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Top 10 Collaboration Proposal Templates with Samples and Examples

Sapna Singh

Procter & Gamble (P&G), one of the world's largest FMCG companies that manufactures everything from batteries to shampoo, was founded by two brothers-in-law, William Procter and James Gamble. Their father-in-law convinced them to join forces in business. P&G began with soap manufacturing and has now expanded into a diverse range of items marketed globally. P&G is a fantastic illustration of a business that the collaboration of a mere two individuals can create.

Collaboration is valued in all contexts because it enables individuals to work well in groups. It is also one of the top four most crucial abilities for employees' future success.

Collaboration in business has become an essential component of corporate life. Check out our exclusive Collaboration Slides  to help you standardize and monitor the quality of every partnership process.

Brands employ well-designed collaboration proposals to ensure they have a plan before entering into any partnership or agreement. This allows the company to explore the parameters of collaboration and its ambitions. It also creates a strategic partnership that benefits everyone.

Collaboration Proposal: Start a new business relationship

A collaboration proposal is an efficient strategy to reach out and engage with other businesses. This document enables two or more businesses or influencers to collaborate on a project, campaign, product, or service to capitalize on each other’s resources and audiences for win-win.

A well-prepared business proposal  addresses potential partners’ or clients’ needs and expectations. Click here   to access SlideTeam’s business-specific PPT templates to make that first-impression count and pave the way for successful partnerships and business growth.

This blog helps you craft meaningful collaboration proposals to reach new prospects and grow your business. Use SlideTeam’s ‘Top 10 Collaboration Proposal Templates’  to propose a partnership between your firm and another brand. These templates are powerful networking tools to help your business grow, enter new markets, win clients, and gain brand recognition.

The 100% customizable nature of the templates allows you to edit your presentations. The content-ready slides give you the much-needed structure.

Use SlideTeam’s PowerPoint Templates as an effective way to reach out and connect with other businesses.

Continue reading for some templates and samples to help you build a robust brand collaboration proposal to communicate the mutual benefit of a joint business venture.

Template 1: Project Context of Brand Collaboration Proposal

Use this pre-made PPT Template to establish the ground for your collaboration solutions proposal. Outline the value proposition for your proposal on the project context slide. It contains client requirements and company solutions for displaying your brand's services, testimonials, products, and more. Use this presentation template to help potential partners recognize the benefits of working with you. Get it now!

Download this template

Template 2: How We Work PPT

Use this PowerPoint Presentation to create a step-by-step guide to demonstrate your company’s efforts in partnering with brands. It includes actions like listing brands, browsing matches, connecting with other brands, managing dialogues, and contacting support. This will allow you to talk about what you do and how you do it. Use this download to promote your company's effective and conversational methods for expanding client outreach. Get it now!

Template 3: Brand Collaboration Solutions

Use this PowerPoint Presentation to demonstrate your collaboration solutions for effective campaign launches. This proposal highlights consultant options, such as aligning comparable goals between brands, selecting the correct partners, aligning aims, and delivering your message. This will help clients in defining their brand identity and differentiating from competition. Use this template to demonstrate your knowledge to expand your client's reach and engagement. Get it now!

Template 4: Investment in Brand Collaboration

Use this pricing breakdown PPT Template to demonstrate a clear investment structure for hiring your agency’s collaboration solutions services. This presentation template includes pricing information for services like customer analysis and consultation, as well as work descriptions, costs per task, unit costs, and quantity costs. Clients will be making informed financial decisions and comprehend their return on investment (ROI) much better after a look at this resource. Download it immediately for a smooth collaboration. Get it now!

Template 5: Brand Collaboration Timeline

Create a collaboration timeline using this PPT Template to estimate the length of the collaborative process. This component of the collaboration concept directs everyone towards long-term success. It contains the project timeline, which includes everything from brand seeking, response, blogger acceptance, etc., through renewal and negotiation or publication review. Use this PowerPoint Presentation Template to provide a breakdown of the projected deliverables during the proposed partnership’s lifetime. Save it now!

Template 6: About Us

Use this PPT Template to provide a written introduction to your company to potential clients. This slide enhances the collaboration proposal. Mention your business's principles and history, summary of your work, clientele, and accomplishments.  The resource also emphasizes your business’s guiding principles, familiarize potential partners with your company, and demonstrate why you’re a suitable fit. Use this presentation template to convey the benefits of collaboration to each company’s consumer base and target market. Download now!

Template 7: Our Team

This PPT Template can help you gain the trust and engagement of potential clients for your brand collaboration solutions. This slide highlights your team’s credentials and skills. It contains data, designations, and a brief description of personnel, so that clients can see who they are working with. Use this presentation to summarize your employee credentials that appeal to prospects. Grab it now!

Template 8: Client Testimonials

Client testimonials are effective instruments for promoting your brand collaboration solutions. Use this PPT Template to display client testimonials to back up your collaboration proposal. This will serve as a marketing tool and will help to establish the reputation of your brand agency. Use this presentation template to demonstrate a devoted network of brand enthusiasts and ambassadors. This will help improve your brand campaign and create organic brand ambassadors. Grab it now!

Template 9: Non-Disclosure Agreement for Brand Collaboration

Our non-disclosure agreement enables clients to understand the service offered. This component of your brand collaboration solutions will inform clients about compensation and payments, business and engagement conditions, and cancellation and modification fees. This slide is a perfect tool for business partnerships and/or relationships. Use this presentation template to bind the parties to an agreement's confidential details. Grab it now!

Template 10: Acceptance Contract for Brand Collaboration

Have you earned your clients’ trust with your collaboration efforts? It's now time to close the deal. Use this PPT Template to form a legally binding agreement. This guarantees that everyone is on the same page. This provides a comprehensive grasp of the brand collaboration proposal to establish a positive business connection. Use this Sign-off Template to walk your client through the procedure and clear all doubts. Download it right now!

The roadmap for collaborative success

A Collaboration Proposal gives structure to the collaboration process, ensuring that parties involved are on the same page throughout. Use SlideTeam’s PPT Templates to pitch a new project or a creative idea for a potential collaboration.

P.S. Click here  to download our Brand Portfolio Strategy PPT Templates  to help your organization establish a compelling and consistent brand identity in an ever-changing market context.

FAQs ON COLLABORATION PROPOSAL

What is a collaboration proposal.

A collaboration proposal, also known as a business partnership proposal, is a document that explains two parties’ proposed agreement. It indicates collaborative aims, objectives, and plans for the joint company venture’s mutual benefit. This document describes the participants, the resources required for the project, and the timelines for completion.

How do you write a collaboration proposal?

• Create a well-designed, informative title page to attract readers’ attention and establish your credibility as a potential collaborator.
• Your collaboration idea must be supported by verifiable facts and the benefits of partnership. Outline your idea clearly with bulleted points, etc., to enable simpler skimming and reading.
• Include basic milestones and KPIs to help the reader understand how the process will work, what you need from them, and what they may get from the partnership.
• Add a personalized cover letter and a table of contents to help your reader skip paragraphs and data on subsequent readings.
• Summarize your collaboration proposal on a separate page at the end of your paper; tackle one aspect at a time

How do you write a collaboration proposal email?

• Begin with a catchy subject line to pique the recipient's interest and entice them to read your email.
• Introduce yourself and provide a brief summary of the project you're working on to establish context and set the tone for the rest of the email.
• Clearly state what you aim to accomplish through the collaboration.
• Create a project timeline to keep everyone on track and ensure that the project is completed on time.
• Include your email address, phone number, and any other information to make it easier for people to contact you.
• Encourage open communication to set a good and constructive tone for the project.

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Free Collaboration Proposal Template

Fully editable with custom branding and templated offering.

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Table of contents

Collaboration is the backbone of innovation. In fact, businesses are over five times more productive if they foster a teamwork-centric environment, including the use of collaboration proposals.

But how exactly do you put together a partnership proposal and why should you want to write a proposal for a business partnership?

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know when it comes to how to write a partnership proposal, including:

• What a collaboration proposal is
• How you can partner with brands
• What should be included in your proposal
• Two major things to bear in mind when writing your proposal
• Nine key parts of creating a business proposal
• Why you should work with Bonsai to create your collaboration proposal
• How to use the Bonsai collaboration proposal template
• Frequently asked questions.

Let’s begin!

Note: Sign up for Bonsai free and get started on your proposal today.

What Is a Collaboration Proposal?

A collaboration proposal is a legally binding document that comprises the details of a partnership between two or more parties who intend to collaborate on a specific project.

Collaboration proposals typically benefit all parties involved, while also outlining key responsibilities so that all aims of the collaboration are met.

How to Partner with Brands

Partnering with brands begins with understanding your place in the professional world. You should have a complete understanding of your skills and expertise, as well as your limitations.

Next, make a list of all potential brand partnerships that you’d like to explore. These brands should offer complementary products or services to your own.

Lastly, having an online presence is a great way to market your brand and begin communications with similar organizations.

What to Include in the Collaboration Proposal‍

1. introduction.

The introduction should include a brief overview of who you are, your background, the services you provide, and the relevance to the proposed project.

2. Executive Summary

This section should summarize the entire proposal to give your reader a broader sense of your proposal.

Although your proposal may be riddled with details, this section should be very direct and as short as possible (while including all essential information).

This might require a few revision sessions!

3. Team Members

Now is a great time to highlight your team and what each member brings to the proposal. Each member should have a blurb about themselves and their specialty as it relates to the collaboration.

For a more personal feel, add photos of your team members! Ideally, you might want to set aside time for professional (or semi-professional) photos that can be uploaded into this document.

You would be surprised at the quality of photos taken from an iPhone !

4. Past Accomplishments

When proposing any collaboration, withholding personal information or credentials could make the deal impossible to agree to!

With that said, this section should describe your prior accomplishments and communicate that you are experienced enough to excel in this collaboration.

Your past accomplishment section might also contain real examples of your accomplishments (such as pictures or links to prior work).

5. Project Overview

The next step is providing a complete project overview.

Prior to drafting the project overview, a conversation among all parties should be had to discuss the problems that will be addressed collaboratively. Once you’ve done this, be sure to draft it and check with all parties to ensure that everyone is on board.

6. Scope of Work

Once the project overview is established, the scope of the work should be outlined.

The scope of work will consist of timelines, goals, pricing, and payment schedules. In general, the scope of work supplies the details of the proposal.

7. Projected Results

You may want to outline the projected results of the project. This can be substantiated using in-house (or outsourced) statistical analysis, prior work track records, or any other metric that you deem appropriate.

8. Closing Statement

The closing statement has just as much value as the opening statement in terms of deal solidification. You want to leave a lasting impression on your reader without being overbearing.

Again, keeping it short and sweet is advisable, as it demonstrates respect for the reader’s time.

How to Write a Collaboration Proposal

1. find out exactly what the client wants.

Finding out what the client wants can be tricky at times, but it is always a good idea to identify and investigate their particular need based on their industry.

There are several important components of businesses (finance, marketing, human resources, customer engagement, etc.), so you will want to ask about each area and find a niche where your business fits.

2. Highlight What Sets You Apart

In the U.S. alone, there are approximately 33 million small businesses . All businesses should identify the unique characteristics of their organization, as well as novel benefits that they bring to any agreement.

In order to understand what sets you apart, you might want to consider asking yourself these questions:

• What is your expertise in your specific industry?
• What value do you add by entering into a partnership?
• How does your proposal confer an advantage to the other business?
• What service(s) are you providing that other companies cannot (or will not) match?

It’s a good idea to include real examples of your work in your proposal to showcase your expertise to potential collaborators.

How Do You Propose Business Collaboration?

1. identify mutual goals and objectives.

Of the goals that you have outlined for your business, what can collaboration with a certain brand bring to your preexisting momentum?

This question should be asked of both you and your prospective collaborators prior to drafting a collaboration proposal.

2. Research Potential Partners and Their Offerings

Perform extensive research on your potential partners and compare them to across the board — what are they offering and what is their area of expertise?

3. Contact the Potential Partner Through Appropriate Channels

Contacting potential partners is ideally accomplished through a formal email addressing the company that you are looking to collaborate with.

Like your proposal, this email should be as succinct as possible, but also position your business as innovative and collaboration-worthy.

4. Clearly State the Intention of Collaboration

Wanting a collaborative project with a certain brand or company might obscure the true reasons for collaboration in the first place. You should highlight the overarching reason for collaboration and what you hope to achieve once the project is completed.

5. Propose Specific Collaboration Ideas or Projects

Your initial conversations with your intended collaborators should be inspired by potential projects with mutually beneficial undertones that you have devised.

This shows initiative and preparedness and will make you a more likely candidate for collaboration in the future.

6. Discuss Potential Terms, Agreements, or Contracts

This is an informal discussion prior to the actual collaboration proposal, but the legal elements of your proposal are very important.

It might be useful to see how other companies in a similar situation have defined their legal terms and expectations if possible.

7. Outline Responsibilities and Contributions From Each Party

This section can outline all of the details of the project, including the specific contributions that each party should make to the project.

Outlining project duties might require more discussion with your potential partner(s), especially if you are drafting a project timeline with key milestones.

8. Address Potential Concerns or Questions

Concerns and questions may arise as the project progresses, but the core of the collaboration should be ironed out prior to signing the collaboration agreement.

9. Establish a Communication Plan For Ongoing Discussions

You may want to consider implementing a communication plan or schedule for you to update your partner on the progress of the project from your side.

Sending regular emails will make sure that everyone is on track, and might provide an opportunity for pressing questions to be addressed. It will also allow you to set boundaries and lay out when you’ll be available to avoid scope creep!

Creating a Collaboration Proposal Is Simple with Bonsai

Now you know how to create a collaboration proposal, why not let Bonsai do all the hard work for you?

Bonsai has streamlined the process of drafting collaboration proposals with numerous, easy-to-use templates that allow you to submit a convincing proposal to your intended business partner, while also simplifying the experience.

Want to add your own branding? Our templates are completely editable, so whatever you want to add — whether it’s a logo or your brand colors — you’re welcome to, all at the click of a button.

Best of all? We have our own in-house legal teams who will ensure that your collaboration proposal is legally binding, without needing to pay extra for a lawyer.

And, if you aren’t ready to commit to an account just yet, you can use our collaboration proposal template for free .

How to Use Our Partnership Proposal Template

Ready to get started with your partnership proposal? All you have to do is:

• Sign up for free
• Choose a template that suits your needs
• Fill in the easy-to-use prompts.

And don’t forget, all Bonsai collaboration proposal templates can be customized depending on the terms of your proposal, as well as copied, so you can send as many proposals as you need to!

After you’re satisfied with your collaboration proposal, all that’ll be left to do is send the proposal to your intended business partner for review.

Then, once the partnership proposal template is submitted, the hardest part is waiting for a response!

How long is a collaboration proposal?

How do you ask a company for a partnership, what is the format of a proposal.

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How to Write a Compelling Brand Collaboration Proposal

Executed correctly, brand collaborations combine astute business strategy with the kind of creative opportunities that marketing teams dream about all year round.

However, preparing a brand collaboration proposal requires the same approach used for any B2B sales proposa l . You’ll need a clear persuasive argument, backed with compelling evidence and social proof, presented in a professional and engaging format that makes it easy for the prospective partner to say yes.

In this article, we’ll discuss different approaches to brand collaboration. We'll also give you tips on creating a template that will allow you to channel your innovative ideas in a clear, structured proposal. Our proposal template will demonstrate to your prospective partner why joining forces with you could be the smartest move they’ve ever made.

Key takeaways

• Brand collaborations can expand reach, offset costs, improve brand trust, and boost sales.
• A brand collaboration proposal should be clear, persuasive, and backed with compelling evidence.
• Successful collaborations require thorough research of potential partners and careful planning.
• Proposals should include an introduction, goals and strategy, deliverables, timeline, expected results, and social proof.
• Flexibility and continuous assessment are key to successful brand collaborations.

What is a brand collaboration proposal?

A brand collaboration proposal is a comprehensive outline of a proposed collaboration between two brands (or a brand and an influencer). It’s usually created in response to a stated desire from both brands to work together.

The key word here is collaboration - your proposal isn’t outlining a defined set of services in a traditional vendor/client relationship. It’s more like a set of ideas or strategies representing a starting point. In the spirit of collaboration, it’s important to remain flexible and receptive to the other partner’s ideas.

There are many ways to collaborate with other brands or influencers, ranging from product ‘shout outs’ and social media takeover days to time-honored arrangements such as referrals and their modern digital counterpart, affiliate marketing.

Some collaborations go even deeper, with both brands investing in serious R&D and co-producing a shared product or range of products.

The benefits of brand collaboration

There are many business benefits that can result from a well-executed brand collaboration. These include:

Expanding your reach. Collaboration can be used to open up new locations and demographics, bringing the other brand’s customers to your door. Customers from the other brand's audience can be excited by the idea of an innovative collaboration.

This was the case with the Taco Bell Doritos Locos Taco. One of the most successful fast food products of all time, Taco Bell sold over a billion units in the first 12 months.

