Flat Earth Fundraising: The Dangers Of RFPs
As I write, the great herds of wildebeests are thundering across the Serengeti. Part of the Great Migration in search of greener grass.
Same thing’s happening right now in our nonprofit world, where too many mindless RFPs are being issued for about the same reasons: Duh! Let’s find some green grass.
With nonprofits migrating in search of the New, Best, Very Best, Awesome, ‘Please-Help-Us-Consultants’ RFPs are being spawned and issued – if not at the rate of salmon in an Alaskan August, at least at a rate that makes me wonder just how much true thought the issuing organizations really put into the process.
For years I’ve believed that among the Great Idiocies of our nonprofit world is the RFP. The Request For Proposal. Most often issued because the Board, the CEO, or an equally unknowledgeable person in the finance department requires the RFP, and the grueling process it involves, simply for ‘transparency purposes’. Or even worse, for the mere sake of “Let’s put our work out for bid and see what we get back.”
Over the past six months I’ve seen a tsunami of RFPs. The majority strike me as senseless and idiotic documents. I suspect the folks issuing them don’t understand that a less than thoughtful and goal-oriented RFP is the equivalent of the organization forming a firing squad in a circle.
Here’s why.
Unless an organization is truly dissatisfied with the results it’s getting, only the very naive throw their consulting contract up for bid helter skelter. Why?
- Almost never — and I’ve been watching this self-destructive behavior for years — will a new consultant or agency come in and actually improve results.
- Almost never will there be anything but disruption.
- Almost never will there be anything more than the loss of institutional memory.
- Almost never will the most valuable element you have going – continuity – be, well, continued.
- Almost never will you make up for the time lost and the demoralization you’ve created fooling around with all this stuff.
Sure, I know it’s fashionable. And sure, the process will garner lots of free lunches and other caloric but generally non-nutritious nonsense.
But, in the end it’s not very smart or healthy where fundraising is concerned. The agencies that have produced will end up demoralized, the new guys will be overly bullish and confident in their claims, and there’s little chance that a better, more powerful and productive program will emerge.
It’s a shame the consultants and agencies simply don’t revolt. They really should just refuse to participate in this nonsense, unless they’re paid by the nonprofit to prepare a response. But, sadly, the agency business model is so broken — and fear of not winning so strong — that they spend $10K, $20K, sometimes as much as $50K in preparing elaborate responses and presentations to what are generally uninformed, poorly-constructed RFPs, very light on substance and goal orientation.
The result? The organization issuing the RFP gets a sugar surge. And then loses money. The consultants and agencies spend thousands and thousands to provide the potential client with the highest claims and the lowest prices … all delivered with Power Point, smooth talk and charm.
To meet the usual requests for ‘innovation’, ‘better results’ and ‘world class account management’, some who prepare the response feel perfectly free to make exaggerated claims, use whatever jargon’s currently in fashion and declare ‘we’ll do it so much better’. (The most popular buzz terms in the RFPs we’ve seen here at The Agitator seem to be: “What can you do with predictive modeling?” “Speak to your experience with multi-channel integration.”)
And even when the consultant/agency is truly responsive to buzz-term requests like ‘integrated, multi-channel fundraising’, I have yet to see or hear of an organization that didn’t simply break up all the work and award direct mail to one agency, online to another, and so forth. Celebrate the silo.
It’s a crying shame that no one calls the poorly prepared, knee-jerk RFPs for what they really are and simply blacklists the organizations that so cavalierly issue them. Fact is, unless the process is carefully thought through (copying an RFP from another nonprofit does not equal ‘carefully thought through’!), it turns out to be destructive of best practices and proven performance.
I will always admire and praise a well thought-through RFP. One that seriously discusses problems, goals, strategic plans and provides ample data from which a knowledgeable consultant can prepare a meaningful response that adds true value to the process.
But most of what we’re seeing these days in the RFP department represents a frightening trend. In their ambiguity and fuzziness they encourage hyperbole and often reward the rhinestone glitter of glow-in-the–dark presentations, while importantly and essentially ignoring continuity, performance and proven results.
