Bid analysis and proposal development review

Reviewed competitive funding proposals for Cambridge Partnership for Education to assess alignment with donor requirements, identify strengths and weaknesses, and generate practical learning for future bids. The work combined structured scoring, comparative analysis and recommendations to strengthen project design and proposal development processes.

Client: Cambridge Partnership for Education

Location: Cambridge, UK

Duration: May - June 2024

Services

Research • Programme and Project Design • Organisational Development

Overview

Cambridge Partnership for Education commissioned an external review of recent proposals submitted to international funding opportunities in Afghanistan, Georgia and Uzbekistan. The aim was to assess how well each proposal responded to the relevant Request for Proposals, identify recurring gaps and areas of strength, and generate practical learning to improve future business development activity.

My Role

I independently designed and delivered the review from inception to presentation of findings. My responsibilities included:

• reviewing the funding opportunities and identifying key donor requirements and evaluation criteria;

• developing and adapting scoring matrices to enable consistent assessment across the proposals;

• assessing each proposal against its respective Request for Proposals and scoring criteria;

• identifying recurring strengths, gaps and areas for improvement across project design, terminology, proposal structure, monitoring and evaluation, risk, target-group participation and organisational capacity;

• synthesising findings into practical recommendations for improving future proposal development and opportunity selection;

• producing a detailed review report and completed scoring matrix; and

• presenting findings and facilitating discussion with Cambridge Partnership for Education staff.