Offsetting costs and sharing resources. Collaborations can be used to expand your offer in unexpected ways that would be expensive and time-consuming for you to pursue unaided.

Target achieved this through a series of collaborations with high fashion designers such as Rachel Comey, Victor Glemaud, and Nili Lotan.

By working with these designers to create limited runs of affordable clothes, Target was able to access a level of design skill and prestige far beyond what consumers expect from this high-street giant.

In providing Target with this image makeover, the designers were able to leverage Target's massive customer base to raise awareness of their brands as something for a whole new audience of clothes shoppers to aspire to.

Improve brand trust and customer loyalty. One of the most common reasons to collaborate is to improve public perceptions of your brand. Working with a company, influencer, or organization that is clearly a positive societal force can reflect well on your brand.

This was certainly the case when Buzzfeed partnered with Best Friends Animal Society to produce an article featuring Emma Watson , their brand ambassador, playing with kittens (who incidentally all needed adopting).

Best Friends Animal Society got to leverage the massive audiences enjoyed by Buzzfeed, while Buzzfeed made the most of an opportunity to showcase its values and charitable instincts.

Boost sales and revenue. While all these collaborative strategies are intended to ultimately boost sales and revenue, some collaborations are the result of both brands identifying a lucrative gap in the market.

Apple needed a credit card company to partner with for Apple Pay. Mastercard was only too happy to oblige by becoming the first major company to allow consumers to store their credit and debit cards in Apple Pay.

As well as the obvious benefits to their revenue and market share, the association allowed Mastercard to align itself with perceptions of Apple as a pioneer of reliable technological innovations.

Brand Collaboration Proposal Template

Our Brand Collaboration Proposal Template is designed to secure profitable brand partnerships. It highlights your team's ability to create a focused, data-backed, and outcome-focused proposal that caters to the specific needs of potential brand partners.

Steps to writing a brand collaboration proposal: Key elements to include

Preparation.

The best collaborations are often the result of a sustained effort and a lot of hard work. That work starts long before you send any proposals.

You’ll need to research potential collaborators thoroughly and curate targeted branding opportunities to improve your chances of a successful partnership.

You’ll need to explore their:

• Core beliefs and values
• Target audience - does it align with yours? Would it provide a new audience?
• Marketing strategies and goals
• Products, services, and offerings
• Team members, governance, revenue models, and company culture

These factors can help you effectively qualify potential brand partners. Be aware that any partner will scrutinize you similarly - is your brand appealing enough for them? Do you have sufficient audience or market share to make a collaboration worth their while?

Once you’ve narrowed down to solid prospects, begin to establish contact through the appropriate social media platforms (whether that's LinkedIn or Instagram). Once you've familiarized yourself, you can test the waters with an exploratory email (or, even better, an introduction from a third party).

When mutual interest is established, it’s time to create a brand collaboration proposal built around the following key sections.

• Introduction

It can be useful to introduce your brand and your work in this section but keep it brief and succinct. It’s better to use this section to focus on the other brand and help them understand what benefits they’ll get from partnering with you.

If their brand’s values and audience align with your own, it shouldn’t be too hard to find positives about their brand you can highlight in this section. Talk about why you’re keen to work with them, and your complimentary intro should get your proposal off to a good start.

• Goals and strategy

This section allows you to provide a high-level overview of your vision for collaboration. Discuss the scope of the project, along with a few options to extend and progress the partnership should it prove successful. If applicable, outline which products will be promoted, any fees or services that may change hands as compensation, and the general timeline or timeframe.

• Deliverables

Break down your deliverables, explaining exactly what your partner can expect from you. If you’re offering to promote their brand, define how this will be done (providing examples or mock-ups if necessary), how often it will be done, and the cadence of your promotional efforts.

Provide your prospective partner with a clear timeline that lets them visualize how the collaboration will play out. This will help them think strategically about managing the workload involved and hopefully start working towards the suggested start date.

• Expected results

It’s important to keep this section realistic and don’t offer unprovable results. ‘Underpromise and overdeliver’ is a fair summary of how you should approach any forecast of expected results.

You can offer a solid set of success assessment criteria, though. Use the following principles to set out how you’ll measure the success of your partnership.

Use the right KPIs. Is your partner hoping to increase their reach? Measure audience share. Are they looking to offset marketing costs? Use financial data from their previous marketing campaigns to establish a ‘counterfactual’ measure of how much they would expect to pay without your assistance. Make sure your metrics match the stated goals of the collaboration.

Align your tracking data. Make sure that any KPIs you’re tracking are being measured the same way by your partner - that way, you’ll avoid confusion when comparing data six months down the line.

Plan for continuous assessment. Hold your collaboration accountable with targets and progress reviews to ensure the venture stays profitable and on track.

• Social proof

In this section, you’ll prove why your brand is exactly the right fit for your prospective partner with a range of social proof.

This might require you to demonstrate the size, strength, and loyalty of your audience or customer base. Alternatively, you might want to show off the product's virtues and highlight its relevance to your partner’s offer.

Any previous experience of successful brand collaborations you can draw on will be useful here. You can use the quantitative data from your previous collaborations to add credibility to the forecasted expected results you provided in the previous section.

Your conclusion needs to emphasize your flexibility. Frame your proposal as a starting position, and encourage your prospective partner to engage further by providing contact details across various communication channels.

If you’re confident your partner is ready to engage with the collaboration as you’ve described it, you can provide T &Cs and e-sign functionality embedded in the proposal document to streamline the process and let them close the deal .

Example of a brand collaboration proposal template

Qwilr’s brand collaboration proposal template provides everything you need to create a solid framework for repeatable brand collaboration proposals that are easy to customize to each unique opportunity that comes your way.

Using our template, you can immediately create your proposal following the professional format outlined here.

Qwilr proposals are professionally designed and mobile-friendly. They’re instantly adaptable and customizable with any content you want to introduce. You can import your branding elements and seamlessly incorporate interactive elements such as embedded videos, image galleries, and interactive pricing tables for added impact.

Qwilr drives revenue for modern sales teams

Uncover how buyers are engaging with your sales assets at crucial stages of the deal

Join forces - and crush your business goals

Brand collaborations can often appear frivolous, but there’s usually a strong business case to justify the relationship.

If you’re hoping to engage another brand to work alongside yours, then it’s up to you to make a case for it as professionally and convincingly as possible.

You’re much more likely to be taken seriously if your proposal is clear, well-structured, and beautifully designed. Qwilr’s customizable brand collaboration proposal provides everything you need to kickstart your collaboration with mobile-friendly design, interactive content, and e-sign functionality. Test it out for yourself with a 14-day free trial.

About the author

Dan Lever | Brand Consultant and Copywriter

Dan Lever is an experienced brand consultant and copywriter. He brings over 7 years experience in marketing and sales development, across a range of industries including B2B SaaS, third sector and higher education.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the best format for a brand collaboration proposal.

An effective business partnership proposal should open with an introduction, where you briefly explain the motivation and scope of the collaboration, before setting out goals, deliverables, timeline and expected results.

How do you pitch collaboration with brands?

Research your potential collaborators thoroughly to make sure their values and goals are aligned with your own (and that you have something useful to offer). Interact with them in a low-key way on social media, to get a sense of their communication style and responsiveness, before approaching them with a brand outreach e-mail or DM to suggest a collaboration.

If they’re open to the idea, you’ll need to create a comprehensive proposal.

How do you write a brand collaboration email?

Your brand collaboration email needs to be snappy, with a strong subject line and a list of several compelling reasons why the collaboration would be in their best interests. Using a customized business e-mail, summarize what form the collaboration could take. You’ll need to prepare a full collaboration proposal if the brand agrees.

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31 Brand Collaboration Proposal Tips for Influencers

• Posted by by Netanya Trimboli
• May 15, 2020
• 5 minute read

A brand collaboration proposal is often required to finalize your influencer campaign. Make sure you follow these tips from an industry insider and an expert in working with travel influencers!

You’ve pitched a prospective client and now they’ve asked for a proposal – congrats!

Now it’s time to seal the deal with a well thought out and presented collaboration proposal. This shows you’ve listened, you’re professional, and that you can meet – or exceed – their expectations.

The proposal is the first taste of what it will be like to work with you, so give it the attention it deserves.

As you’re putting it together, keep in mind the proposal is not just for your point of contact. Most prospective clients need to discuss the terms with their boss or other team members before moving forward.

So write your proposal as if your audience knows nothing about you or what was discussed. It will show your value before the collaboration even begins!

Read next: Hidden Marketing Assets Influencers Can Use to Add Value

To get started, follow these Do’s and Don’ts to turn your brand collaboration proposal into a statement of work.

What is a Brand Collaboration Proposal?

A collaboration proposal is a sign that a brand is interested in working with you, but they need more detail to better understand what you’re offering and determine if it aligns with their goals.

Serving as an outline of your suggested collaboration, a sound proposal answers the who, what, when, where, and why.

You should expect some form of negotiation — from the number of posts, to the platforms used, to the cost.

You don’t have to accept all of the brand’s requests in order to secure the business. But some creativity and flexibility will increase your likelihood of moving forward.

Brand Collaboration Proposal Do’s and Don’ts

Start with branding.

Since this proposal is the first taste of what it will be like to work with you, make sure the proposal reflects who you are.

When creating your brand collaboration proposal, make sure you:

• Use your branded letterhead.
• Provide a short (2-3 sentences) overview of who you are.
• Include links to your website and/or social channels.
• Overshare – the brand has already expressed interest in working with you, so you don’t need to “sell” yourself here. Instead, just give a brief context to anyone not familiar with your work.

Are you a Travel and Culture Content Creator?

Download the free anti-oppression toolkit, state the objective.

Brand partners want to know you listened and that you’ve created a custom collaboration proposal based on their needs and goals.

Stating the objective ensures everyone understands the purpose of the collaboration and aligns everyone’s expectations.

In your proposal, make sure you:

• Use the client’s words to explain what the campaign is and why they are seeking influencer support (1-2 sentences).
• Emphasize why you’re the best choice for the job, i.e. highly targeted or engaged following, subject matter expertise, etc. (1-2 sentences).
• Explain how you will interact with the product or service and on which channels you will share your experience (1-2 sentences).
• Include too much detail about the number of posts or specific deliverables (that should be included in the Tactics section).
• “Find and replace” the company name from an old proposal. It’s okay to replicate the structure, but the proposal should be custom-built for each client. Trust me, we can tell when it’s not!

Read next: Tips for Micro Influencers

Create a Timeline

This section of a brand collaboration proposal should be short and sweet. It acts as a helpful complement to the Objective. Together they create the total package of who, what, why, and when.

In your timeline, be sure to:

• Include suggested or agreed upon date(s) for the brand experience to take place.
• Provide approximate date(s) for various deliverables to be complete.
• Give an approximate deadline for reporting the KPIs (key performance indicators).
• Give the impression that the timeline is fixed or non-negotiable. The purpose of this section is for your client to grasp how long the whole collaboration will take, as opposed to finalizing details.

Share the Tactics

Now it’s time to get down to details for your collaboration.

Map out each channel you will be posting to or creating content for, as well as the number of posts on each platform.

If you are proposing two or more packages at different price points, go through this exercise for each option.

Always be sure to:

• Be as specific as possible. For example, “500-word original article posted to www.blog.com” or “2 Instagram feed posts with [Client] tagged in caption.”
• Include non-content items, like money set aside for boosting, any other groups or outlets you will share the content with, rights to photography, etc.
• Share the cost for everything mentioned.

But you don’t need to:

• Say what you won’t do. For example, if you want to say that rights to photography are not included, put that in the Terms & Conditions section. Everything here should be what you WILL be doing for the client.

Ensure Results

At the end of the day, what matters most to the client is the results.

Show you are committed to serving their needs by outlining a campaign report.

Read next: Campaign Reporting for Influencers

Providing a campaign summary or report at the end of your collaboration ensures the client’s goals have been met and proves your professionalism.

In this section of the proposal, be sure you:

• Include how long after completion of all deliverables that the metrics will be shared.
• Commit to a minimum number of views or engagements (if possible), depending upon the goals of your partnership.
• Offer a backup solution if the minimum number is not met, such as a second blog post. This is a great way to give your client peace of mind!

And definitely don’t:

• Leave this part out! Many influencers stop after the deliverables. But, in order to justify the cost of doing business, your client needs to be assured you are holding yourself accountable for the agreed-upon results of the campaign.

Terms & Conditions

This is the part where you outline anything you don’t want to do.

In the appropriate context, sharing these limitations can actually make you seem more professional. It’s also a great way to set expectations.

Make sure you:

• Include any extra fees for a-la-carte items, transportation costs, etc.
• Indicate what’s not included; i.e. rights to photos or content.
• Share any blackout dates with your own schedule.
• Think of a laundry list of items that potentially could come up. Think of this section as the things your client may want or expect, but that you’re not able (or unwilling) to deliver. Consider any items that have caused misunderstandings in the past.

Send Your Proposal

After you’ve given one last proofread, it’s time to send off your brand collaboration proposal.

Be sure to put your best foot forward and avoid some common pitfalls before you do.

When finalizing your proposal document, make sure you:

• Keep it to 2-3 pages, turn it into a PDF, and attach it to an email.
• Include a brief message.
• Offer to be flexible with the deliverables.
• Follow up a week after you send it, if you haven’t heard back.

But please don’t:

• Paste your proposal into the body of an email.
• Give too much away in your email message – it will spoil the wow factor of your proposal!

Final Notes on Brand Collaboration Proposals

Creating a full brand collaboration proposal may be time-consuming your first time around. But it will get easier the more you do them!

And, remember, the payoff makes it all worthwhile. Collaborating with brands might be the next step in your career as a content creator, so always put your best foot forward and offer a professional, thorough proposal.

Did we miss anything? Let us know your brand collaboration proposal tips and techniques!

Creators: Get insights + tips to help you thrive.

Netanya Trimboli

Netanya collaborates with dozens of influencers each year and has led global, award-winning campaigns that have taken her from the White House to the United Nations. She is the co-founder of the Travel Influencer Summit on Study Abroad and Global Citizenship, and has been called upon by SXSW, the Impact Travel Alliance, and more to share her marketing insight. Follow her at twitter.com/netanya or connect on LinkedIn. Check out her courses, free resources, and coaching: https://www.travelinfluencerexpert.com/

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Proposal Templates > Brand Collaboration Proposal Template

Brand Collaboration Proposal Template

If you’re looking to enter into a new business partnership, it’s important that you showcase your company’s services and previous work in the best possible light. We’ve taken the guesswork out of putting together impressive looking proposals with our free and fillable brand collaboration proposal template that can be customized to your needs in minutes. Edit, deliver, and track your proposal, then get approval with built-in eSignatures.    

Best proposal software ever! 

I’ve tried soooo many proposal softwares and I’ll never try another one after Proposable. It’s so easy to use and it looks good, which all the others don’t.

Account Executive , Grow.com

Smart, reliable, and constantly improving.

Proposable just works. I can make visually interesting sales presentations, dynamically insert content, and execute agreements. Proposable powers our entire sales process.

CEO , Periodic

Pitch e-mails in brand collaboration are quite different from regular work e-mail pitches. While writing a subject line for influencer outreach e-mail, remember your status as a partner, not as an employer. Similarly, an affiliate e-mail template or a sample e-mail to bloggers should sound similar to a sample letter of partnership request.

Bloggers and influencers are self-employed, so you should write to them in a way that acknowledges them as business owners. Whether you’re the brand or the influencer, the usual sample outreach letter goes like this:

First, introduce yourself and your business. Next, talk about why you’re sending the e-mail. Talk about your goals as well as why you want to partner with those who receive your e-mail. How will your business and marketing skills prove to be beneficial for your partner? What will be the legal formalities? How long will the contract last? Will there be any restrictions or specifications?

You may not want to talk about every minute detail in your very first e-mail. In the first couple of e-mails, get the other side to think about why they’d want to partner with you. The e-mails with more details follow only if you succeed at establishing the partnership.

You can find a pdf sample letter requesting a partnership with an organization online if you need some help. Moreover, there are also tons of websites offering: pitch e-mail example, sample pitch letter to bloggers, brand collaboration e-mail template, sales pitch e-mail templates, etc. 

Whichever position you’re writing from, it’s always best to take help from sample e-mails and offer letters. If the e-mail sequences get the ball rolling, the next step is to discuss the campaign. Decide which medium you’ll use for marketing, how it will take place, and how the payments will be made.

• Business Templates
• Sample Proposals

FREE 11+ Collaboration Proposal Sample [ Partnership, Review, Brand ]

The book “Global Project Management” stated that global projects are now the operating units which establish initial connections among various cross-border networks and depend on information flow across various business partners and stakeholders. As we see nowadays, there are many projects in global environments which involve people coming from different companies located in diverse countries and lands. But to be successful in collaboration, you need to effectively craft a compelling collaboration proposal. In this article, we will discuss beneficial steps of creating a collaboration proposal, plus we have various downloadable partnership proposal templates for you to use. Keep on reading!