Shame on those of us who take most RFPs with any seriousness at all.
What’s your experience with RFPs? And most importantly, if the work was rewarded to a new agency or provider, how did the results match up against the promises?
We’d sure like to know.
Roger
P.S. We’re collecting data on results ‘before’ and ‘after’ a nonprofit has switched consultants. So far most of what we’ve seen isn’t pretty. But hopefully there’s good news out there somewhere. Please share yours and the results will be kept anonymous.
11 responses to “Flat Earth Fundraising: The Dangers Of RFPs”
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I rather agree, that if it ain’t broke why fix it? IF you’re unhappy with your agency and/or results then yes you need to review the whole thing. If not, why not get the best out of the relationship? Isn’t that what we try and do with those who support us? Not the same thing? I wonder!
About 18 months ago, we were invited to bid an RFP for a major Boston area nonprofit with a great cause. More importantly, it was in our strongest portion of the client mix, so a really excellent fit.
Now the issue with RFP’s: We bit precisely to client specifications. We found major flaws in the data profited for analysis in making the bid…which no other organization found. We are responsible for exponential growth in this human services segment elsewhere in the Northeast, and more importantly, we had the lowest bid.
Now the clincher…we lost the work because the winning bidder was advised offline of an aspect of the services (unspecified in the bid spec) that the client thought would be nice. The service was new to to the other company but a core service of ours. And yet, we lost the bid. Lowest price, solid track record, most extensive service opportunity and track record…all for naught.
The flaw for far too many nonprofits is that these services are exceptionally hard for them to memorialize in a bid specification. When they do, they then offer other insights offline that taint the process.
Expensive for our organization, heartbreaking because the quote was strong and aggressive, painful as we lost although we were less expensive…and the organization has ended up with an inferior product for the time invested.
Nonprofits and RFP’s do not go well together as they are, at the end of the day, bidding a creative, intangible product that by its very nature does not lend itself well to the process.
This is a great article. When you are happy with your current vendors I have always wondered why organizations choose to issue a new RFP instead of test a few campaigns or a new channel with a different vendor. Sure it takes some planning, but it is much easier to do then a wholesale swap of vendor. I know, I know, you are thinking it can not be done. My question: have you tired it? Where there is a will there is always a way.
Per Brian’s comments – food for thought for everyone on this thread. Low price is not everything and I see ‘low price’ in your comments many times. My experiance is that value nearly always triumps price and there is a high coorelation to value buyers who end up turning into your best cusotmers. Per the information not in the RFP – if it was not provided to you that sounds supper shaddy.
This is what’s called the “expert from afar” syndrome.
“I am an expert from afar, and I will solve all of your problems.”
The sad truth in all of this is that the best, and most comprehensive body of knowledge about any organization’s fundraising resides with the current agency and staff.
When times are hard, people look for solutions outside of themselves — and there’s an army of consutants and agencies out there ready and willing to feed this need.
I agree that you can’t hire creative talent via an RFP. (If you’re making a movie and want Brad Cooper to be in it, you can’t take bids for the Brad Cooper part. On the other hand, we hired our current agency twelve years ago via RFP and it has worked out quite well for us.
Barring professional incompetence, there isn’t anyone who knows more about your business than you do. That can be both inspiring and depressing at the same time.
Every organization is looking for the “magic bullet”. Of course, those of us in the industry, particularly on the consulting side, know that if a magic bullet existed, we’d all have it in our arsenal…almost immediately.
Of course it would be wonderful if we could just blow off those RFPs that we don’t consider serious or well-thought out, but an error in judgment could cost an agency thousands.
One good reason to change agencies is when the current agency has lost interest, runs out of gas or is on auto-pilot. Then an injection of new ideas can prove worthwhile as well as the disruption it causes.
Having been in the business for almost 30 years, and having participated in many RFPs, I have often felt that many a non-profit (not all) feel entitled to our time and effort in responding to an RFP, because they do good work and so they are entitled. Unless agencies as a group (fat chance) revolt as you say, the status quo will prevail.
