Somewhere out there on a beach, in a forest or on some mountain trail there’s a CFO, CEO or new VP for Development making mental notes on the agenda for the fall Board Meeting.

And you can bet one of her/his suggestions will be to put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) in hopes of improving income, or paying homage to some capricious notion that “we ought to bid out this consulting work more often”. Heaven only knows what thoughts lurk in the minds of vacationing nonprofit execs.

Because this is the season when fantasy is in full swing and is likely to translate in some organizations actually putting out Requests for Proposal (RFPs), I thought I’d share some of my notes — and a special video — with you in case you’re eventually on either the giving or receiving end of the RFP process.

Long-time Agitator readers know how I feel about The Dangers of RFPs.

• “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.”

Many fundraising veterans share my opinion. In response to my post on Lazy Fundraisers, Kathy Swayze of Impact Communications shared her thoughts on the RFP experience:

“What about the ‘laziness’ of letting your CFO tell you that you have to put your program out to RFP every three years even though your current consultant is helping you exceed expectations in retention and revenue?

“Don’t be lazy. Make the case for why an additional RFP process will waste your time and tons of other people’s time. Show them the hard numbers of how much better a new agency would have to do in order to make the hours invested in a transition process pay off.”

But, no matter how many warnings, or how many dire examples the Agitator offers you can bet that as soon as summer’s over there’ll be a CEO, a CFO, or a new and inexperienced VP for fundraising and marketing who is absolutely certain the answer to a brighter future lies in putting out an RFP.

And so the PowerPoint Meisters will crank up their templates. Hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars will be spent conjuring up silver bullets and magic promises for the new client. Disruption will ensue as the deck chairs are rearranged to make way for the new consultant or agency. Then … a couple of years after the incumbent consultant or agency has been thrown out and when the real results of the victorious agency no longer look so silvery or magical, amnesia will again set in and the process will begin anew.

I probably wouldn’t be as adamantly negative about the process if most organizations were clear and realistic about their needs and objectives when they prepare the RFP.

Sadly, most are not. Instead the requests too often reflect unrealistic thinking and expectations. The fundraising equivalent of ‘we’d like you to draw four red parallel lines that intersect’. Or, ‘please submit a proposal showing how you’ll draw a straight line in the shape of a cat’.

Rather than continue this rant I commend the video below to you. We’ve shared it before, but it’s too good to languish in our archives. I’ll let it do the talking.

Not only will you find Lauris Beinerts’ The Expert hilarious, it’ll help prepare you for the wave of agency presentations that follow on the heels of most RFPs.

I just can’t wait to see what this summer’s vacation thoughts produce. What’s your take on the RFP process?

Roger