Collaboration Proposal

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A collaboration proposal sample is an essential document that demonstrates collaborative goals, objectives, and plans developed by a project manager of a company with the aim of getting a meaningful collaboration project or business partnership with other companies or organizations.

According to the book “ Collaboration Tools for Project Managers ”, humans are predisposed to connect with each other, and while the barriers to entry were decreased, participation grew. In this matter, we suggest that you follow the simple steps below while freely using one of our collaboration proposal templates in this article analysis :

One of the primary factors that you need to consider in creating a partnership or collaboration proposal is specifying clear goal list , and solid objectives for your collaboration project.  Think carefully about the things you prioritize in your collaboration project and your vision in achieving your definite goals and objectives.

To build a good impression for your potential business partners, you need to fully describe the scope of work of your collaboration project. Howard Gardner said: “If you understand something well, you can represent it, describe it, embody it in several ways. Indeed, if you can only present it in one way, then your own mastery is likely to be tenuous.” You don’t need to use fancy words in your proposal . The main point here is you must fully represent and describe your ideas about the collaboration you want to execute. 

After you set direction and build your team for collaboration, you need to provide comprehensive action plans and align them with your key people, and practices based on a shared purpose statement . Communicate efficiently with each ember as you come up with crucial solutions to potential issues related to your collaboration project and implement them. Also, provide necessary information concerning the estimated budget of the collaboration .

Albert Einstein said: “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” Thus, highlight the parts of the collaboration project and show its unique value and why it is apart from others. Make sure that your collaboration can positively influence many people and support their needs in some ways.  This is a vital point for many companies and organizations as they prefer to project work with business individuals or firms that have a unique perspective especially when it comes in creating a valuable product or service to the people. 

Include a sample brief description of your collaboration project by writing 2-3 paragraphs. Emphasize the main purpose and objectives of the collaboration, as well as the possible impact and benefits it would bring to both of you and the industry.

When writing for a collaboration project, the members of both teams, groups, or companies should have roles clearly assigned to them. Indicate the strengths and weaknesses of each member. Then, accept the opinions, comments, and suggestions from others. Maintain adaptability despite the differences. 

There are many things that you can offer collaboration to other business firms. When you want to collaborate with your favorite brands, try cross-promotion or interchanging of product promotion from a specific brand that you like to partner with. Try collaborating with influencers in social media, and take advantage of guest posting. Or make a podcast or interview series online. Attend networking events agenda as well.

The different types of collaboration are community collaboration, cloud collaboration, internal collaboration, network collaboration, strategic alliance, video collaboration, and many others.

When starting up a collaboration project, it can be a real challenge for the ones involved because managing a certain range of different personalities is way different compared to the usual. But due to converging technical trends and business drivers in our generation, many business analysis and organizations can easily move toward digital practices to enhance collaboration with each other.  So, get a collaboration proposal template today to start your collaboration project journey! 

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BOSS Magazine

5 Meaningful Tips on How to Write a Collaboration Proposal

Establishing a successful partnership could depend on a well-written proposal.

by Matthew Flynn | Published: August 6, 2019 | Updated: June 28, 2023 7:42 am

Running your own business can be a lot of work, especially if you’re trying to do everything by yourself. There are times when partners will truly be needed and a strategically planned partnership will help you increase your productivity and the goals you manage to achieve.

If you wish to try your luck with collaborations but don’t know how to approach someone, you will possibly need some additional help with your proposal . Here are some helpful tips to help you write a great collaboration proposal.

• Be polite and professional

One of the most important things to keep in mind when reaching out to a potential business partner is to be mindful of the way you write and the words you use. The way you approach someone can really determine the outcome of your proposal and you can gain a new partner just through the way you speak.

The key point here is to always stay professional and never lose your manners. Even if you are somewhat familiar with the person you are sending the collaboration proposal to, your point is not to become their friends but to win them over with an offer they will be tempted to accept.

Showing your manners and your professionalism can be simple as long as you remember that you are not superior to any other person in your field. Another good idea is to make sure you always keep your text free of any grammar and spelling errors as they can also decrease the readability of your text and make it look less well-written and professional.

• Talk about your business

After choosing your writing style, you will need to make the introduction to your proposal letter. It is always a good idea to start out by mentioning a few things about your business and its origins. Whether the other person is familiar with your brand or not, it will help them get a smoother transition into the main topic of the letter.

“Your achievements and failures in regards to your brand will show its history and reasons for existence. Talking about the origins of your brand will always motivate those you are targeting to want to participate in helping you make it an even bigger success”, advises Ruth Owen, Public Relations Manager for GrabMyEssay  writing service.

• Make your proposal personal

The reasons why you started your own company could truly help showcase the hard work you have put and the dedication you have shown in regards to growing your business. Giving a more personal tone to your proposal doesn’t mean that it will seem any less professional.

On the other hand, you will be able to show just how much you care about making the right decisions for your company. By contacting this person, you are trying to offer them a way into working alongside you and making your business evolve and grow.

You can achieve this by talking about how much starting your company meant to you, how much you struggled in the beginning and what plans you have in order to make it a bigger success in the future. These will hopefully motivate your potential partner and make them want to have a part in your story.

• Explain their part in the partnership

Convincing the person you are writing to, to think about becoming a partner in your business is a task which will require some additional motivation. Apart from speaking about your own dreams and struggles in regards to the company, you also have to let them know about their part in this situation.

It is a good idea to start this section by talking about your strengths and about what the partner will be able to gain through this collaboration. For example, if your partner has a lot of experience in HR and would like to learn more about marketing, you can provide them with enough materials and experience through your line of work.

Each business has a different way of doing things and most business owners follow different tactics when it comes to attracting new customers , marketing their business and making sure everything works according to plan. By combining yours and your new partner’s working experiences, you will be able to make a bigger profit in a much shorter amount of time.

As your partner, they should know that their responsibilities towards the company will most likely be equal. You can even explain to them the aspects of the company which are weaker and that they could help enhance their knowledge on the matter. In any case, they should be able to get a basic understanding of what they should expect if they decide to accept your offer.

• Don’t make it profit-centered

Last but not least, another point you need to keep in mind is that talking too much about their financial profit through the collaboration and the overall financial benefit you both can expect will most likely have a negative effect on their opinion of you and your brand.

While the ultimate goal of creating your business and partnering up with someone is to increase your sales and therefore your revenue, it shouldn’t be the main thing on your mind. It is also highly likely that this isn’t the reason why your partner will accept the proposal.

You should mainly try focusing on explaining to them how much working experience in various fields they will be able to gain through this collaboration. You can also focus on their personal growth and the establishment of a professional relationship between the two of you, which will last for years to come. The financial profit will just be an extra beneficial outcome of this great collaboration.

Making the proposal hard to resist

Reaching out to a potential business partner is a big step from your side and it should be treated with respect by the person you are trying to attract. A business that works with more than one owner has higher chances of making it and will become more successful a lot faster.

All the tips mentioned in this post will help you find out a few ways on how you can make your proposal a lot more attractive to your potential partner. By using the right words and ideas, you will help them see this as a beneficial step for their career and finally decide to take on your offer.

Written by:  Angela Baker

Angela Baker is a self-driven specialist who is currently working as a freelance writer at TrustMyPaper writing services and is trying to improve herself and her blogging career. She is always trying to discover new ways for personal and professional growth and is convinced that it’s always important to broaden one’s horizons. That’s why Angela develops and improves her skills throughout the writing process to help inspire people.

By: Matthew Flynn

BOSS Managing Editor, writer, ex-magician that still knows the tricks

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• 6 steps for writing a persuasive projec ...

6 steps for writing a persuasive project proposal

A project proposal is a written document outlining everything stakeholders should know about a project, including the timeline, budget, objectives, and goals. Your project proposal should summarize your project details and sell your idea so stakeholders buy in to the initiative. In this guide, we’ll teach you how to write a project proposal so you can win approval and succeed at work.

All projects have creation stories, but they don’t start with someone declaring, “Let there be resources!” To move forward with a project, teams must submit a proposal to decision-makers within their organization or to external stakeholders. 

What is a project proposal?

A project proposal is a written document outlining everything stakeholders should know about a project, including the timeline, budget, objectives , and goals. Your project proposal should summarize your project details and sell your idea so stakeholders feel inclined to get involved in the initiative.

The goal of your project proposal is to:

Secure external funding

Allocate company resources to your project

Gain stakeholder buy-in

Build momentum and excitement

Project proposals vs. project charters vs. business cases

Project proposals and project charters serve different purposes in the project creation process, and it’s important to understand the difference between the two. While a project proposal takes place in the initiation phase of the project, the project charter takes place in the planning phase. 

As mentioned above, a project proposal is a persuasive document meant to convince stakeholders why the project should be carried out. A project charter is a reference document that defines project objectives, and it can’t be created until the project proposal is approved.

People also confuse the business case with the project proposal, but the business case also comes after the proposal. Once the project is approved through a proposal, a business case may be used to secure additional funding for the project.

Types of project proposals

There are six types of proposals you may encounter as a project manager, and understanding the different formats can be useful as you write yours. Each type has a different goal.

Solicited: You’ll send solicited proposals in response to a Request for Proposal (RFP). An RFP announces a project in detail and asks for bids from qualified teams. Because you’re competing against other companies for this type of proposal, you must do thorough research and write persuasively.

Unsolicited: You’ll send unsolicited proposals without an RFP, meaning no one asked for your proposal. In this case, you won’t be up against other companies or teams, but you’ll still need to be persuasive because you have no knowledge of whether the stakeholder you’re pitching to needs you.

Informal: You may have a client send you an informal request for a project proposal, in which case you can respond with your project pitch. Because this isn’t an official RFP, the rules are less concrete.

Renewal: You’ll send renewals to existing clients in hopes that they’ll extend their services with your organization. In this type of project proposal, the goal is to emphasize past results your team has produced for the client and persuade them you can produce future results.

Continuation: You’ll send continuations as a reminder to a stakeholder letting them know the project is beginning. In this project proposal, you’ll simply provide information about the project instead of persuading the stakeholder.

Supplemental: Similar to a continuation proposal, you’ll send a supplemental proposal to a stakeholder already involved in your project. In this type of proposal, you’re letting the stakeholder know the project is beginning, while also asking for additional resources. You should persuade the stakeholder to contribute more to the project in this proposal.

The tone of voice and content of your project proposal will differ based on the type of proposal you’re sending. When you know your project goals, you can write your proposal accordingly.

How to write a project proposal

These step-by-step instructions apply to most project proposals, regardless of type. You’ll need to customize your proposal for the intended audience, but this project proposal outline can serve as a reference to ensure you’re including the key components in your document. 

1. Write an executive summary

The executive summary serves as the introduction to your project proposal. Similar to a report abstract or an essay introduction, this section should summarize what’s coming and persuade the stakeholder to continue reading. Depending on the complexity of your project, your executive summary may be one paragraph or a few paragraphs. 

Your executive summary should include:

The problem your project plans to solve

The solution your project provides for that problem

The impact your project will have 

You should only address these items briefly in your executive summary because you’ll discuss these topics in more detail later in your proposal. 

2. Explain the project background

In this section, you’ll go into the background of the project. Use references and statistics to convince your reader that the problem you’re addressing is worthwhile.

Some questions to include are:

What is the problem your project addresses?

What is already known about this problem?

Who has addressed this problem before/what research is there?

Why is past research insufficient at addressing this problem?

You can also use this section to explain how the problem you hope to solve directly relates to your organization. 

3. Present a solution

You just presented a problem in the project background section, so the next logical step in proposal writing is to present a solution. This section is your opportunity to outline your project approach in greater detail. 

Some items to include are:

Your vision statement for the project

Your project schedule , including important milestones

Project team roles and responsibilities  

A risk register showing how you’ll mitigate risk

The project deliverables

Reporting tools you’ll use throughout the project

You may not have all these items in your proposal format, but you can decide what to include based on the project scope . This section will likely be the longest and most detailed section of your proposal, as you’ll discuss everything involved in achieving your proposed solution. 

4. Define project deliverables and goals

Defining your project deliverables is a crucial step in writing your project proposal. Stakeholders want to know what you’re going to produce at the end of your project, whether that’s a product, a program, an upgrade in technology, or something else. As the stakeholder reads through your vision, this will be the section where they say, “Aha, this is what they’ll use my resources for.”

When defining your deliverables, you should include:

The end product or final objective of your project 

A project timeline for when deliverables will be ready

SMART goals that align with the deliverables you’re producing

While it’s important to show the problem and solution to your project, it’s often easier for stakeholders to visualize the project when you can define the deliverables.

5. List what resources you need

Now that you’ve outlined your problem, approach, solution, and deliverables, you can go into detail about what resources you need to accomplish your initiative.

In this section, you’ll include:

Project budget : The project budget involves everything from the supplies you’ll need to create a product to ad pricing and team salaries. You should include any budget items you need to deliver the project here.

Breakdown of costs: This section should include research on why you need specific resources for your project; that way, stakeholders can understand what their buy-in is being used for. This breakdown can also help you mitigate unexpected costs.

Resource allocation plan : You should include an overview of your resource allocation plan outlining where you plan to use the specific resources you need. For example, if you determine you need $50,000 to complete the project, do you plan to allocate this money to salaries, technology, materials, etc.

Hopefully, by this point in the proposal, you’ve convinced the stakeholders to get on board with your proposed project, which is why saving the required resources for the end of the document is a smart strategic move.

6. State your conclusion

Finally, wrap up your project proposal with a persuasive and confident conclusion. Like the executive summary, the conclusion should briefly summarize the problem your project addresses and your solution for solving that problem. You can emphasize the impact of your project in the conclusion but keep this section relevant, just like you would in a traditional essay. 

Tips for writing an effective project proposal

Following the steps listed above will ensure your project proposal has all the right elements. But if you want to impress your readers and win their approval, your writing must shine. In addition to the above, a project proposal includes:

Know your audience

As you write your proposal, keep your audience (i.e. the stakeholders) in mind at all times. Remember that the goal of the proposal is to win your audience over, not just to present your project details. For example, if you’re creating a new editing tool for a children’s publishing house, can you determine whether your stakeholders are parents and appeal to their emotional side when persuading them to buy in to your product?

Be persuasive

Persuasion is important in a project proposal because you’re hoping your audience will read your proposal and do something for you in return. If your reader isn’t intrigued by your project, they won’t feel inclined to help you. If you describe your editing tool but don’t mention the many features it will offer, how it will benefit clients, and its positive impact in the industry, your audience will wonder, “Why should I care about this project?” 

Keep it simple

While you should go into detail on your problem, approach, and solution, you shouldn’t make your project proposal overly complex. This means you can discuss the project plan for your proposed editing tool without discussing what codes the engineers will use to make each feature work. 

Do your research

A successful project proposal includes thorough research. Be prepared to back up your problem—and solution—with reputable sources, case studies, statistics, or charts so you don’t leave your audience with questions. When writing your proposal, put yourself in the reader’s shoes and ask:

Why is this a problem?

How is this a solution to the problem?

Has anyone addressed this problem before?

What are the project costs?

If you can answer these questions, then you’ve likely done enough research to support your proposed initiative.

Use project management tools to strengthen your project proposal

Good project proposals require team collaboration . With the right management tools, your team can communicate, share information, and work together on one shared document. 

When you store all your project information in one place, it’s easy to access that data when you need it. Project proposals stem from well-organized and properly planned projects, which is why project management software is a key resource to effectively write a project proposal. Ready to get started? Try Asana .

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28+ SAMPLE Collaboration Proposal in PDF | MS Word | Google Docs | Apple Pages

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Step 1: stay polite and professional, step 2: introduce your business, step 3: make the proposal personal, step 4: elaborate on the collaborator’s role, share this post on your network, file formats, word templates, google docs templates, excel templates, powerpoint templates, google sheets templates, google slides templates, pdf templates, publisher templates, psd templates, indesign templates, illustrator templates, pages templates, keynote templates, numbers templates, outlook templates, you may also like these articles, 25+ sample construction company proposal in ms word.

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How to Write a Project Proposal (Examples & Template Included)

Table of Contents

What is a project proposal, types of project proposals, project proposal vs. project charter, project proposal vs. business case, project proposal vs. project plan, project proposal outline, how to write a project proposal, project proposal example, project proposal tips.

• ProjectManager & Project Proposals

A project proposal is a project management document that’s used to define the objectives and requirements of a project. It helps organizations and external project stakeholders agree on an initial project planning framework.

The main purpose of a project proposal is to get buy-in from decision-makers. That’s why a project proposal outlines your project’s core value proposition; it sells value to both internal and external project stakeholders. The intent of the proposal is to grab the attention of stakeholders and project sponsors. Then, the next step is getting them excited about the project summary.

Getting into the heads of the audience for which you’re writing the project proposal is vital: you need to think like the project’s stakeholders to deliver a proposal that meets their needs.