From my in-house days, I can say that RFPs were very useful when bringing in a new, one-time (or infrequent) service. We didn’t have the budget to keep an agency on retainer, so used RFPs to evaluate our options when we needed to bring a group in for a specific project (e.g. rebranding).
Currently, though not an agency but an individual consultant, I don’t respond to RFPs. They don’t tend to deliver the results that I want, especially if I have no existing relationship with the client. I much prefer to market my services directly to folks for when they need them and cultivate relationships with non-profits so that we are familiar with each other when they need my services.
Thank you for this post. I don’t feel so alone now for opting out of the RFP process in general!
Amen!
In the copywriting world, we often get asked to participate in a writer selection process whereby a number of writers are asked to provide a “concept write up” for a package. Then the agency/client will pick the best one and hire that person. The background they propose to give us for this exercise? “Just look at our website”. Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that? (sarcasm intended)
Putting aside the question of fairness for a moment, this simply doesn’t work. Developing a new winning package concept without a solid understanding of the organization’s work and past DM history is about as sensible as trying to put out a house fire with a straw.
Within the past couple years, we’ve declined these offers and urged our fellow writers to do so as well. Twice now, the client has come back to us and said, “on second thought”, we’d like to pay you to do this. How novel!
Our creative agency will continue to refuse to participate in these unfair fishing expeditions to get fundraising ideas for free. Refusing to develop fully executed packages as part of a proposal process might be one way to rein in the cumbersome RFP process as well. What if everyone just said no?
New to the blog, and I immediately see what it’s titled “The Agitator.” Brilliant!
I feel Brian’s pain – responding to these darn things is WAY too much of a crapshoot.
And it’s for that reason, and the others mentioned above, that we flat out refuse to waste our time with them. The one and only time we’ll go through the process is if the organization is selling to US. In other words, “Guys, we want you to do video for us, but it’s policy that we have to issue this RFP. So just fill it out; here’s what to say; then we’re good to go.”
Otherwise it’s: “Thanks but no thanks.” Our time is much better spent drumming up business in other ways.
(One tip related to Brian’s experience: we always ask to have a final phone call with prospective clients after they’ve met with and/or received information from the other companies they are considering and before they make a final decision. This way, if something comes up with someone else after meeting with us, we can let them know whether or not we have a similar solution.)
I’m with Kathy. As a copywriter, I’ve learned to decline the “honor” of providing free copy concepts on spec to new clients…
…but let an agency invite me to be part of their RFP process, and I am IN as fast as they’ll let me! Of course, my goal isn’t quite the same as the agency’s goal. They’re trying to get a new account; I’m trying to prove to the agency what a great creative partner I can be… because they’re worth more to me in the long run than the RFP that they may or may not win.
So I guess I’m enabling the RFP process.
Dang it. It was far more fun to read the Agitator and shake my head – tut, tut! – over agencies going along with the empty RFP process before I realized I was a part of the problem… Help us, Roger – we need rehab or something!
The problem does not lie with the process of hiring,i.e. the use of RFPs, the problem lies in the profession’s claims of what a consultant does.Fundraising consultants are coaches, no less, no more. They are not in the field running the ball to a goal.They are proposing strategy and standing on the sidelines cheering, shaking their fists, and pointing. Fundraising consultants do not have a silver bullet. They do their coaching without being able to select their team and not knowing the skills of the team they inherit. It is a system that is doomed to be mostly frustrating and unsuccessful.
Insightful article — thanks, Roger. The article and the comments all seem to be unanimous in their disdain for RFPs, but I see very few suggestions of specific alternatives.
One thing that has worked for me is to break out a chunk of the proposed work and hire one of the prospective “bidders” as a test run. Can be fixed-price or just a specified number of hours, depending on the deliverable. It gives you, the hiring organization, a chance to work with this agency on some actual deliverables, experience the chemistry and what it would be like to work with them on the full-blown effort. And if it doesn’t feel right, you part ways, and still probably spent less time and effort than you would have in developing a formal RFP and conducting the “competition.”