FEDERAL SECTOR REPORT

Contractors and Grantees Can Learn from Each Other

GROWING SIMILARITY BETWEEN CONTRACTS AND GRANTS

I work with competitions for both contracts and grants, as well as federal agencies, and there is a trend toward greater similarity between the two. My clients could learn from each other, and in fact I have sometimes encouraged them to team together to win specific competitions.

Until recently, proposals for grants tended to have far fewer pages. However, contractors are also discovering a need for brevity. The federal government is no longer awarding its contracts by weight of the proposal. Contractors who continue to apply the strategy of "maximum firepower" by throwing torrents of unnecessary words into proposals will be disappointed. The trend is for the government to award contracts for proposals developed by skilled marksmen rather than shotgunners.

Failure to focus your proposal can lead reviewers to conclude that you do not have a clear understanding of the requirement or a workable solution. Crisp, focused, disciplined writing is a style used by most successful grant writers.

On the other hand, contractors have often excelled in explaining their work plan, management procedures, and staffing. Some grant writers have tended to be a bit nebulous about project operations and staffing, beyond featuring a few superstar principals. Since there are often page limitation for grants (i.e., 25 or 50 pages), I have often added an appendix to grants, providing a contractor-style explanation of how the project will be implemented, operated and managed. Reviewers have responded favorably, gaining confidence that we can really transform our project objectives into reality.

Successful grant proposals almost always build on the prior work of other demonstration projects and/or research. Literature reviews, surveys of projects by other practitioners, and a bibliography are standard fare for the proposals. In contrast, some contractors tend to propose solutions without considering the alternatives or the experiences of the industry. In failing to do so, they miss an opportunity to justify why the proposed solution or approach will be better than that of the competition.

There are other areas where contractors and grantees could learn form each other. But we will save that for a future conversation.

ARE YOU ACTIVELY PROMOTING YOUR ORGANIZATION?

There was a time when it was possible to survive and even thrive simply by responding to Requests for Proposals. This is no longer the case. Today, you need to be identifying prospects, qualifying them, and marketing/selling to them. This is true both for contractors and grantees.

The P2C2 Group prepares excellent collateral marketing materials and presentations to assist with promoting your organization. We have developed promotional communications programs that have successfully targeted federal agencies, state government, corporations, and foundations.

CONSULTING SERVICES

We provide enterprise-level management consulting services for federal agencies and the contractors who support them. Our areas of specialization are Capital Planning and Investment Control, Enterprise Architecture, strategic planning, performance evaluation, and acquisition support including work statements. Our consulting specialty includes experience in many related areas such as CIO program support, earned value management, risk management, the C&A process for security, and customer satisfaction surveys.

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