We’ve created a free project proposal template for Word to help structure documents, so you don’t have to remember the process each time.

Get your free

Project Proposal Template

Use this free Project Proposal Template for Word to manage your projects better.

In terms of types of project proposals, you can have one that’s formally solicited, informally solicited or a combination. There can also be renewal and supplemental proposals. Here’s a brief description of each of them.

• Solicited project proposal: This is sent as a response to a request for proposal (RFP) . Here, you’ll need to adhere to the RFP guidelines of the project owner.
• Unsolicited project proposal: You can send project proposals without having received a request for a proposal. This can happen in open bids for construction projects , where a project owner receives unsolicited project proposals from many contractors.
• Informal project proposal: This type of project proposal is created when a client asks for an informal proposal without an RFP.
• Renewal project proposal: You can use a renewal project proposal when you’re reaching out to past customers. The advantage is that you can highlight past positive results and future benefits.
• Continuation project proposal: A continuation project proposal is sent to investors and stakeholders to communicate project progress.
• Supplemental project proposal: This proposal is sent to investors to ask for additional resources during the project execution phase.

A project proposal is a detailed project document that’s used to convince the project sponsor that the project being proposed is worth the time, money and effort to deliver it. This is done by showing how the project will address a business problem or opportunity. It also outlines the work that will be done and how it will be done.

A project charter can seem like the same thing as a project proposal as it also defines the project in a document. It identifies the project objectives, scope, goals, stakeholders and team. But it’s done after the project has been agreed upon by all stakeholders and the project has been accepted. The project charter authorizes the project and documents its requirements to meet stakeholders’ needs.

A business case is used to explain why the proposed project is justified. It shows that the project is worth the investment of time and money. It’s more commonly used in larger companies in the decision-making process when prioritizing one project over another.

The business case answers the questions: what is the project, why should it be taken up, who will be involved and how much will it cost? It’s therefore related to a project proposal, but the project proposal comes before the business case and is usually part of the larger proposal.

Again, the project proposal and the project plan in this case are very similar documents. It’s understandable that there would be some confusion between these two project terms. They both show how the project will be run and what the results will be. However, they’re not the same.

The project proposal is a document that aims to get a project approved and funded. It’s used to convince stakeholders of the viability of the project and their investment. The project plan, on the other hand, is made during the planning phase of the project, once it’s been approved. It’s a detailed outline of how the project will be implemented, including schedule, budget, resources and more.

All the elements in the above project proposal outline are present in our template. This free project proposal template for Word will provide you with everything you need to write an excellent project proposal. It will help you with the executive summary, project process, deliverables, costs—even terms and conditions. Download your free template today.

There are several key operational and strategic questions to consider, including:

• Executive summary: This is the elevator pitch that outlines the project being proposed and why it makes business sense. While it also touches on the information that’ll follow in the project proposal, the executive summary should be brief and to the point.
• Project background: This is another short part of the proposal, usually only one page, which explains the problem you’ll solve or the opportunity you’re taking advantage of with the proposed project. Also, provide a short history of the business to put the company in context to the project and why it’s a good fit.
• Project vision & success criteria: State the goal of the project and how it aligns with the goals of the company. Be specific. Also, note the metrics used to measure the success of the project.
• Potential risks and mitigation strategies: There are always risks. Detail them here and what strategies you’ll employ to mitigate any negative impact as well as take advantage of any positive risk.
• Project scope & deliverables: Define the project scope, which is all the work that has to be done and how it will be done. Also, detail the various deliverables that the project will have.
• Set SMART goals: When setting goals, be SMART. That’s an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. All your goals would be defined by those five things.
• Project approach: Define the approach you’ll use for the contract. There are several different types of contracts used in construction , for example, such as lump sum, cost plus, time and materials, etc. This is also a good place to describe the delivery method you’ll use.
• Expected benefits: Outline the benefits that will come from the successful completion of the project.
• Project resource requirements: List the resources, such as labor, materials, equipment, etc., that you’ll need to execute the project if approved.
• Project costs & budget: Detail all the costs, including resources, that’ll be required to complete the project and set up a budget to show how those costs will be spent over the course of the project.
• Project timeline: Lay out the project timeline , which shows the project from start to finish, including the duration of each phase and the tasks within it, milestones, etc.

In addition to these elements, it’s advisable to use a cover letter, which is a one-page document that helps you introduce your project proposal and grab the attention of potential clients and stakeholders.

To make the best proposal possible, you’ll want to be thorough and hit on all the points we’ve listed above. Here’s a step-by-step guide to writing a persuasive priority proposal.

1. Write an Executive Summary

The executive summary provides a quick overview of the main elements of your project proposal, such as your project background, project objectives and project deliverables, among other things. The goal is to capture the attention of your audience and get them excited about the project you’re proposing. It’s essentially the “elevator pitch” for the project life cycle. It should be short and to the point.

The executive summary should be descriptive and paint a picture of what project success looks like for the client. Most importantly, it should motivate the project client; after all, the goal is getting them to sign on the dotted line to get the project moving!

2. Provide a Project Background

The project background is a one-page section of your project proposal that explains the problem that your project will solve. You should explain when this issue started, its current state and how your project will be the ideal solution.

• Historic data: The history section outlines previously successful projects and those that could have run more smoothly. By doing so, this section establishes precedents and how the next project can be more effective using information from previous projects.
• Solution: The solution section addresses how your project will solve the client’s problem. Accordingly, this section includes any project management techniques , skills and procedures your team will use to work efficiently.

3. Establish a Project Vision & Success Criteria

You’ll need to define your project vision. This is best done with a vision statement, which acts as the north star for your project. It’s not specific as much as it’s a way to describe the impact your company plans to make with the project.

It’s also important to set up success criteria to show that the project is in fact doing what it’s proposed to do. Three obvious project success criteria are the triple constraint of cost, scope and time. But you’ll need to set up a way to measure these metrics and respond to them if they’re not meeting your plan.

4. Identify Potential Risks and Mitigation Strategies

To reduce the impact of risk in your project, you need to identify what those risks might be and develop a plan to mitigate them . List all the risks, prioritize them, describe what you’ll do to mitigate or take advantage of them and who on the team is responsible for keeping an eye out for them and resolving them.

5. Define Your Project Scope and Project Deliverables

The project scope refers to all the work that’ll be executed. It defines the work items, work packages and deliverables that’ll be delivered during the execution phase of your project life cycle. It’s important to use a work breakdown structure (WBS) to define your tasks and subtasks and prioritize them.

6. Set SMART Goals for Your Project Proposal

The best mindset when developing goals and objectives for your project proposal is to use the SMART system :

• Specific – Make sure your goals and objectives are clear, concise and specific to the task at hand.
• Measurable – Ensure your goals and objectives are measurable so it’s obvious to see when things are on track and going well, and conversely, when things are off track and issues need to be addressed. Measurable goals make it easy to develop the milestones you’ll use to track the progress of the project and identify a reasonable date for completion and/or closure.
• Attainable – It’s important every project has a “reach” goal. Hitting this goal would mean an outstanding project that extends above and beyond expectations. However, it’s important that the project’s core goal is attainable, so morale stays high and the job gets done with time and resources to spare.
• Relevant – Make sure all of your goals are directly relevant to the project and address the scope within which you’re working.
• Time-Based – Timelines and specific dates should be at the core of all goals and objectives. This helps keep the project on track and ensures all project team members can manage the work that’s ahead of them.

7. Explain What’s Your Project Approach

Your project approach defines the project management methodology , tools and governance for your project. In simple terms, it allows project managers to explain to stakeholders how the project will be planned, executed and controlled successfully.

8. Outline The Expected Benefits of Your Project Proposal

If you want to convince internal stakeholders and external investors, you’ll need to show them the financial benefits that your project could bring to their organization. You can use cost-benefit analysis and projected financial statements to demonstrate why your project is profitable.

9. Identify Project Resource Requirements

Project resources are critical for the execution of your project. The project proposal briefly describes what resources are needed and how they’ll be used. Later, during the planning phase, you’ll need to create a resource management plan that’ll be an important element of your project plan. Project requirements are the items, materials and resources needed for the project. This section should cover both internal and external needs.

10. Estimate Project Costs and Project Budget

All the resources that you’ll need for your project have a price tag. That’s why you need to estimate those costs and create a project budget . The project budget needs to cover all your project expenses, and as a project manager, you’ll need to make sure that you adhere to the budget.

11. Define a Project Timeline

Once you’ve defined your project scope, you’ll need to estimate the duration of each task to create a project timeline. Later during the project planning phase , you’ll need to create a schedule baseline, which estimates the total length of your project. Once the project starts, you’ll compare your actual project schedule to the schedule baseline to monitor progress.

Now let’s explore some project proposal examples to get a better understanding of how a project proposal would work in the real world. For this example, let’s imagine a city that’s about to build a rapid transit system. The city government has the funds to invest but lacks the technical expertise and resources that are needed to build it, so it issues a request for proposal (RFP) document and sends it to potential builders.

Then, the construction companies that are interested in executing this rapid transit project will prepare a project proposal for the city government. Here are some of the key elements they should include.

• Project background: The construction firm will provide an explanation of the challenges that the project presents from a technical perspective, along with historical data from similar projects that have been completed successfully by the company.
• Project vision & success criteria: Write a vision statement and explain how you’ll track the triple constraint to ensure the successful delivery of the project.
• Potential risks and mitigation strategies: List all risks and how they’ll be mitigated, and be sure to prioritize them.
• Project scope & deliverables: The work that’ll be done is outlined in the scope, including all the deliverables that’ll be completed over the life cycle of the project.
• Set SMART goals: Use the SMART technique to define your project goals by whether they’re specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
• Project approach: Define the methodology that the project manager will employ to manage the project. Also, figure out what type of contract will be used to define the project.
• Expected benefits: Show how the project will deliver advantages to the company and define what these benefits are in a quantifiable way.
• Project resource requirements: List all the resources, such as labor, materials, equipment, etc., needed to execute the project.
• Project costs & budget: Estimate the cost of the project and lay that out in a project budget that covers everything from start to finish.
• Project timeline: Outline the project schedule, including phases, milestones and task duration on a visual timeline.

Whatever project proposal you’re working on, there are a few tips that apply as best practices for all. While above we suggested a project proposal template that would have a table of contents, meaning it would be many pages long, the best-case scenario is keeping the proposal to one or two pages max. Remember, you’re trying to win over stakeholders, not bore them.

Speaking of project stakeholders , do the research. You want to address the right ones. There’s no point in doing all the work necessary to write a great proposal only to have it directed to the wrong target audience. Whoever is going to read it, though, should be able to comprehend the proposal. Keep the language simple and direct.

When it comes to writing, get a professional. Even a business document like a project proposal, business case or executive summary will suffer if it’s poorly constructed or has typos. If you don’t want to hire a professional business writer, make sure you get someone on your project team to copy, edit and proof the document. The more eyes on it, the less likely mistakes will make it to the final edition.

While you want to keep the proposal short and sweet, it helps to sweeten the pot by adding customer testimonials to the attachments. Nothing sells a project plan better than a customer base looking for your product or service.

ProjectManager & Project Proposals

ProjectManager allows you to plan proposals within our software. You can update tasks for the project proposal to signify where things stand and what’s left to be done. The columns allow you to organize your proposal by section, creating a work breakdown structure (WBS) of sorts.

When building a project proposal, it’s vital to remember your target audience. Your audience includes those who are excited about the project, and see completion as a gain for their organization. Conversely, others in your audience will see the project as a pain and something to which they aren’t looking forward. To keep both parties satisfied, it’s essential to keep language factual and concise.

Our online kanban boards help you think through that language and collaborate on it effectively with other team members, if necessary. Each card shows the percentage completed so everyone in the project management team is aware of the work done and what’s left to be done.

As you can see from the kanban board above, work has begun on tasks such as product documentation and design. Tasks regarding stakeholder feedback, ideation, market research and more have been completed, and there’s a good start on the engineering drawings, 3D rendering, supply chain sourcing and translation services.

A PDF is then attached to the card, and everyone added to the task receives an email notifying them of the change. This same process can be used throughout the life-cycle of the project to keep the team updated, collaborating, and producing a first-class project proposal. In addition to kanban boards, you can also use other project management tools such as Gantt charts , project dashboards, task lists and project calendars to plan, schedule and track your projects.

Project proposals are just the first step in the project planning process. Once your project is approved, you’ll have to solidify the plan, allocate and manage resources, monitor the project, and finally hand in your deliverables. This process requires a flexible, dynamic and robust project management software package. ProjectManager is online project management software that helps all your team members collaborate and manage this process in real-time. Try our award-winning software with this free 30-day trial .

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How to Write a Collaboration Proposal: Marketing Secrets

Table of Contents

Whether you run your own digital business or work in as a full-time employee of a local agency, B2B collaborations can add a lot of credibility and revenue to your business.

According to Finances Online , 60% of organizations claim that B2B collaboration brought on 35% of their annual revenue, with 66% of companies putting more and more effort into building their collaboration networks.

They want and need for inter-company collaboration and long-term partnership exists no matter what industry or niche your business operates in. However, writing a well-balanced, informative and professional collaboration proposal to suggest just that can be difficult.

The reason for this is simple – companies often rely on cookie-cutter, cut-and-dry collaboration proposals without any personalization or research into their potential partners and their existing networks.

To amend for that shortcoming, certain marketing and writing secrets can be applied. With that said, let’s dive into “why” and “how” of collaboration proposal writing and how you can make the most of your future partnerships through some tried-and-tested secrets, tips and guidelines.

The Basics of Collaboration Proposals

In order to get a better understanding of collaboration proposal writing, we should reflect on their role in B2B networking. Collaboration proposals are also known as “partnership proposals”, often referring to letters, forms and documents sent from one company to another with the goal of future collaborative activities.

Whether you want to work with a company in your own industry or business which may complement your own products or services, collaboration proposals can help you achieve that goal. However, your lingo, terminology, tone of voice and other writing details should be modified depending on who you target with your collaboration proposal.

Proposals can also be retrofitted and sent to affiliate marketers, social media influencers or customers whom you may want to work with on social proof content for future advertisement. It is a powerful networking tool capable of helping you grow your business, attract new customers, spread into new territories and achieve better brand recognition and public image if it’s utilized correctly – which brings us to our next topic of discussion.

Benefits of Writing Collaboration Proposals

Now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s take a look at why you should take collaboration proposal writing into consideration. While you can always cold-call or cold-email a company or a potential business partner with a few short sentences of information, it may not result in a collaboration.

Proposals, on the other hand, encompass a much larger spectrum of data, formal information, calls to action, visualized content and other materials which may turn the tides in your favor. With that in mind, the benefits of collaboration proposal writing for your business include but are not limited to:

• Extensive self-reflection and self-company research
• Opportunity to present your brand in a professional and trustworthy way
• Higher engagement and conversion percentage of potential B2B partners
• High return on investment in terms of allocated proposal writing resources

Writing Tools to Consider

It’s worth noting that writing collaboration proposals should never be done ad-hoc or without proper tools and platforms to back you up in terms of editing and formatting. Traditional text editors such as Microsoft Word or Open Office will only get you so far in terms of grammar checks and proofreading.

However, cloud-based online tools which are constantly updated with modern writing trend, stylistic textual choices and other forms of everyday lingo are a great fit for collaboration proposals. Make sure to include these (and other) tools in your writing process to ensure its quality and legibility no matter if you target B2C or B2B collaboration partners.

Evernote is a well-known online text editor with cross-platform synchronization features. You can write your collaboration proposal wherever you are and on whichever device you choose with basic access to the internet. Evernote also features a plethora of formatting and exporting options, making it the perfect go-to place for writing collaboration proposals.

Once your writing takes shape and you have sufficient text to create basic formatting, you should check out Grammarly. It is a professional spelling and proofreading tool with a comprehensive content grading system which will allow you to shape your collaboration proposal. Check it out if you are unsure of your sentence structuring, tone of voice or other elements of your writing.

Chances are that your collaboration partners won’t have unlimited time to go through your proposal once you submit it. It’s essential that you make your writing as smooth and simple to read as possible. Hemingway is a legibility platform which can help you streamline your writing into a cohesive whole in order to make it understandable for both professional and casual readers.

While not strictly a “writing” tool by itself, Canva can be an amazing addition to your collaboration proposal creating process. Canva is a GUI-based cloud platform with an emphasis on visual content creation, presentations, infographics and visualized data. This type of content can complement your proposal writing to a great effect and showcase that you are a versatile business worth collaborating with.

Collaboration Proposal: Marketing Secrets

1) choose your partners wisely.

The most important aspect of collaboration proposal writing is to choose your partners wisely. Explore your industry in terms of businesses which may be open to collaboration and networking before making the final decision on who to partner with. This will help you create a specialized network of collaboration partners which will complement your business and service portfolio.

