what, what can you recommend to us as we move forward?
Alfredo Ramirez
I would say that technology and your peers are your friends, especially when it comes to this. There’s no such thing as R PS1. 01 There’s no college course that you’re gonna take. There’s no certification that you’re gonna sign up for maybe yet, but. So it’s hard to to talk about RFP’s in an objective manner when especially in the nonprofit sector, a lot of it relies on what we see other people do or what templates we find online. And so it’s important to think about, well, what is right for my organization. You know what?
Speaker
Oh yeah.
Alfredo Ramirez
What has worked well for me in the past and for my team, what has worked well for other organizations and other teams in the past and try to use those indicators as helpful points for yourself to say, well, if I. They, you know, very large environmental organization and I’m doing a communications plan update or a strategic plan update and we’re thinking about going out with an RFP and I just saw another large environmental organization go through the exact same process. I might want to reach out to them and see how the process went to that went for them. What if they chose a vendor? Vendor they use. How did it go? Well, what? Didn’t go well. What would they improve? So really take lessons from that crowdsourcing. And I say that and I also say that with with, you know, an emphasis on not only taking the information that others have already created, but also look to see what you can create yourself. And I know I just. I hate it on templates a little bit right now, but if you. Do are if you are starting from zero proposal has a ton of free. RFP resources and templates. We’ve created templates for communications and branding and web development and strategic planning, all for RFP’s. We’ve created evaluation matrices, all really document. To just help you get off the ground and moving into something that you can say, well, we’re ready to really put this out into the world.
Jarrett Ransom
What are some of the and I wanted to bring your information up because thank you for that proposal dot IO. What are some? Of the more frequent proposals, RFP’s that you’re seeing come through your platform.
Alfredo Ramirez
Yes, we we got a ton of them, a lot in strategic planning. Everyone loves doing the strategic planning and looking for strategic planning, support, marketing and communications as well, especially when it comes to maybe a very a campaign focused projects or just additional capacity.
Speaker
OK.
Alfredo Ramirez
On a project and then I would say it and web development are other ones that are very very pronounced. The ones that we see less in but are still. So frequent our platform, I would say revolve around diversity, equity and inclusion work, human resources, fundraising and development. And all these are elements that are important not only to nonprofits but other organizations as well. So also consider taking a hint from the private sector that they also do RFP’s as well. They publish RFP’s on pearls they publish. These elsewhere and see what what lessons that you can bring in and maybe be the first to implement at your organization that might not have been done, might not have been used there. In the past.
Jarrett Ransom
In the past, yeah. What can we learn from? Well, this has been fascinating. I love the innovation and the technology that you’re providing, the connections that you’re providing across the globe, really. So, Alfredo Ramirez, thank you so very much. And then also to your CEO as well. Alfredo serves as co-founder as well as Chief Operations Officer at proposal. Again, that web address is Prozac. PROSAL dot I/O you can find more information. I personally want to check out those templates because you peaked my interest in those templates. I think that would be really interesting to see. So again, I’m Jared ransom. Julia Patrick created this amazing conversation platform for us to have. Conversations like the ones that we just did here with Alfredo from proposal. So again, thanks for joining us and thanks to our amazing presenting sponsors. They allow us these conversations day in, day out. We broadcast live every single weekday, Monday through Friday. So again, thank you so very much to Boomerang American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy at National University, nonprofit thought Leader your Part Time controller. Staffing boutique nonprofit Nerd as well as nonprofit tech talk. Thank you so very much. And as we end every episode, Alfredo, we like to remind you, our viewers and our listeners. To please stay well so we can all continue to do well. Thank you for this information. It’s so very valuable and.
Alfredo Ramirez
Have a great rest of your.
Jarrett Ransom
Day all absolutely. See you soon.