The post-submission phase includes organizing files, preparing for any follow-up communications with the donor, and conducting an after-action review.

Organizing Files

As soon as the proposal is submitted, the folders and files created during its development need to be reviewed and organized. Until you know the proposal’s fate, all the background materials—minus some things like early, partially written drafts that no one will look at again—should be saved. Some files related to background research can be archived.

Proposal drafts. All files submitted to the donor must be saved and clearly marked as the final, submitted copies. If the proposal was submitted as a PDF, you should also save the original Word file or other editable version, such as Google Docs. If you consistently worked from a single file and relied on automatic version control in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, you have access to a complete version history. If you did not rely on the automatic version feature and saved a new copy of the proposal periodically, you may want to save the penultimate version of the proposal and delete the rest.

Budget. Because it contains sensitive information such as salary figures, the budget is typically stored separately from the proposal narrative. Ideally, this will be a secure location, such as a password-protected folder.

Email correspondence. Other materials to review and organize may include email correspondence, particularly emails documenting key decisions. Other correspondence to keep might include guidance from the donor on the application process or from partners regarding their contributions to the proposal or the proposed project. Email correspondence can be saved as PDFs or, if your organization uses Microsoft products, transferred to OneNote.

Preparing for Questions

Depending on the donor, it is not uncommon to receive questions several weeks to months after the submission when the donor is close to making an award decision. These questions almost always come with the warning not to interpret the request for additional information as a sign that the proposal has been successful and an award is imminent. However, receiving questions is a good sign, as it indicates that your proposal remains under consideration.

It's hard to predict what questions the donor will have. To prepare for whatever form the request for additional information may take, organizing your files is critical. In responding to the donor, you may need to refer to your planning documents, partner communications, and meeting notes.

It may be necessary to reconvene the proposal team to respond to the donor's questions. To be ready to call everyone back, it's a good practice to maintain a spreadsheet with team members' contact information. This list should be saved with the other proposal materials. If the proposal development process included consultants, the consultant's contact information should be included on this list as well.

After-Action Review

Roughly two weeks after the proposal’s submission, it’s a best practice to hold an after-action review meeting, also known as a debrief meeting (or white hat review, if you follow the Shipley color review process). The debrief meeting should occur before everyone forgets what happened during the proposal process, but after most of the emotions from the experience have died down. Proposals, particularly the larger, more complex ones, can be taxing physically and emotionally, so a buffer between the submission and the debrief is often a good idea.

The debrief meeting should include everyone who contributed to the proposal. The meeting is an opportunity to identify what worked well and what didn’t during the proposal’s development, to generate lessons learned that can improve the processes for the next proposal. The discussion should focus on the process, not on the actions of specific people. Sometimes the debrief process consists of two parts: an initial survey and then a group discussion to review the feedback. For survey tools, you can create an anonymous survey using Survey Monkey, Microsoft Forms, or Google Forms.

After the debrief, a plan should be made to implement any actionable items that might improve the proposal process. Additionally, the meeting notes should be stored in a central location accessible to the entire organization, not just the proposal team. This allows future teams to access and benefit from the lessons learned.

The after-action review is completed before the results of the submission are known. If the response is negative and the proposal has not resulted in an award, another meeting should be scheduled: a post-mortem meeting.

Post-Mortem

The post-mortem meeting is similar to an after-action review in that it aims to discuss what went wrong and how to prevent similar problems in the future. The difference between the after-action review and the post-mortem is that at the post-mortem, you not only know the outcome of your proposal, but you may also have received feedback from the donor regarding your proposal’s strengths and weaknesses. This means that your discussion on how to improve future proposals can be more focused. Another difference between the after-action review and the post-mortem meeting is that the post-mortem meeting is often a smaller group. Instead of inviting the entire proposal team, the post-mortem meeting might be attended only by the proposal leads, including the technical or programmatic lead, the lead writer, and a senior staff member.

☞ The point of the post-submission meetings is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the specific proposal and the overall proposal development process. Adopting a continuous improvement model should lead you to better results and more wins over time.

Lesson Summary