For example, a digital marketing company should seek businesses which offer copywriting or design services, eCommerce sales and other related niches. Reaching out to businesses whose products or services don’t coincide with your own won’t bode well for your future reputation or public reception even if they agree to work with you, resulting in a disjointed and poorly thought-out collaboration.

2) Your Title Page Matters

The first order of business in terms of your collaboration proposal writing is to formulate your title page correctly. Since this is the first impression your potential partners will have of your brand, it should be well-designed, informative and free of proofreading or formatting errors.

Use the title page to present your reader with the title of your suggested project, your full name and job position (as a company representative) as well as legal business information. This will serve as a great hook for further reading and ensure that you are taken seriously as a potential collaboration partner.

3) Write, Edit & Format the Proposal

Once your title page is formulated, you can proceed to the collaboration proposal writing itself. It should be noted that your proposal needs to be backed up by factual data, benefits of collaboration as well as long-term effects the project will have on your companies.

Outline your proposition clearly and without bias to ensure that your reader can understand the reason behind your proposition. This can be done with bulleted points, bolded letters and other text-editing tricks to allow for skimming and easier reading throughout the project.

Offer external links to any data, research or case study which supports your claims and works in your favor in terms of convincing the reader to accept your offer. Once you are satisfied with the proposition, make sure to proofread it to eliminate any grammar or spelling errors which might have crept through before moving forward.

4) Create a Milestone-Centric Collaboration Timeline

In order to make your collaboration proposal as understandable and presentable as possible, you should create a rudimentary collaboration timeline to complement it. A simple left-to-right timeline of events in terms of your businesses’ collaboration can do wonders in your favor.

Offer simple milestones and KPIs between the start of your collaboration and the final product of your partnership to drive your point forward. The milestones you create should complement the final goal of your collaboration and allow the reader to get a better understanding of how the process would work, what it is that you need from them and what they can get from the partnership.

5) Write a Complimentary Cover Letter

While your collaboration proposal may include all the technical details of the proposed partnership, it may not be enough to convince your reader of its benefits. This can be amended through a complementary cover letter, similar to those written for job applications.

Your cover letter should be written in a personalized tone of voice, by you or one of your representatives. Be honest about your intentions as a business and state that you would be honored to collaborate with the reader’s company because your goals are aligned. Again, proofread your writing before you consider sending it to any potential B2C or B2B partner to maintain your professional integrity.

6) Visual Data & Social Proof Matter

Any textual content you create can and should be complemented with adequate visuals. Visual content such as your brand’s visuals, patterns and visualized data such as infographics and charts can do wonders for your proposal.

Create a balance between written and visual content to ensure that your proposal comes off as professional, curated and well-informed in terms of current industry trends. You can also incorporate existing social proof data, client testimonials and other stakeholder-centric materials to drive your collaboration proposal home.

7) Create a Table of Content

Once your collaboration proposal is complete and you are confident of its contents, you should create a table of content to complement it. Make the table of content simple and informative without excess details or new information not present in the collaboration proposal itself.

A table of content will allow your reader to quickly jump between paragraphs and data points in your proposal on repeat readings. It will also showcase that you are UX-centric in terms of your content optimization and business presentation which will add positive points to your networking efforts.

8) Summarize your Proposal

Lastly, you can summarize your entire collaboration proposal in a separate page at the end of your document. The summary should be treated as online metadata or a snippet of your collaborative project proposal. Write two-to-three paragraphs of what your proposal entails, the benefits it would bring to both parties as well as how it would impact your industry going forward.

The summary can also be used by your reader to present the proposal quickly to their coworkers and business partners without going over minute details in a short time span. Bookend the proposal with a thank-you note and a call to action for your reader to get in touch with you in the near future.

In Conclusion

Writing collaboration proposals may seem like a waste of precious time and resources at first glance. However, most large international corporations won’t consider your partnership offer if you come from a small startup or a local agency. Do your best to present your brand, business, portfolio and project idea to potential partners in a written format and you will undoubtedly attract lucrative partners to your company.

Author Bio:

[thrive_testimonial name=”” company=”” image=”https://dsim.in/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/angela.jpeg”]Angela Baker is a self-driven specialist who is currently working as a freelance writer at TrustMyPaper writing services and is trying to improve herself and her blogging career. She is always seeking to discover new ways for personal and professional growth and is convinced that it’s always important to broaden horizons. That’s why Angela develops and improves her skills throughout the writing process to help to inspire people.[/thrive_testimonial]

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Brand Collaboration Proposal

In this podcast episode, you'll learn how to successfully pitch mutually beneficial blog & social media partnerships — that increase your income.

Wondering how to pitch a brand collaboration proposal with confidence?

If so, then you're in luck, as that is exactly what we'll be covering in this episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast.

Specifically, you'll learn:

• The biggest mistake to avoid when sending a brand proposal
• How to collaborate with brands on Instagram, your blog, and even offline
• The most important part of your pre-pitch homework when it comes to blogger brand collaborations
• How to pitch a brand collaboration proposal in a way that gets a positive response
• A powerful brand pitch email template

How To Pitch A Brand Collaboration Proposal With Confidence - Podcast Episode Audio

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How To Pitch A Brand Collaboration Proposal With Confidence - Episode 20 Transcript

I want to jump right into this episode on how to collaborate with brands on Instagram , your blog, and beyond by talking about confidence.

I talk to many bloggers in my community who want to know exactly what to say when pitching a brand — or even another creator — to work together. And while I do offer a working with brands workbook that includes free pitch templates , the truth is those are really just to inspire you and guide you; to offer you a base to work with and make your own.

Because here is the thing:

Many bloggers view pitching as this big scary audition, but really it’s a conversation.

Think about a time you were at a meetup, happy hour, or conference — and, by the way, blogger conferences are great for meeting brands .

Anyway, maybe you started chatting with someone you got along great with. Maybe they mentioned that they have a podcast where they interview solo female travelers, and you told them that you have a solo female travel blog. Thus, the perfect collaboration was born.

I find it helpful to think of your brand pitch as the same thing. You want to reach out to brands and collaborators who you think you could have a conversation like that with because your missions, audiences, and values align.

And by the way:

Once this alignment becomes clear to you it’ll be much easier to send a pitch email because the synergy will be clear to you. If it’s clear to you, it’ll be easier to confidently express that clarity to a potential partner.

In my opinion, if you’re in a place where you believe you’ll fail even before you’ve hit send on your pitch proposal, I would suggest working on your mindset first.

Actually, there is a past episode on How To Improve Your Mindset For Success In 3 Steps that would be a great starting point.

Now before I go any further I want to direct your attention to the show notes where I’ve linked my How To Successfully Pitch Brands As A Blogger Workbook . This workbook features a brand pitch example and plug-and-play pitch templates to make sending partnership proposals easier.

[socialpug_tweet tweet="Not sure what to say when #PitchingBrands? This episode of #TPTBPodcast includes a free workbook with pitch template that can help! " display_tweet="Not sure what to say when #PitchingBrands? This episode of #TPTBPodcast includes a free workbook with pitch template that can help! "]

Feel free to pause this episode to go grab that.

Okay, let’s dive into the strategy.

Wondering how to pitch a brand collaboration proposal, or think it's confusing? Remember that you pitch every day!

For instance, maybe you pitched your partner to order dinner from your favorite takeout place.

Or maybe you pitched a friend to go see a show you were excited about.

In instances like these, you’re probably not nervous because you believe in your idea. You want to transfer that confidence now to pitching brands and potential collaborators.

But first, you need clarity on why the brand blogger collaboration works.

I think the easiest way to do that is by getting clear on why the partnership would be beneficial to both parties.

If you’re sending a pitch and it’s only clear how you’d benefit, then you should really consider whether the collaboration you wanted to pursue is one you should be pitching.

Avoiding a big mistake when pitching brands

Moving along, I want to talk for a moment about the most common pitching mistake I see.

As a blogger, I see many pitches written by students in online travel blogging courses .

Additionally, on the brand side of things, I own a tour company called NYC Photo Journeys , and I receive pitches from bloggers and influencers regularly.

[socialpug_tweet tweet="Are you making this big mistake when #PitchingBrands? Listen to this episode of #TPTBPodcast to find out!" display_tweet="Are you making this big mistake when #PitchingBrands? Listen to this episode of #TPTBPodcast to find out!"]

The biggest mistake I see is bloggers and influencers writing pitches that are all about them.

Not sure if you fit into this category?

Pause this episode and go grab the last pitch email you sent.

Note how many times you say words like “me” and “I” vs the word “you”. This is important because when you write a pitch email you really want to come from a place of service and genuinely wanting to support their mission.

To help make this idea easier, I want to now share a brand pitch email template with you that I think makes for a nice flow.

Brand pitch emilate template section #1: the introduction.

Share who you are and let the brand know you’re a fan.

Be genuine here, too.

While there is nothing wrong with simply saying “I love your work,” consider how much more impactful it would be to share a more specific compliment.

For instance, you might tell them that you were moved by their recent Facebook Live because it covered a topic you feel passionately about.

Brand Pitch Emilate Template Section #2: Share Your Blog's Mission

Here you’ll let them know who you help and how, while really trying to make the alignment clear.

[socialpug_tweet tweet="This episode of #TPTBPodcast shares a helpful 5-part template for #PitchingBrands! " display_tweet="This episode of #TPTBPodcast shares a helpful 5-part template for #PitchingBrands! "]

If the brand’s target market is young unmarried men, and your blog aims to help moms, well, this partnership may not make sense, at least not if the collaboration is focused on you promoting them on your channels.

However, if you target wellness travelers and so do they, this will be a good place to make that clear.

Brand Pitch Emilate Template Section #3: Note What Sets You Apart

If someone asked you what your specialty was, what would you say?

Is it your unique approach to writing?

Your outlook?

Maybe it’s a specific style of video or photography creation?

Possibly you cover a very specific topic?

Really think about this because including the answer can help set your brand pitch email apart from others.

Brand Pitch Emilate Template Section #4: Share An Impressive Stat Or Piece Of Content

Once the alignment is clear and your potential collaborator understands what your forte is, give them an idea of what they can expect.

For instance:

If you’re pitching them to create a YouTube video on travel wellness, you might link a travel wellness video you created in the past that did really well.

Brand Pitch Emilate Template Section #5: Inquire How You Can Be Of Service

Instead of telling them what you’ll offer — for instance, three Instagram posts in exchange for $1200 — ask them how you can be of service.

Or, if you have an idea, share it and ask if you would be helpful.

[socialpug_tweet tweet="Part 5 of this #BrandPitch template is something many bloggers don't include, but it can really transform your proposal! #TPTBPodcast" display_tweet="Part 5 of this #BrandPitch template is something many bloggers don't include, but it can really transform your proposal! #TPTBPodcast"]

The goal here:

To start a collaborative discussion where you’re truly meeting their needs in a way that is also on-brand for you.

Brand Pitch Emilate Template Section #6: Proofread For Humanity

You want to end this entire thing by proofreading your pitch so that it feels like a human wrote it, not a robot.

Be conversational and genuine.

You might even read it aloud to see if it sounds natural.

Alright, now I hope you found this episode helpful.

If you want to dive deeper into what a powerful pitch might look like, make sure to grab my free How To Successfully Pitch Brands As A Blogger Workbook , which shares some of my most successful pitches in a plug-and-play format so you can enter your own info, re-read it to make adjustments, and send with confidence.

Finally, make sure you subscribe so you get notified when future episodes publish .

Happy blogging!

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How To Write A Collaboration Email

Before you start drafting your collaboration email, it’s important to take a few preparatory steps:

• Research: Familiarize yourself with the person or organization you want to collaborate with. Understand their goals, values, and how you can mutually benefit from the collaboration.
• Identify Common Interests: Find common ground or shared interests that can serve as a basis for the collaboration. This will help establish a positive and relevant connection.
• Clarify Your Objectives: Clearly define what you hope to achieve through the collaboration. Are you seeking exposure, partnership, or a specific outcome? Be specific.
• Gather Relevant Information: Collect any data, statistics, or relevant materials that support your proposal. Having this information ready will strengthen your email.

Table of Contents

What to Include In the Email

Your collaboration email should include the following essential components:

Subject Line

The subject line should be concise, attention-grabbing, and directly related to the collaboration. It should instantly communicate the purpose of your email.

Start your email with a polite and personalized greeting, addressing the recipient by name if possible. This adds a personal touch and shows that you’ve done your research.

Introduction

Begin with a brief introduction that clearly states who you are, your background, and why you are interested in collaborating. Keep it concise and engaging to capture the recipient’s attention.

Value Proposition

In this section, clearly outline the value and benefits of the collaboration. Explain how both parties can benefit and why the collaboration is worth pursuing. Focus on what makes your proposal unique and compelling.

Collaboration Details

Provide specific details about the collaboration, such as the scope, timeline, and expected outcomes. Be clear about each party’s responsibilities and contributions. This section helps set expectations and ensures a mutual understanding.

Call to Action

End your email with a strong call to action that clearly states what you expect from the recipient. This could be a request for a meeting, a follow-up call, or further discussion to move the collaboration forward.

Email Template

Template 1: Subject Line: Collaboration Opportunity – [Your Name/Organization] Dear [Recipient’s Name], I hope this email finds you well. My name is [Your Name] from [Your Organization]. I recently came across your work on [specific project/achievement] and was truly impressed by [specific aspect]. I believe that our organizations share a common vision [mention shared interests/goals]. Given our expertise in [your area], I am confident that a collaboration between our teams could lead to remarkable results. I envision a collaboration where we can combine our strengths and resources to tackle [specific challenge/initiative]. Together, we can create a significant impact and reach a wider audience. I would love to discuss this opportunity further and explore how we can align our efforts. Could we schedule a brief call or meeting at your convenience? I am available [provide your availability]. Thank you for considering this collaboration proposal. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Best regards, [Your Name] [Your Organization]

Template 2: Subject Line: Joint Venture Proposal – [Your Name/Organization] Dear [Recipient’s Name], I hope this email finds you in good spirits. I’m writing to you on behalf of [Your Organization]. After extensively researching potential partners, your organization stood out to us as a perfect fit for a joint venture opportunity. We recently launched a groundbreaking initiative aimed at [specific objective], and we believe that by combining our expertise and resources, we can amplify our impact and achieve remarkable success together. I’ve attached a detailed proposal outlining the joint venture’s objectives, projected outcomes, and each party’s responsibilities. I encourage you to review it at your convenience and provide any feedback or suggestions you may have. If you’re interested in pursuing this joint venture, I’d be thrilled to schedule a meeting or conference call so we can discuss the finer details and establish a solid foundation for our collaboration. Your consideration is highly appreciated, and I eagerly await your response. Warm regards, [Your Name] [Your Organization]

Writing an effective collaboration email requires careful preparation and attention to detail. By following the steps outlined above, gathering relevant information, and using the provided templates, you can increase your chances of securing successful collaborations. Remember to personalize each email and tailor it to the recipient’s interests and goals.

Tips for success:

• Be clear and concise in your email, avoiding excessive jargon or unnecessary details.
• Highlight the unique benefits of collaborating with your organization.
• Customize each email to demonstrate genuine interest and thoughtfulness.
• Proofread and edit your email for clarity, grammar, and professionalism.
• Follow up if you don’t receive a response within a reasonable timeframe.

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Businessing Magazine

Marketing     Ana Mayer    May 4, 2021     9 min read

How to Write the Perfect Collaboration Proposal on Instagram

Social media has recently begun dominating the digital marketing world, and Instagram is at the forefront of this move. Today, one can boost product or service sales by getting more visibility on Instagram. Your Instagram account’s market reach is a reflection of the people that follow and actively engage you regularly. This engagement is much more valuable compared to the actual size of your following.

So, are you interested in boosting your Instagram engagement? Then you must have thought of running a collaboration. Collaborations occur when two or more brands come together for a joint campaign or partnership for mutual benefit. A brand can also collaborate with a blogger or an influencer for a series of Instagram posts.

In requesting a collaboration, you want to reach out to the brands or collaborators with whom you think you can have a relationship because your audiences and values align. It could also be because their products or services complement your own. If either is the case, then you would have found a natural fit to promote your brand or to have yours promoted. For collaboration to take place, however, a proposal is necessary to help you get started.

Collaborative Marketing

Collaborative marketing can be pivotal to your success on Instagram. It is a super-powerful marketing strategy and is the perfect opportunity to try new ideas while reaching a new audience. Both partners agree to help each other grow and learn through collaboration.

Writing a collaboration proposal to invite an Instagram influencer or a brand for a marketing campaign is not as difficult as one may think. However, it takes creativity and a good proposal strategy to engage the recipient and leave a lasting impression. Once there is clarity of the alignment between you and the other partner, you can easily pitch your proposal confidently to a potential partner. Since collaboration means working together, a typical partnership may mean:

An Instagram photo for a product: Here, a brand promises to send a free product in exchange for an Instagram photo and/or blog post. Or the influencer offers to create an Instagram post for free samples.

