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Nonprofit Procurement

Nonprofit Procurement is the acquisition of goods, services or works from a nonprofit organization. Whole service functions traditionally carried out within a company are now more frequently outsourced to external service providers. Since nonprofit organizations must retain surplus revenues for their own self-preservation, expansion or plans, their application processes for funding are considerably different than those of for-profit organizations. Whereas private organizations can solicit a "sole source" or no-bid contract, government agencies must solicit services through a competitive bidding process such as a request for proposal to avoid the perception of favoritism for a single contractor.

Origin of Non-profit Procurement Process

A Request for Proposal for non-profit organizations originates from a public or private organization soliciting for a service or services. This may come from legislation, through special projects initiated by a government agency, or simply to outsource a service that the organization cannot produce themselves or can produce more efficiently through a procurement.

Factors Influencing Successful Proposals

Proposals written by non-profts and submitted through a bidding process are held to a higher level of scrutiny than sole source or no-bid contracts because of the competitive nature of their proposals. Since non-profits depend on procurement and donations for sustainability, writing successful proposals are not only important—they are critical to the liveliehood of non-profits.

Some effective strategies for writing successful proposals in the non-profit sector include:

• Adequate and Effective Planning: Before writing a proposal to secure funds grantseekers need to first determine which programs are most likely to garner the interest from grantmakers? An effective proposal should include the follwing: problem statement, goals and objectives, methods, evaluation, program sustainability, and budget.
• Clear Problem Statement: An effective problem statement identifies the problem being addressed by the proposal.
• Clear Goals: Must be established to clearly define what the non-profit intends to accomplish through the proposed program as well as objectives that can measure progress towards that goal.