Proposal Evaluation Criteria

As I've mentioned before, it is critical that you factor in these evaluation criteria when planning, outlining, and writing your proposal because the reviewers are going to be evaluating your proposal against these criteria. So you must make sure that each item is addressed. And wherever possible, you should use the wording in the criteria as headings or subheadings so that the reviewers can easily find your response to each item.

There is another important thing about evaluation criteria that many people don't realize, and when I tell them about it, the little light bulb goes off in their heads. It seems so obvious, but it's not. So what is this light bulb-producing thought? In one word, it is emphasis. The evaluation criteria tells you where to put your emphasis in your proposal, and therefore how much time and effort you should spend on each element or section.

Let's say your solicitation lists 5 criteria by which your proposal will be evaluated. Each item is assigned the following number of points for a grand total of 100 points.

• Criteria #1 is worth 30 points.
• Criteria #2 is worth 30 points.
• Criteria #3 is worth 25 points.
• Criteria #4 is worth 10 points.
• Criteria #5 is worth 5 points.

Where are your going to put the bulk of your time and effort? What items are the most important and therefore deserve the most emphasis? If criteria #6 is only worth 5 points, you're certainly not going to spend the same amount of time on it as you would for criteria 1-3. Same goes for #4. And this little analysis can also tell you something else that will be important as you work on your outline and proposal -- the number of pages that you allocate to each item.