Product shout-outs: Your partner shouts out your products through an Instagram post in exchange for monetary payment or a return shout-out. Two influencers can use this method to develop their brands by connecting their audience. It is a form of beneficial exposure.

Instagram takeover: This is when a brand or influencer takes over the partner’s Instagram feed for the day, much like a guest host on a radio station.

Giveaways: As an influencer or a brand, you can host a giveaway for another brand on your account. Giveaways work well as they allow you to cross-promote products on both brand accounts. Your followers can stay engaged and invite their friends too. This way, you end up boosting your branding and engagement. Ensure to mention the terms and conditions for your giveaway so that everyone is on the same page.

Referrals: In referrals, you set up an affiliate marketing program, where you promote your partner’s products and earn a commission for each customer that purchases using your referral code. This agreement acts as a form of monetary compensation. It is often best because you are paid based on conversion.

Joint product releases: Two brands may join forces to launch a product. It acts as a branding strategy that can boost brand awareness for both parties if chosen well. The success of such a collaboration lies in blending brands that are focused on distinct industries. The expected result is creating a product that would be appreciated by all combined followers.

Be Confident

If you are terrified of writing a collaboration proposal, then you need to work on your mindset. Remember that you pitch proposals every day. You do it when inviting your friend or colleague to go to a restaurant because it is your favorite or to see a show that you love. In cases like these, you were confident of what you wanted because you believed in it. You would need to transfer that confidence to pitching brands and potential collaborators.

The easiest way of writing a proposal is to clarify why the partnership is beneficial to you and the potential partner. When you send a pitch and it is only evident how you would benefit, you are making a huge mistake. With a proposal, you want to come from a place of service, and genuine want to support the brand’s mission. So, it would help if you do not make it all about yourself.

Do Your Research

Before you begin your collaboration proposal, you need to know and decide on the brand you want to work with. You need the right partner, so search for influencers and brands that might be a good fit. Look through your niche and industry for businesses that are open for collaborations. You could also explore related niches so that your business will not clash with theirs.

Start by drawing up a list of possible partners. Your research on potential collaborators should be extensive. Go through their profiles, blogs, websites, and other social media accounts they have. Ensure to vet your partners to avoid any potential issues that may impact your campaign. The goal is to choose collaboration partners that complement your brand. The more time you spend learning about your potential collaborators, the easier it becomes to write the perfect collaboration proposal. Factors that should influence your collaboration partner choice are:

Target audience: Who do you want to reach? And is your audience the same, different, or related to your potential partner? You may want to work with a brand already linked to your target audience.

Shared marketing goals: Does the brand fall in line with your style and niche? Look for testimonials, engagement rates, and past promotions to find out if their goals match yours. This article is presented by Ball Media Innovations, Inc., the top Miami video production company with expertise in video for business, marketing, training, conferences and social media.

Shared values: Focus on the kind of values they promote. Do their values align with yours? Could the content alienate your followers, and is there any controversy that you would want to avoid? For instance, if your brand promotes environmental friendliness or a healthy lifestyle, you should partner with a brand or an influencer who cares about your cause. Or at the very least, one that is not opposed to it. This type of partnership will make for a long-term symbiotic relationship. It will also make it easy for you to add a personal touch to your proposal.

Similar follower count: A small brand can look for an influencer with a follower count between 1000-5000 to collaborate with, instead of looking for top influencers who may demand more for their services.

Steps in Writing the Perfect Instagram Collaboration Proposal

Now, you know who you want to collaborate with, so it is time to reach out to them. Check out their Instagram bio and website contact page for their preferred contact method. If there is no preferred contact preference, research the email address of the Public Relations Manager. It is always best to reach out via email, which is a professional way of communicating about a business deal, as opposed to the Instagram DM.

Writing your proposal using the message feature on Instagram is less professional. However, if you seek a more casual approach, you could attempt it. Since the feature allows short messages, it facilitates being brief and straight to the point. It might also increase your chances of a fast reply.

Introduce Yourself

Write a short and creative subject line to catch the eye of the recipient. Then, you introduce yourself and let the potential partner know you are a fan. You need to be genuine. Share in a sentence something you like about the brand/product. It is also more impactful if you share a specific compliment about the other partner rather than just saying “I admire your work”. For example, you might mention how you appreciated their recent IGTV video because it addressed a topic you are interested in.

Introduce Your Product

This point is where you share your blog’s or brand’s mission and your product’s name. Here you need to let them know who you help and how you do so. Include a link to your Instagram and/or blog. Explain who your audience is while trying to create a correlation between what you do and what the partner does in a way that makes the alignment very clear.

If the brand’s target audience is moms or people interested in baby products, and your niche addresses young techy men, imagine how difficult it may be for you to pitch a collaboration proposal. However, if you focus on diets and target supplements, it will be a suitable avenue to make that clear. Find the link that blends the two parties, and the proposal will come more naturally.

Make the Proposal

This part is where you make your offer. Enumerate what you hope to deliver, what you are expecting in return, and ask to collaborate. It could be monetary compensation, free products, an affiliate code, a feature, or a promise of an ongoing relationship. You could state what sets you apart from other influencers who do what you do. It could be your style of writing or video and photography creation. It could also be the type of topics you share. Including this here can help set your proposal apart from others.

Once a request is made, and your potential collaborator understands your specialty, give them an idea of what they can expect. Do this by sharing social proof, engagement rate, audience demographics, or pieces of content. For instance, as a fitness influencer proposing to make a post about a new athleisure collection, you might link a post about another clothing brand you promoted in the past that did very well.

If it is your first time communicating with the potential partner, you can inquire about ways to be of service to that brand. Instead of telling them what you will offer, ask them how you can be of service. If you also have an idea, share it and ask if it would be helpful to them. The goal then will be to start a collaborative discussion or to create an ongoing relationship where you meet their needs in a way that is also beneficial for you.

You would want to end the proposal by proofreading such that it feels like a human, and not a robot, wrote it. Be conversational and genuine. You might even read out loud to know if it sounds natural. More than text editors, make use of online digital writing tools for your proofreading and grammar checks.

You could also decide to take advantage of online writers who could construct your proposal for you effectively. Online writing service reviews such as Best Writers Online , Online Writers Rating , and Writing Judge are among the great channels that can connect you to dependable freelance writers. You could choose to save your proposal as a template and adjust it to fit other brands you intend to contact.

The Aftermath

Note that you may have to contact more than a few brands or all on your list before you find your Instagram collaboration partner. Once you do, however, it is time to structure the deal. Set out clear expectations about how the campaign will go down and draw up a formal agreement. With every Instagram collaboration, your trust is on the line; make sure you understand all requirements before saying yes. Getting it in writing avoids misunderstanding and prevents requests for changes. Things you need to be clear about include:

• Products to be promoted
• Promotional efforts and frequency of posts
• Compensation
• Expected results
• Length of campaign or collaboration timeline

Each Instagram collaboration is unique and as an influencer or marketer, you do not have to wait for a company or brand to find you or seek you out. Be proactive if you see a great fit. Start by writing perfect collaboration proposals. Even if they are not yet ready to collaborate, they may consider you for future collaborations. Remember to follow up on each proposal and look for other ways to interact with clients, or seek another brand if they do not respond.

Ana Mayer is a freelance writer who is a qualified specialist in the field of digital marketing. She writes for different news portals and thematic blogs that help her stay at the heart of the programming and technology news.

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Home » How To Write A Proposal – Step By Step Guide [With Template]

How To Write A Proposal – Step By Step Guide [With Template]

Table of Contents

How To Write A Proposal

Writing a Proposal involves several key steps to effectively communicate your ideas and intentions to a target audience. Here’s a detailed breakdown of each step:

Identify the Purpose and Audience

• Clearly define the purpose of your proposal: What problem are you addressing, what solution are you proposing, or what goal are you aiming to achieve?
• Identify your target audience: Who will be reading your proposal? Consider their background, interests, and any specific requirements they may have.

Conduct Research

• Gather relevant information: Conduct thorough research to support your proposal. This may involve studying existing literature, analyzing data, or conducting surveys/interviews to gather necessary facts and evidence.
• Understand the context: Familiarize yourself with the current situation or problem you’re addressing. Identify any relevant trends, challenges, or opportunities that may impact your proposal.

Develop an Outline

• Create a clear and logical structure: Divide your proposal into sections or headings that will guide your readers through the content.
• Introduction: Provide a concise overview of the problem, its significance, and the proposed solution.
• Background/Context: Offer relevant background information and context to help the readers understand the situation.
• Objectives/Goals: Clearly state the objectives or goals of your proposal.
• Methodology/Approach: Describe the approach or methodology you will use to address the problem.
• Timeline/Schedule: Present a detailed timeline or schedule outlining the key milestones or activities.
• Budget/Resources: Specify the financial and other resources required to implement your proposal.
• Evaluation/Success Metrics: Explain how you will measure the success or effectiveness of your proposal.
• Conclusion: Summarize the main points and restate the benefits of your proposal.

Write the Proposal

• Grab attention: Start with a compelling opening statement or a brief story that hooks the reader.
• Clearly state the problem: Clearly define the problem or issue you are addressing and explain its significance.
• Present your proposal: Introduce your proposed solution, project, or idea and explain why it is the best approach.
• State the objectives/goals: Clearly articulate the specific objectives or goals your proposal aims to achieve.
• Provide supporting information: Present evidence, data, or examples to support your claims and justify your proposal.
• Explain the methodology: Describe in detail the approach, methods, or strategies you will use to implement your proposal.
• Address potential concerns: Anticipate and address any potential objections or challenges the readers may have and provide counterarguments or mitigation strategies.
• Recap the main points: Summarize the key points you’ve discussed in the proposal.
• Reinforce the benefits: Emphasize the positive outcomes, benefits, or impact your proposal will have.
• Call to action: Clearly state what action you want the readers to take, such as approving the proposal, providing funding, or collaborating with you.

Review and Revise

• Proofread for clarity and coherence: Check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.
• Ensure a logical flow: Read through your proposal to ensure the ideas are presented in a logical order and are easy to follow.
• Revise and refine: Fine-tune your proposal to make it concise, persuasive, and compelling.

Add Supplementary Materials

• Attach relevant documents: Include any supporting materials that strengthen your proposal, such as research findings, charts, graphs, or testimonials.
• Appendices: Add any additional information that might be useful but not essential to the main body of the proposal.

Formatting and Presentation

• Follow the guidelines: Adhere to any specific formatting guidelines provided by the organization or institution to which you are submitting the proposal.
• Use a professional tone and language: Ensure that your proposal is written in a clear, concise, and professional manner.
• Use headings and subheadings: Organize your proposal with clear headings and subheadings to improve readability.
• Pay attention to design: Use appropriate fonts, font sizes, and formatting styles to make your proposal visually appealing.
• Include a cover page: Create a cover page that includes the title of your proposal, your name or organization, the date, and any other required information.

Seek Feedback

• Share your proposal with trusted colleagues or mentors and ask for their feedback. Consider their suggestions for improvement and incorporate them into your proposal if necessary.

Finalize and Submit

• Make any final revisions based on the feedback received.
• Ensure that all required sections, attachments, and documentation are included.
• Double-check for any formatting, grammar, or spelling errors.
• Submit your proposal within the designated deadline and according to the submission guidelines provided.

Proposal Format

The format of a proposal can vary depending on the specific requirements of the organization or institution you are submitting it to. However, here is a general proposal format that you can follow:

1. Title Page:

• Include the title of your proposal, your name or organization’s name, the date, and any other relevant information specified by the guidelines.

2. Executive Summary:

•  Provide a concise overview of your proposal, highlighting the key points and objectives.
• Summarize the problem, proposed solution, and anticipated benefits.
• Keep it brief and engaging, as this section is often read first and should capture the reader’s attention.

3. Introduction:

• State the problem or issue you are addressing and its significance.
• Provide background information to help the reader understand the context and importance of the problem.
• Clearly state the purpose and objectives of your proposal.

4. Problem Statement:

• Describe the problem in detail, highlighting its impact and consequences.
• Use data, statistics, or examples to support your claims and demonstrate the need for a solution.

5. Proposed Solution or Project Description:

• Explain your proposed solution or project in a clear and detailed manner.
• Describe how your solution addresses the problem and why it is the most effective approach.
• Include information on the methods, strategies, or activities you will undertake to implement your solution.
• Highlight any unique features, innovations, or advantages of your proposal.

6. Methodology:

• Provide a step-by-step explanation of the methodology or approach you will use to implement your proposal.
• Include a timeline or schedule that outlines the key milestones, tasks, and deliverables.
• Clearly describe the resources, personnel, or expertise required for each phase of the project.

7. Evaluation and Success Metrics:

• Explain how you will measure the success or effectiveness of your proposal.
• Identify specific metrics, indicators, or evaluation methods that will be used.
• Describe how you will track progress, gather feedback, and make adjustments as needed.
• Present a detailed budget that outlines the financial resources required for your proposal.
• Include all relevant costs, such as personnel, materials, equipment, and any other expenses.
• Provide a justification for each item in the budget.

9. Conclusion:

•  Summarize the main points of your proposal.
•  Reiterate the benefits and positive outcomes of implementing your proposal.
• Emphasize the value and impact it will have on the organization or community.

10. Appendices:

• Include any additional supporting materials, such as research findings, charts, graphs, or testimonials.
•  Attach any relevant documents that provide further information but are not essential to the main body of the proposal.

Proposal Template

Here’s a basic proposal template that you can use as a starting point for creating your own proposal:

Dear [Recipient’s Name],

I am writing to submit a proposal for [briefly state the purpose of the proposal and its significance]. This proposal outlines a comprehensive solution to address [describe the problem or issue] and presents an actionable plan to achieve the desired objectives.

Thank you for considering this proposal. I believe that implementing this solution will significantly contribute to [organization’s or community’s goals]. I am available to discuss the proposal in more detail at your convenience. Please feel free to contact me at [your email address or phone number].

Yours sincerely,

Note: This template is a starting point and should be customized to meet the specific requirements and guidelines provided by the organization or institution to which you are submitting the proposal.

Proposal Sample

Here’s a sample proposal to give you an idea of how it could be structured and written:

Subject : Proposal for Implementation of Environmental Education Program

I am pleased to submit this proposal for your consideration, outlining a comprehensive plan for the implementation of an Environmental Education Program. This program aims to address the critical need for environmental awareness and education among the community, with the objective of fostering a sense of responsibility and sustainability.

Executive Summary: Our proposed Environmental Education Program is designed to provide engaging and interactive educational opportunities for individuals of all ages. By combining classroom learning, hands-on activities, and community engagement, we aim to create a long-lasting impact on environmental conservation practices and attitudes.

Introduction: The state of our environment is facing significant challenges, including climate change, habitat loss, and pollution. It is essential to equip individuals with the knowledge and skills to understand these issues and take action. This proposal seeks to bridge the gap in environmental education and inspire a sense of environmental stewardship among the community.

Problem Statement: The lack of environmental education programs has resulted in limited awareness and understanding of environmental issues. As a result, individuals are less likely to adopt sustainable practices or actively contribute to conservation efforts. Our program aims to address this gap and empower individuals to become environmentally conscious and responsible citizens.

Proposed Solution or Project Description: Our Environmental Education Program will comprise a range of activities, including workshops, field trips, and community initiatives. We will collaborate with local schools, community centers, and environmental organizations to ensure broad participation and maximum impact. By incorporating interactive learning experiences, such as nature walks, recycling drives, and eco-craft sessions, we aim to make environmental education engaging and enjoyable.

Methodology: Our program will be structured into modules that cover key environmental themes, such as biodiversity, climate change, waste management, and sustainable living. Each module will include a mix of classroom sessions, hands-on activities, and practical field experiences. We will also leverage technology, such as educational apps and online resources, to enhance learning outcomes.

Evaluation and Success Metrics: We will employ a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. Pre- and post-assessments will gauge knowledge gain, while surveys and feedback forms will assess participant satisfaction and behavior change. We will also track the number of community engagement activities and the adoption of sustainable practices as indicators of success.

Budget: Please find attached a detailed budget breakdown for the implementation of the Environmental Education Program. The budget covers personnel costs, materials and supplies, transportation, and outreach expenses. We have ensured cost-effectiveness while maintaining the quality and impact of the program.

Conclusion: By implementing this Environmental Education Program, we have the opportunity to make a significant difference in our community’s environmental consciousness and practices. We are confident that this program will foster a generation of individuals who are passionate about protecting our environment and taking sustainable actions. We look forward to discussing the proposal further and working together to make a positive impact.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Should you have any questions or require additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me at [your email address or phone number].

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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• Tips and Tools on How to Write an Effective Collaboration Proposal

Marketing Secrets

Running a business on your own can prove to be a lot of work. Sometimes it only makes sense to seek collaborative ventures via a strategically planned business partnership proposal to increase your productivity. Additionally, a business-to-business (B2B) collaboration can add a lot of credibility and revenue to your business. A report from Finances Online states that 60% of businesses agreed that B2B collaboration accounts for 35% of their annual revenue, while 66% of companies said they were working towards building their collaboration networks. So, are you considering a collaboration proposal but don't know how to write one? Not to worry, we will be looking at some helpful tips and tools on how to write a letter to collaborate with another organization and make the best out of your future partnerships.

