Three Tips for Crafting a Compelling Proposal

Metro’s Unsolicited Proposal Policy was unveiled only a few months ago and it still has that new car smell. Like anything new, though, it’s going to take some getting used to — for Metro and for our potential private partners.

With that in mind, here are some potential pitfalls to avoid when preparing and submitting an Unsolicited Proposal.

• Get the basics right.
  We try to make it easy for innovators and forward-thinkers to submit ideas, but we do ask for a little effort up front. Review our baseline criteria in the Unsolicited Proposal Policy to ensure your idea qualifies and doesn’t duplicate efforts. Ask questions – we’re always eager to try to help.

• Give us the details!
  Provide enough detail in the project proposal to enable Metro to understand your concept, but not so much detail that we’re swimming in numbers or technical information. Most conceptual proposals are three to 10 pages. Yours might be more or less, depending on how complicated it is. Consider this a first date, not a marriage proposal.

• Understand our needs.
  While we’re open to all ideas of any kind, we definitely have a few key areas in mind where we’re looking to improve, innovate and expand our work. Read this newsletter, scan our current and upcoming Requests for Proposals and check out our website and Metro’s blog, The Source, as well as our transportation planning documents to understand what problems we are trying to solve and the many things going on. Anyone is welcome to request a meeting or phone call with us prior to submitting an Unsolicited Proposal to understand what we’re most interested in, how your ideas fit with our business model, how achievable your idea really is, and whether there are current efforts that may conflict with yours.

Questions? Reach out to Colin Peppard at peppardc@metro.net to start a conversation and learn more about what we’re doing and how our process is evolving.