How To Guide: Creating Effective Proposals

“This isn’t a Backyard BBQ People.”

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Let’s first define what a you-centered business style is. According to Eward-Magione, a you-centered business style:

A you-centered business style employs your view and an audience-centered tone to choose particular words and adopt a targeted tone in a message.

The “you view” analyzes and emphasizes the reader’s interests and perspectives. Because the reader’s interest or benefit is stressed, the writer is more likely to help the reader understand information or act on a request. Adopting your view often, but not always, involves using the words you or your rather than we, our, I, and mine. (2014)

This is one of the key aspects of creating an effective proposal. Tonality that is centered around your business and your audience. The idea of a proposal is essentially persuading your audience/ employer to higher you by stating your qualifications, what you can bring to the table to improve the company, your methodology to improve the company, your findings/results, the problem with the company, what your purpose is in the proposal, and a conclusion. This should be in two pages and in a block paragraph. It makes the proposal look tighter and cleaner.

Taking this into consideration, let’s talk about how you will deliver the problems surrounding the company. Eward-Magione states,

“The writer’s purpose in this writing situation is to tactfully deliver negative news. The writer’s stance should be professional and empathetic, especially since the writer’s audience will probably be disappointed, irritated, or frustrated by the message.”

In a way, this is a form of risk communication. Think about the news. When anchors deliver bad news, they sound empathetic. Your goal when creating this proposal is to empathize with the company. This will strengthen your proposal and increase your chances of getting the job.

After being empathetic, show them your research. Doing this will show them that you have a plan for improvement. ALL conglomerates like plans of action. Eward-Magione and McGee create an outline on how to conduct research:

What does your audience expect to get out of reading your report? What is its purpose? Make sure that you have specifically responded to the expectations of your boss, manager, or client. If your audience expects you to have research, make sure you know what type of research they expect. Do they want research from scholarly journal articles? Do they want you to conduct your own research? No matter what type of research you do, make sure that it is properly documented using whatever format the audience prefers (MLA, APA, and Chicago Manual of Style are some of the most commonly-used formats). You also want to establish a strong ethos in your report. Use confident language that shows that you have done your research and present them with the research. (2013)

These are questions/expectations to consider when conducting your research. The reason why your research is important is that this shows to employers what you have to back up your plan. NEVER go into a meeting without claims/evidence to back up your plan. This is also where you present your research into action; i.e. findings. An example could be “I have found this out and I talked to people who knew about this and this is what I found from this.” Something along those lines. Make sense? This is where you also want to be careful with your tone and diplomacy.

This isn’t a backyard BBQ people. I shouldn’t have to tell you all that, but you never know with the weird ones. Have some decency when writing your proposal. McCaughey discusses this:

As with any piece of writing, considering audience, purpose, and type of information is key to constructing business communication. Truly finessing your writing so that it works for you, rather than against you, is key to forming strong professional relationships and being effective in your own position. (2013).

In addition to the above statement, consider these questions before writing:

• Who is my audience? What does the audience need to know, and what do they already know?
• Why does this email feel tricky or difficult in terms of getting the tone just right?
• Why am I writing? Am I informing my audience? Asking for help? Delivering bad news?
• Do I have strong feelings about the subject or situation that might get in the way of writing effectively and appropriately?
• Are there specific elements (anything from highlighting big problems to reminding the reader about an important due date) that I want to emphasize?

By answering these questions, you will develop and hone the ability to creating a diplomatic tone in your piece.

The next step in creating an effective proposal is developing a persuasive tone. As reiterated before, to great a ground-breaking proposal, you need effective data. As Moxley puts it:

Proposals are arguments that seek particular outcomes from the readers of the proposals. Proposals can offer to trade services for money or goods, proposals can seek funding to conduct research, and proposals might present a call for action. (2009)

You are writing to problem solve, so act like a problem-solver. The way to conduct research and therefore create a decent proposal is to approach your findings through rhetorical analysis. In other words, consider the context, audience, purpose, and media invoked by the following readings. Also, examine how ideas are developed in these texts. Are assertions grounded in personal experience, interviews with authorities, questionnaires, Internet and library research, or empirical research?

According to Moxley, a key feature of writing a proposal is to understand that proposals are designed to affect readers’ opinions about public policies rather than seeking funding for research or to conduct research. Appeal to logic guys.

In sum, if none of what I said makes sense, follow this list of guidelines to creating an effective proposal from Phelps-Hillen, who wrote an article to the basics of writing a proposal.

1. Am I following the guidelines/requirements from the grantmaking agency?
2. Are my organization and the funding organization well-matched (do we have similar goals, advocates, and support)?
3. Have I started a conversation with this potential funder? Is our relationship amicable?
4. Have I proofread?
5. Is my proposal well, and clearly, written?
6. Have I supplied required and relevant information?
7. Does this proposal have a unique voice specific to my organization?
8. Make a clear and concise request
9. Indicate why the funder is best suited to support the need
10. Anticipate questions about how, when, why, where the resources will be used and who will use them
11. Provide a budget and assessment plan for the project
12. Find an outside reader, someone who doesn’t know your organization, and who you know will give you helpful feedback.
13. Break the writing down into chunks. Look at the subsections, or write down expected subsections, for the proposal and write each piece, one at a time.
14. If you can, and are comfortable, delegate sections of the proposal to others in your organization who are more familiar with a specific portion.
15. Be sure to have the head fundraiser and resource developer, your CEO/Executive Director/Director, review the proposal before it goes out. (2015).

I hope this helps alleviate and/or clarify some difficulties in creating a proposal. The hard part isn’t writing or research, but knowing who you are writing too. Once you’ve got that down, everything else will be easy.