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What are Collaboration Proposals?

Collaboration proposals, sometimes referred to as partnership proposals, generally are documents sent from one organization to another, seeking to collaborate on specific projects.

You could choose to work with a company within your industry, affiliate marketers , social media influencers, or businesses that compliments your product or service. However, the style, tone, and other writing details in your collaboration letter should be written to target the interest of the company you're reaching out to. Also, it should be written to suit the purpose of the business partnership proposal.

Tips for Writing an Effective Collaboration Proposal

Carefully selecting your partners.

The first to take before you write a partnership proposal is to think through before picking your partners. Ensure you have done proper research and background check of businesses that are open to collaboration and networking and then narrow down to the one that fits your proposal. Doing this helps to create an active network of collaboration partners that will complement your business goals. Therefore going after a company that is unrelated to your brand may not bode well for your overall growth or public-reception.

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Write a Captivating Title Page

When you begin writing your business partnership proposal, the title page must be properly coached. Since it is the initial impression, your potential partners will have your brand. The title page needs to be well-designed, very informative, and error-free. It should carry information such as the title of your proposed project, business name, name, and tile of your company representative, legal business information, and contact. This information will quip their attention to read the proposal further and make them take you seriously as a potential collaboration partner.

Tell Them All about Your Business

The next step is to have a proper introduction to your proposal letter. You can do this by mentioning a few things about your business and how you started. Irrespective of whether the other side is familiar with your brand, the introduction helps to transition you smoothly into your proposal's main topic. Talk about your achievements, failures, core values, goals, and organizational structure. Telling your target partners about your brand's origin can motivate them to help it grow into a bigger success and be a part of your story.

Explain Their Expected Role in the Partnership

Convincing your target partners can be tasking. Thus you will require additional motivation. It is best to start by highlighting your strengths and then tell them what they stand to gain through the collaboration. Then highlight their responsibilities. For example, in areas where your company is weaker, let them know how their knowledge can enhance your project. Your expectations and terms of the offer should be explicitly stated, so they know what to expect if they choose to accept your offer. Show your target partners how combining yours and their business experiences can make a more significant profit in a much shorter time.

Visual Data & Social Proof Matter

Enhance your textual content with adequate visuals such as your company's infographics and other visualized data. Getting the perfect balance between written and visual content makes your partnership professional, well-curated, and highly informative. You can also include testimonials from your clients, existing social media data, and other stakeholder data to increase the chances of getting approval for your collaboration letter.

Include a Table of Content

Creating a table of content makes it easy for anyone to locate paragraphs and data points in your proposal. Your table of content should be informative and straightforward. Do not include additional details that aren't in the collaboration proposal. A well-developed table gives an air of a well thought out business presentation and adds positive points to your networking efforts.

Summarize your Proposal

Make a summary of your whole business partnership proposal on a separate page. It should contain snippets of what your collaboration proposal entails. Write it in two to three paragraphs, including the benefits of collaboration for both parties and the long term impact it will have on your industry. Finally, you can bookend the proposal by adding a thank-you note and a call to action asking your target partners to stay in touch.

Business Writing Tools to Consider

Before sending out your written collaboration proposals, you must pass them through proper tools and platforms to help with editing and formatting. Traditional text editors like Microsoft Word or Open Office will not be sufficient, so you will need to include other tools that ensure quality and legibility like: Evernote: an online text editor with cross-platform synchronization features that let you work on your proposal. It also has several formatting and exporting features. Grammarly: is a professional spell checking and proofreading tool that comes with a grading system. It can help with the tone, sentence structure, and other elements of your proposal. Hemingway: remember your proposal needs to smooth and simple to read. Hemingway streamlines your writing and makes it cohesive and understandable for both casual and professional readers. Canva: is an excellent tool for adding your visual content to complement your texts and give it a well-structured outcome.

The best way to build partnership networks, especially when reaching out to large international corporations, is through collaboration proposals. Using the tools and tips we have discussed can help you present your brand's portfolio and project idea in the best light to potential partners. Remember to write in a professional and informative manner that will attract lucrative partners to your business.

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Want to create an effective collaborative email and send it from the same tool? Do it effortlessly with Atomic Mail Sender ! Test the program for the first 7 days for free.

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How to Write a Winning RFP Response (Request for Proposal)

In the world of sales, particularly for complex B2B transactions, RFPs (Request for Proposals) are vital. An RFP is essentially a formal document issued by a potential client outlining their specific needs and inviting vendors to submit business proposals for fulfilling them. Understanding RFPs and writing winning responses are key steps in securing lucrative contracts.

A well-crafted RFP response can be the difference between landing a dream client and watching the deal slip away. By clearly demonstrating how your offering aligns with the client’s requirements and showcasing the unique value you bring, you can rise above the competition.

This article will dig deeper into the world of RFPs, unpacking the essential elements of a strong response. We’ll explore strategies for understanding the client’s needs, highlighting your strengths, and crafting a persuasive proposal that sets you apart. Also, we’ll provide tips for navigating the RFP process efficiently and maximizing your chances of success.

Understanding the RFP: The Foundation for Success

Before going into writing a response, a thorough understanding of the RFP is critical. This initial investment of time will pay off in a proposal that directly addresses the client’s needs and increases your chances of winning the bid. Here’s how to approach this important step:

• Become an RFP Expert: Read the document meticulously, multiple times if necessary. Pay close attention to every detail – the language used, the tone, and the specific requirements outlined.
• Identify the Essentials: Pinpoint the key requirements – the specific needs, challenges, and goals the client is hoping to address. Look for evaluation criteria – the factors the client will use to assess proposals, such as experience, expertise, or cost. Don’t forget deadlines – submission dates and any other time-bound aspects.
• Shine a Light on Your Strengths: Analyze the RFP with your solution in mind. Identify areas where your product or service demonstrably excels in meeting the client’s needs. This will form the foundation for crafting a compelling response that highlights how your offering provides a perfect fit.

Internal Collaboration: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

The complexity of RFPs often necessitates a team effort. Here’s how to leverage the strengths of your internal team to write a winning response:

• Strategic Staffing: Assemble a team with the expertise required to address all aspects of the RFP. This might include sales representatives, technical specialists, subject matter experts, and proposal writers . Clearly define roles and responsibilities for each team member, ensuring everyone understands their contribution to the final product.
• Knowledge is Power: Gather the necessary information to comprehensively address all points outlined in the RFP. This may involve internal discussions, data collection, or consultations with specific departments. Ensure open communication and knowledge-sharing within your team to guarantee a well-rounded response.

• Time is of the Essence: With deadlines looming, a clear timeline is vital. Establish a schedule for drafting different sections of the proposal, assigning ownership, and incorporating feedback rounds. This will keep everyone on track and ensure a timely submission.

Building a Persuasive Response

A. structure and formatting: presentation matters.

The first impression your proposal makes can be just as important as the content itself. Here’s how to ensure your response is not only persuasive but also visually appealing and easy to navigate:

• Respect the Blueprint: Follow the format and organization outlined in the RFP. This demonstrates your attention to detail and respect for the client’s process. Deviation can raise red flags and make it difficult for evaluators to find the information they need.
• Clarity is King: Employ a clear and concise writing style. Avoid technical jargon and overly complex sentences. Utilize proper headings, subheadings, and bullet points to structure your content for optimal readability.
• Visual Appeal: Incorporate visuals strategically, such as charts, graphs, or infographics. These elements can enhance understanding, break up text-heavy sections, and add a touch of professionalism. However, avoid overwhelming the reader with unnecessary graphics.
• Navigation Made Easy: Design a user-friendly document. Use a clean layout with consistent formatting and consider including a table of contents or page numbers for easy reference. This ensures the evaluators can quickly find the information they’re looking for. You can also consider using a proposal writing software like Prospero for a more professional look.

B. Compelling Content: The Heart of Your Proposal

Beyond a professional presentation, the core of your response lies in its content. Here’s how to craft compelling content that convinces the client your offering is the perfect solution:

• Executive Summary: Grab Attention Quickly: The executive summary is your chance to make a powerful first impression. Concisely capture the essence of your proposal, highlighting your value proposition and how you address the client’s specific needs. This is what will convince evaluators to delve deeper into your response.
• RFP Requirements: A Direct Response is Key: Address each RFP requirement directly. Don’t simply repeat what the client stated; demonstrate your understanding and capabilities. Explain how your product or service fulfills each requirement and showcase relevant features or functionalities that provide a perfect fit.
• Data Speaks Volumes: Don’t rely solely on claims. Back up your assertions with specific examples, case studies, or data. Highlight successful experiences with similar clients and showcase the positive outcomes you’ve delivered. Quantifiable results add credibility and give the client confidence in your ability to solve their problems.
• Client-Centric Focus: Throughout your response, maintain a client-centric focus. Don’t get bogged down in simply describing your offering. Instead, explain how your solution directly addresses the client’s needs and challenges. Demonstrate how your proposal translates into solving their problems and achieving their desired goals. By keeping the client at the center of your narrative, you’ll craft a response that resonates with their specific requirements.

Differentiate Yourself from the Competition: Standing Out from the Crowd

A compelling response goes beyond simply addressing the RFP requirements. You need to convince the client why you are the best choice. Here’s how to strategically differentiate yourself from the competition:

• The Power of Value: Clearly articulate your value proposition. Explain the unique benefits and competitive advantage your offering brings to the table. Why should the client choose you over your competitors?
• USP: Your Secret Weapon: Highlight your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). What sets you apart from the rest? Do you possess unparalleled expertise, proprietary technology, or an unmatched level of customer service? Focus on the elements that make your offering truly unique and relevant to the client’s specific needs.
• Industry Expertise Matters: Demonstrate a deep understanding of the client’s industry and the challenges they face. Research their competitors, market trends, and any pain points they might be experiencing. This knowledge allows you to tailor your proposal to their specific context and showcase how your solution addresses their unique industry hurdles.
• Beyond Features, Focus on Benefits: While highlighting features is important, don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Focus on the tangible benefits the client will experience by choosing you. Explain how your features translate into solving their problems and achieving their desired outcomes.

Team Expertise and Track Record: Building Trust and Confidence

A strong team is a company’s greatest asset. Here’s how to leverage your team’s expertise to convince the client you have the right people to deliver on your promises:

• The Powerhouse Team: Showcase the expertise and qualifications of your team members who will be involved in the project. Highlight their relevant experience, educational background, and any certifications or awards that demonstrate their proficiency.
• Social Proof in Action: Include client testimonials or quotes praising your team’s work and positive outcomes achieved. This social proof builds trust and confidence in your capabilities.
• Past Performance Predicts Future Success: Showcase your track record by providing examples of successful projects with similar clients in the same industry. Demonstrate how you’ve tackled challenges analogous to theirs and delivered exceptional results. This establishes credibility and positions your team as the go-to solution for their specific needs.

Final Touches and Submission: The Home Stretch

The final stages before submission are important to ensuring a polished and error-free proposal. Here’s how to make a lasting impression:

A. Proofreading and Editing:

Even the most compelling content can be undermined by errors. Meticulously proofread and edit your proposa l for typos, grammatical errors, and formatting inconsistencies. Consider having a colleague with fresh eyes review the document as well. A polished final product demonstrates professionalism and attention to detail, making a positive impact on the evaluators.

B. Submission Considerations:

• Follow Submission Guidelines: Adhere to the specific submission instructions outlined in the RFP. This may involve file format requirements, deadlines, and preferred submission methods (e.g., online portal, email).
• Meet Deadlines: Timeliness is essential. Ensure your proposal reaches the client by the designated deadline. A late submission can create a negative impression and potentially disqualify you from consideration.

C. Be Prepared for Follow-Up:

• Anticipate Questions: Develop clear and concise answers to frequently asked questions related to your proposal. This demonstrates your preparedness and proactiveness.
• Open Communication: Express your gratitude for the opportunity and reiterate your interest in collaborating with the client. Be prepared to answer any questions they may have during the evaluation process and maintain open communication throughout.

Emphasizing the importance of a well-prepared and strategically written proposal cannot be overstated. A meticulously crafted response not only showcases your company’s professionalism and attention to detail but also demonstrates your commitment to meeting the client’s needs effectively. Investing time and effort in creating a compelling response is very important. It reflects your dedication and can significantly differentiate your proposal from the competition, increasing your chances of winning the contract.

By following these steps and committing to producing a high-quality proposal, you can confidently submit RFP responses that resonate with clients and position your organization as the ideal partner for their projects.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Damilola Oyetunji

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Do grant proposal texts matter for funding decisions? A field experiment

• Open access
• Published: 19 May 2024

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Müge Simsek   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3559-6874 1   na1 ,
• Mathijs de Vaan 2   na1 &
• Arnout van de Rijt 3 , 4   na1  

Scientists and funding agencies invest considerable resources in writing and evaluating grant proposals. But do grant proposal texts noticeably change panel decisions in single blind review? We report on a field experiment conducted by The Dutch Research Council (NWO) in collaboration with the authors in an early-career competition for awards of 800,000 euros of research funding. A random half of panelists were shown a CV and only a one-paragraph summary of the proposed research, while the other half were shown a CV and a full proposal. We find that withholding proposal texts from panelists did not detectibly impact their proposal rankings. This result suggests that the resources devoted to writing and evaluating grant proposals may not have their intended effect of facilitating the selection of the most promising science.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Science funding is predominantly issued by national governments, science agencies, and philanthropic institutes. Seeking to fund the best science and achieve the highest marginal return on investment, funding organizations often organize competitions to allocate a limited number of grants. In many of these competitions, scientists are invited to write and submit a proposal describing a future research endeavor along with a CV or summary of academic accomplishments. The funding organization then reviews these submissions and selects those deemed most worthy of funding (Wahls, 2019 ).

Participation in funding competitions comes with some benefits to the individual researcher. Writing a detailed research proposal forces one to critically reflect on one’s ideas and develop rigorous research plans that may be of value also if no funding is obtained (Barnett et al., 2017 ). In addition, the applicant receives valuable peer feedback that may lead to an improved research design. Science funding based on research proposals may also reduce organizations’ reliance on prior accomplishments in their selection of awardees, and thus dampen Matthew effects in scientific careers (Bol et al., 2018 ; Merton, 1968 ).

These potential benefits notwithstanding, competing for funding through grant proposal writing is time-consuming (Ioannidis, 2011 ). A survey among scientists at top U.S. universities found that faculty spend about 8% of their total time on writing grant proposals and about 19% of the time available for research (Gross & Bergstrom, 2019 ). These percentages are likely to be higher at universities with lower endowments and in disciplines that require investments in expensive equipment or complex data collection efforts. Moreover, the costs of writing grant proposals are exacerbated by the low average funding rates in science funding competitions worldwide (Herbert et al., 2013 ). As budgets of funding agencies fail to keep up with the growth of science, the rate at which applications are funded keeps dropping (Lauer & Nakamura, 2015 ). The effort that goes into unfunded research proposals has been estimated to equal the total scientific value of funded research (Gross & Bergstrom, 2019 ). Proposal-based grant competitions are not only taxing on the applicant, but also on reviewers. A submitted proposal is typically reviewed by several panelists as well as multiple external reviewers (Bol et al., 2018 ), each sacrificing many hours of research time.

The high cost of proposal-based funding practices naturally raises the question of whether under this status quo, funding agencies make better decisions than under a less demanding alternative regime that does not require detailed research proposals. A number of funding agencies are currently experimenting with less taxing decision systems, including lotteries (Adam, 2019 ; Avin, 2015 ; Fang et al., 2016 ; Ioannidis, 2011 ). Yet evidence on the returns of the use of detailed proposals is lacking. Some research has examined agreement among reviewers of science and finds only moderate to low levels of agreement among reviewers in their assessments of grant applications (Cicchetti, 1991 ; Cole et al., 1981 ; Jayasinghe et al., 2003 ; Marsh & Ball, 1991 ; Mutz et al., 2012 ; Pier et al., 2018 ). While this suggests that proposal quality is not something academics readily agree upon, the funding decisions reached by diverse crowds may nonetheless be wise (Becker et al., 2017 ; Hong & Page, 2004 ; Lorenz et al., 2011 ). Another strand of research correlates aggregate evaluation scores with measures of scientific impact, netting out the impact of funding. Results are not unequivocal: Some find sizable correlations (Li & Agha, 2015 ), while others find them to be moderate to weak (Bol et al., 2018 ; Fang et al., 2016 ; Jacob & Lefgren, 2011 ; Wang et al., 2019 ). Moreover, the impact measures used in these studies may themselves be questioned on validity grounds (Bollen et al., 2009 ; Bornmann & Leydesdorff, 2013 ; Radicchi et al., 2008 ; Wang et al., 2013 ) and exclude forms of non-academic, societal impact (Eysenbach, 2011 ).

