Red Tape Busters

Applying for or responding to tender opportunities is a vexing question in the tender writing world. Should we apply for all, some, which ones, which ones should we steer clear of these are all important questions for the tender writer. The skilled tender writer will ensure they carefully analyse each tender, analyse the direction of the organisation, analyse the goals of the organisation both long and short term goals and ensure that if successful in winning the tender that :- 1. They can deliver fully on the requirements of the tender  2. That winning the tender will support the overall organisational objectives 3. The tender will be financially viable. In arriving at answers to these issues the grant writer should consider the following in some detail :- Capacity and Resources One of the key issues to be considered is does the organisation have the capacity and resources required to deliver the requirements of the tender in full. That means – do we have...

Price price price is all that most tender writers concentrate on when putting their tender together. There is a misnomer in the tender writing world that price is all that matters. In this article we will discuss the importance of price because yet it is important but also discuss a number of other issues that are also essential considerations for those entities offering the tenders.  In our view price is important in your tender response. It however is not the overriding consideration for the tender assessment panel but the quality tender writer will know that unless your price/pricing strategy is not in the general ball park and if your price is too expensive then you really are going to struggle to win the tender. That doesn’t mean you have to be the lowest price – just hopefully don’t be the most expensive unless you are offering a massive range of add ons and value adding components which blows your competitors tender response and offer out of the water. A pricing st...

Something that is often overlooked in the tender writing process is the need to read all of the documents provided by the agency offering the tender. The inexperienced tender writer will pay scant regard to most of the documents and focus more on the tender specifications document. This is a failed strategy and in this case study we demonstrate why it is important to read all documents. We were contacted by a client who had started preparing a response to the tender and had commenced completing the tender response form but was having difficulty in completing the application. Our grant writer initially asked the client for all of the documents that related to the tender application and was promptly forwarded the application form. Our tender writer suggested that there must be more documents provided by the Council is Conditions of Contract, Technical Specifications of Offer, General Conditions of Offer and Special Conditions of Offer. The client advised that they had not dow...

This is Case Study 6 in our series of grant writing articles. In this instalment we will look at the Bulimba Bowls Club and their efforts to get major repairs to their roof funded. An inexperienced grant writer would try and find a funding program which will fund the entire repair works which was in the vicinity of $100k. At Red Tape Busters we realise that grant writing opportunities in the vicinity of $100k are few and far between. So our skilled grant writer set about identifying if we could break the project down into smaller sub projects and then find two or more grants that will be viable to fund the entire project over time. In the first instance we asked the Club to work with their proposed roof repair contractor to see if the project could in fact be split into sub projects. The contractor agreed that we could split the project up into two smaller projects – and if funding was achieved the club could undertake the repairs in stages. First we identified a smaller program ...

This is Case Study 5 in our series of grant writing articles highlighting different cases and strategies we at Red Tape Busters have worked on since we commenced business in 2000. This article will focus on how to create some “selling” points when preparing a grant application for a rural based organisation. The skilled grant writer will be able to easily “sell” the project and the need for funding if the organisation is based in a rural or remote area. Rarely if ever are we unsuccessful with a grant submission for a rural or remote organisation. With this particular organisation they were seeking funding for a youth based training and skills development program. Given most of the youth had left town over the years and the general population numbers were dwindling the organisation felt they did not really have a sound case to pursue funding. Our skilled grant writer however initially worked with the client on their project and worked hard to identify what sorts of training an...

As we have discussed in this series of case studies previously, tender writing is far more than being the cheapest price. Yes tender writing success does depend to a degree on price but the skilled tender writer will be able to develop a “sales” pitch which sets their tender apart from the competition and price will then become just one of many key platforms from which the organisation can launch a successful bid. In this Case Study our client was seeking our assistance in winning a tender with Woolworths to provide supermarket trolleys. Our client was an Australian based company wanting to challenge overseas importers. This was going to be a very tough task for our grant writer seeing the overseas companies were buying the raw materials cheaply overseas and were then paying cheap labour to construct the trollies. We were able to convince our client to source raw materials also from overseas at a good price but source materials and parts that exceeded Australian standards. In...

In our series of grant writing case studies – this is the third installment. Again in this article will showcase the skills of our grant writers and give readers tips on how to improve their grant writing chances.   We were approached in this instance by a club in a rural area affected by drought which was seeking funding to restump their community hall. The project was going to cost $50000 and the club needed assistance in finding appropriate funding programs which would fund a $50k project. At Red Tape Busters we are very strategic in our approach to the grant writing task. So initially we worked with the client on their project to identify if there was any way of breaking the project up into smaller components in case there were no $50k funding opportunities around given the higher the funding amount needed – the less funding opportunities that exist.  In working with the client we identified that there is not much scope to restump a hall in different stages giv...