Sample RFP Responses – Volume 1

I know from watching the stats for this site (especially those associated with my recent post on How to Find RFPs), that there are a lot of people out there looking for samples of other firm’s responses to requests for proposals.

This isn’t surprising, of course, because there are a lot of things you can learn by looking at how other firms handle their proposals, even if they were prepared for a type of project very different from what you are pursuing. You can get some insight into how other people show project schedules, how much detail they include in descriptions of previous experience, what information they include in resumes, whether their scope descriptions are narratives or lists, how they organize their fees, and how closely they adhere to the technical requirements of the RFP.

Unfortunately, examples of previously produced RFP responses aren’t always easy to find. Even though most RFP responses for government/public projects become public information once they are opened, very few organizations have systems in place to make these responses available over the Internet. And even when they are available, it takes some creative searching (and a little luck) to find them.

Since I do run across examples of RFP and RFQ responses on occasion, I am going to try posting links to them as I find them, and I hope that some of you will consider sharing your discoveries as well.

The first installation of this series is an assortment of responses to a request for proposals issued in July 2006 by Piedmont, California for a Piedmont Civic Center Master Plan. The responses from five firms, along with the original RFP (Civic Center RFP.pdf), can be downloaded from this directory on the City of Piedmont’s website. Note that some of the responses are broken up into multiple PDFs, so you will need to download multiple files if you want to see all of them.

FYI, I believe that the team led by Fisher-Friedman Associates was the winner.