We circumvent the problem of measuring the quality of realized funding allocations by avoiding the direct assessment of decisions reached through proposal review. Instead, we ask whether the use of proposals makes reviewers evaluate grant applications differently compared to the scenario in which reviewers have no access to the research proposal. A necessary condition for proposals to lead to superior funding decisions that could not have been reached without them is that these decisions are at least different from the decisions that would have been made in their absence. We refer to such a difference as a proposal effect .

It is not obvious that proposals should have substantial impact on how an application is evaluated. First, applicants with stronger CVs may write stronger proposals causing the variation in proposal quality to become redundant if reviewers have access to CVs. Second, research suggests that when quality is ambiguous or difficult to observe, evaluators will base their judgments on status markers (Manzo & Baldassarri, 2015 ; Merton, 1968 ; Simcoe & Waguespack, 2011 ). Some controlled studies indeed confirm that in merit review evaluators rely on applicant seniority status, past citations, and publication record (Waguespack & Sorenson, 2011 ). If the quality of grant proposals is ambiguous and reviewers fall back on quality signals from the CV, then again funding decisions with and without proposal should be similar.

The procedures of many funding agencies nonetheless continue to heavily rely on proposal writing and review, under the implicit assumption of a substantial proposal effect. To evaluate the presence of a proposal effect, we first develop a model to derive the prediction of a proposal effect from explicit assumptions. We then discuss our empirical setting and the field experiment that we designed. The field experiment builds on the idea that we introduced earlier: if a proposal effect is present, there should be a difference in how an application, with and without a full proposal, is evaluated. Then, with the data from the field experiment we proceed to test the hypothesis that two panelists will disagree more on the merit of an application if only one has access to the proposal compared to when both have access. Footnote 1

We investigate this question drawing on novel data from a field experiment conducted by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), the premier science funding organization in the Netherlands. Footnote 2 The experiment involves the first round of NWO’s 2018 Vidi competition for investigator awards of 800,000 euros in which panelists make a preselection of promising applications. For the purpose of the experiment NWO recruited duplicate “shadow” panelists from its Scientific Advisory Board ( https://www.nwo.nl/en/scientific-advisory-board ). Proposal texts were withheld from a random subset of shadow panelists who rated applications only on the basis of the applicant’s CV and a one-paragraph proposal summary. This created two treatment groups: a proposal group and a no proposal group. We compare the extent to which evaluations of the applications in these conditions were aligned with the evaluations of the regular panelists.

In a series of tests, we find that withholding proposal texts from panelists did not substantially impact the evaluation of a proposal as measured by comparing rankings and scores from the experimental conditions to those of the regular panelists. These results suggests that the resources devoted to writing and evaluating grant proposals may not have their intended effect of facilitating the selection of the most promising science.

Consider a sample of applications that are reviewed by panelists who either have access to a full proposal and CV (i.e. the proposal ( P ) condition) or who only have access to a CV (i.e. the no-proposal ( N ) condition). Comparing these applications to the same set of applications reviewed by regular panelists creates two groups: (1) those where both panelists can read the proposal text ( P–P ) and those where the proposal text is accessible to one panelist but not the other ( P–N ). We argue that when both panelists have access to the proposal text ( P–P ) there should be more agreement on the quality of the application than when only one has access ( P–N ).

The theoretical basis for our argument that agreement should be higher for an application evaluated in the P–P group versus a proposal evaluated in the P–N group can be articulated in terms of two panelists j  = 1,2 who evaluate applications i  = 1…. I . Each application consists of a CV and a proposal text, which have a quality C i and T i respectively, each with a normal distribution with zero mean. Footnote 3 CV quality and proposal quality are measured on the same scale and therefore have the same variance. The quality of the CV and the proposal may be correlated but not perfectly, as otherwise, trivially, the CV is a perfect substitute for the proposal and the omission of the proposal cannot be consequential.

In the P condition, a panelist j provides an evaluation X ij P of application i that equally weighs the quality of the CV and that of the proposal, plus a normally distributed error E ij P with zero mean:

In the N condition, a panelist j achieves an evaluation X ij N the same way, except that they use the quality of the CV as their best guess of the quality of the proposal, again with a normally distributed error E ij N with zero mean:

The Pearson correlation in panelists’ evaluations of applications from the P–P and P–N groups respectively then equals:

The correlation for applications in the P–P group (3) will exceed that for applications in the P–N group (4) if Footnote 4 :

Inequality (5) will be met under the assumption that proposal evaluation is reasonably informative, which is the implicit rationale for the continued use of proposal writing and evaluation in many leading funding competitions. Proposal evaluation is informative if it measures something distinct from CV quality (lower Cov( C i , T i ) which increases the left side of inequality (5)) and if proposal quality is not in the eye of the beholder (lower E i 1 P which decreases the right side of inequality (5)). Panelist agreement on application evaluation will then be greater when both panelists evaluate applications in the P condition ( P–P ) than when only one does ( P–N ):

Panelists’ evaluations of grant applications agree more when both have access to the proposal text than when only one has access.

In our statistical analysis we use two related measures of panelist agreement. Our first measure of agreement is the probability that two applications evaluated by two panelists have concordant rankings, which amounts to a Kendall’s Tau statistic. Given that the correlations in question pertain to bivariate normally distributed quantities, we can use the fact that Kendall’s Tau monotonically increases in the correlation following 2arcsin(Corr())/π to derive that any two applications are more likely to be ranked concordantly by two P panelists when both panelists have access to both proposals ( P–P ) than when only one panelist has access ( P–N ).

The second measure of agreement is the absolute difference in the evaluation, | X i 1 P — X i 2 P | or | X i 1 P — X i 2 N |. For normally distributed variables, the mean absolute deviation is √(2/π) times the standard deviation, which in turn monotonically decreases in Corr( X i 1 P , X i 2 P ) respectively Corr( X i 1 P , X i 2 N ), so must be smaller when both panelists have access to the same proposal than when only one has access.

Experimental design

The experiment was conducted in the Social Science & Humanities domain of NWO’s 2018 Vidi competition which consists of eight panels representing different disciplines (see Supplementary Information for further details). NWO duplicated these eight panels for the experiment. Each submitted application (N  =  182) was assigned to two out of 58 regular panelists as part of the regular evaluation process as well as to two out of 41 shadow panelists from the corresponding shadow panel. Funding decisions were based only on regular panelist evaluations.

NWO matched both regular and shadow panelists to applications based on the similarity between proposal content and panelist expertise, panelist preferences, and conflicts of interest. NWO gave regular and shadow panelists guidelines and standard evaluation sheets and asked them to provide three scores on a scale of 1 (excellent) to 9 (bad) — one for the quality of the researcher (the CV score), one for the quality, innovative character, and academic impact of the proposed research (the proposal score), and one for the potential for utilization of knowledge for society and for the economy (the knowledge utilization score). The overall score NWO calculates is a weighted sum of the CV score (weighted 0.4), the proposal score (weighted 0.4), and the knowledge utilization score (weighted 0.2).

After shadow panelists were assigned to proposals, they were randomly assigned to an experimental condition using a randomized block design: within each shadow panel half of the panelists were assigned to a proposal condition (P) and the other half to a no-proposal condition (N) . The randomized block design ensures that there are balanced numbers of applications in both conditions within each panel, ensuring the treatment is orthogonal to panels. In line with our hypothesis, our analysis considers applications belonging to one of two groups : (a) applications assessed only in the proposal condition (“proposal group” or P–P group) and (b) applications assessed once in the proposal and once in the no-proposal condition ( P–N group). To ensure perfect balance in the composition of these two groups, for each application one evaluation always comes from a regular panelist, and one from a shadow panelist. Table 1 provides a breakdown of applications and panelists by panel and condition. For example, the table shows there are 6 regular panelists in the CW panel who all naturally reviewed in the P condition, and there were 4 shadow panelists, of which 2 were assigned to the P and 2 to the N condition. There are exactly 21 cases where an application in the CW panel was reviewed by at least one regular panelist in the P condition and at least one shadow panelist in the P condition. There are exactly 19 cases where an application in the CW panel was reviewed by at least one regular panelist in the P condition and at least one shadow panelist in the N condition.

Analytical strategy

Our analytical strategy is to take two approaches to test our hypothesis. First, we evaluate panelist agreement on rankings. To this end, for each pair of applications in the P–N group reviewed by the same shadow panelist in the no-proposal condition we determined which of the two applications received a better score Footnote 5 and then took two evaluations of the same two applications by a panelist from the regular panel and determined if the order of the scores was the same. Analogously, for each pair of applications in the P–P group evaluated by the same shadow panelist in the proposal condition we determined which was evaluated better and computed how often panelists in the regular panel agreed with this ranking. Together there were 722 such comparisons. Ties were broken randomly. We measure agreement on rankings as the percentage of cases where the rank orders in the shadow and regular panel agree. Our estimand for this approach is the difference in this agreement percentage between applications in the P–N group and applications in the P–P group. The rationale for conducting this analysis is that in the presence of a proposal effect and in line with our hypothesis, rankings of applications in the proposal condition compared to rankings of applications in the no proposal condition should be more in line with rankings in the regular panel.

Second, we compare panelist disagreement on scores – which we measure as the absolute difference in scores between two panelists reviewing the same application – between applications in the P–N group and applications in the P–P group. Our estimand for this second approach is the difference in mean disagreement between applications in the P–N group and applications in the P–P group. In line with our hypothesis, we predict that average disagreement among panelists regarding the quality of an application will be more pronounced when only one of the two panelists has read the proposal compared to when both have read the proposal. The existence of such a difference in disagreement across the two groups would indicate a proposal effect in panelist judgment.

In evaluating panelist agreement on rankings and panelist disagreement on scores, we used nonparametric randomization tests. Panelists evaluated multiple applications, so we cannot assume independence of observations in any test for group differences across applications. Accordingly, we generated the sampling distribution of each of our estimands under the null hypothesis, i.e. the permutation distribution, by way of randomly reassigning the condition labels to panelists 1000 times. Specifically, we took the P and N labels in the shadow panels and randomly reassigned those labels to panelists. We only reshuffled the condition labels within panels, so that the block design was preserved. At each permutation we recalculated the estimand. We then calculated the two-sided p-value as the fraction of 1000 permuted panelist assignments for which the estimand exceeded its value in the non-permuted data.

First, we examined whether not being able to access the full proposal text altered the way a panelist ranked those applications. A concordance percentage of 50% is achievable with random scoring and 100% is perfect agreement. We find that the percentage of concordant pairs in the P–N group (55.2%) is 3.7 points lower than that in the P–P group (58.9%) (see Table  2 ). The results of the randomization test, shown in Fig.  1 , indicate no significant difference at the 5% level in disagreement between applications evaluated in the P–N and those in P–P groups (two-sided p -value = 0.43). Table 2 shows that the rankings calculated separately for CV, proposal, and knowledge utilization scores also yield only small differences, none of which are significant (see Supplementary Fig. 1). Noteworthy is that when both panelists can read both proposals ( P–P ), they agree on which is better only 53.4% of the time. This provides an explanation for the rejection of the hypothesis: It was derived under the assumption of informative proposal evaluations, and this assumption is not supported in the data.

The vertical line represents the observed difference (− 3.7%) between the percentage of concordant pairs in the P – N group (only regular panelists can read the proposal) and the percentage of concordant pairs in the P–P group (both shadow and regular panelists can read the proposal). White bars display the distribution of the differences obtained from hypothetical re-randomized assignments of panelists to conditions. With the difference in agreement in the unpermuted data being closer to zero than in the 5% most extreme cases of the permutations, the analysis finds no statistically significant difference at the 95% level in agreement between groups

In the subsequent analysis, we examined the average disagreement levels in overall scores between the P–P and P–N groups. Table 3 shows disagreement among pairs of panelists in the evaluation of different elements of an application (rows) by proposal group (columns). Overall, panelist disagreement varied little between groups. As seen in column 1 of Table  3 , the mean level of disagreement on the overall scores was 0.04 lower in the P–N group than in the P–P group. This difference is small compared to the standard deviations of the two groups (0.67 and 0.63, respectively). Comparing the actual group difference with the distribution of differences generated from reshuffled samples showed no significant difference between the two groups at the 5% level (two-sided p -value = 0.36) (Fig.  2 ). We conducted similar tests for disagreement on CV scores, proposal scores, and knowledge utilization scores, all of which yielded consistent results (see Supplementary Fig.  2 ).

Overall, we conclude from these results in combination with the results of the ranking analysis that one panelist not being able to read a proposal does not lead that panelist to disagree more with the other panelist on the application’s merit. The main hypothesis is rejected.

The vertical line represents the observed difference (− 0.04) in mean disagreement between the P–N group (only regular panelists can read the proposal) and the P–P group (both shadow and regular panelists can read the proposal). Disagreement is measured as the absolute difference in standardized overall scores between two panelists reviewing the same application. White bars display the permutation distribution of the difference in mean disagreement between the two groups, obtained from hypothetical re-randomized assignment of panelists to conditions. With the difference in mean disagreement being closer to zero than in the 5% most extreme cases of the permutations, the analysis finds no statistically significant difference at the 95% level in disagreement between groups

We conclude that panelist assessment of an application changes little when the proposal text is omitted from it. Writing and evaluating proposals comprises the lion’s share of the costs of grant peer review (Graves et al., 2011 ). Our findings suggest that funding agencies using single-blind panel review, at least in a pre-selection stage prior to external review, can expect to achieve similar candidate selections by screening on the basis of CV and proposal abstract only. We hasten to reiterate that the writing of proposals may have intrinsic value to applicants also when not funded, and may together with reviewer input improve the quality of the work ultimately done once funded.

Studies of Matthew effects in science funding suggest that an emphasis on CV in merit assessment will strengthen the self-reinforcing character of winning grants (Bol et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2019 ). However, our results indicate that the presence of a full proposal text may not substantially alter evaluative outcomes. In a system that preselects on CV and proposal abstract only, then, the Matthew effect would likely not be much stronger despite there being little to go on besides applicant reputation.

Several limitations to the present investigation deserve consideration. First, limited statistical power renders it possible that writing a strong proposal does mildly increase an applicant’s chances for advancement to the next round. Our best estimate is that being able to read two proposals raises the chances a panelist will agree with another panelist who read both proposals on which of the two applications is the stronger one by about four percent points. This effect is small when compared to the dominant role of chance associated with one’s application being assigned to two favorable panelists (Cole et al., 1981 ).

Second, one may wonder whether shadow panelists assessed applications less meticulously or were less committed to the appraisal process. While our analysis revealed no systematic differences along any scoring dimensions between regular and shadow panelists evaluating the same proposals, we cannot rule out that there are differences we were not able to detect.

Third, our investigation was limited to peer review in an individual funding competition. In such competitions the CV of the applicant may play a more dominant role than otherwise. One may speculate that in competitions with collaborative proposals the proposal effect may be stronger so that the omission of the full proposal text would have a larger impact.

Finally, the experiment was limited to the initial scoring of candidates by panelists, preventing us from assessing a proposal effect in later stages of evaluation that involve expert reviewers. Nonetheless, even if a strong proposal effect exists in later rounds, most applications are already discarded in the preselection stage before the detailed description of the proposed research on which so much time was spent gets a chance to make a difference.

Data availability

All data are available in the supplementary information files. We conducted all data preparation and analysis using R. The code used for this purpose can be found at  https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/TRMEB

We preregistered additional hypotheses that do not directly speak to the main question asked here. The tests of these hypotheses can be found in the Supplementary Information file. The preregistration can be found here: https://aspredicted.org/md45e.pdf .

As executive researchers, we assisted with the random assignment of panelists to conditions and shared our opinion with NWO on the comparability of the information presented to the panelists in different conditions. Aside from this assistance, we were not involved with the design and execution of the experiment. Our study design concerning the use of data from this experiment was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences of Utrecht University.

The score variables in our data are indeed approximately normally distributed (see Supplementary Figs. 5 and 6).

We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this theoretical possibility.

We standardized the scores within panelists, because the funding agency makes preselection decisions based on standardized scores. To this end we first computed the mean and standard deviation over all scores given by a panelist and then subtracted the mean from each individual score and divided it by the standard deviation.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Dutch Research Council for their support in implementing the research design, Alexandros Gelastopoulos for helpful comments on the theoretical model, and  an anonymous reviewer and the organizers and participants of the Field Experiments Conference at Duke University, the Yale Conference on Computational Social Science, and the Social and Political Sciences Department Colloquium at Bocconi University for general feedback we received on earlier versions of our paper.

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Müge Simsek, Mathijs de Vaan, and Arnout van de Rijt have contributed equally to this work.

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University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Müge Simsek

Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, USA

Mathijs de Vaan

European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy

Arnout van de Rijt

Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

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Simsek, M., de Vaan, M. & van de Rijt, A. Do grant proposal texts matter for funding decisions? A field experiment. Scientometrics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-04968-7

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