# Gotchas Failure modes that waste an evening, lose a winnable bid, or put the organization at legal risk. --- ## Gotcha: drafting before the go/no-go **Why it matters:** This is the most expensive failure in the whole skill. An evening — often several — spent on a response the organization was never eligible for, from a person who has very few evenings. The rejection arrives without the proposal ever being scored. ### Bad ``` "I'll start on the technical approach section for the Fort Whitfield HVAC solicitation." ``` Section L required three federal contracts over USD 500k. There is one. ### Good ``` NO-BID — mandatory past performance requires 3 federal contracts over USD 500k in 5 years. You have 1 (USD 310k, 2024). Hard disqualifier in Section L. Recompetes in 2029; two more qualifying contracts makes it a real target. ``` Ninety seconds, and the evening stays free for a bid that can be won. --- ## Gotcha: inventing past performance or outcomes **Why it matters:** On a federal application the certification page states the submission is true and complete. False statements carry consequences under the False Claims Act. This is a legal exposure, not a writing choice, and it is created by one sentence. ### Bad ``` Riverbend has served over 500 students annually since 2019, with strong outcomes in reading advancement. ``` The real figure is 380 and "strong outcomes" has no source. ### Good ``` [NEEDS DIRECTOR] Section 2 — need the exact annual served count and the reading advancement figure with its source. The 2024 proposal said "over 400" with no citation; this solicitation asks for documented outcomes. ``` Then, once answered: ``` Since 2019 Riverbend has served 380 students annually across four school districts. 71% advanced two grade levels in reading within twelve months (internal pre/post assessment, 2024 program year). ``` --- ## Gotcha: writing prose before the compliance matrix **Why it matters:** A missing required form scores zero regardless of how good the narrative is. Evaluators are usually required to reject rather than allowed to overlook. ### Bad Write a strong technical approach, discover on submission day that SF-33 needs a wet signature and the director is out of town. ### Good Build the matrix first — every requirement, mapped to a section, with a status. Signature routing gets counted backwards from the deadline like any other task. --- ## Gotcha: ignoring the evaluation weights **Why it matters:** The evaluation section is a published scoring rubric. Writing the interesting section instead of the valuable one loses by a margin that reallocating the effort would have covered. ### Bad Eight polished pages on the management plan (10 points). Two thin pages on past performance (30 points). ### Good ``` Scoring: technical 40, past performance 30, key personnel 20, price 10. Past performance is worth 3x key personnel — that's where the pages go. ``` --- ## Gotcha: leaving portal registration late **Why it matters:** SAM.gov and several agency systems take days to weeks. A finished, winning proposal that cannot be uploaded is the most avoidable loss in this work, and it happens every year. ### Bad Draft for three weeks, start the portal registration two days out. ### Good Portal status is checked in the go/no-go, before the go decision. If registration will not complete in time, that is a no-bid with a note to register now for the next cycle. --- ## Gotcha: copied text from the last proposal **Why it matters:** Three reliable failures — the wrong agency name survives, an outdated number survives, and the requirement it answered last time is not the one being asked now. Any of the three reads as carelessness to an evaluator. ### Bad ``` Okonkwo Mechanical is pleased to submit this response to the Department of Veterans Affairs... ``` In a submission to the Army Corps of Engineers. ### Good Reuse aggressively, then read every reused paragraph against the current requirement and the current recipient before it stays. --- ## Gotcha: answering an adjacent question **Why it matters:** The most common scoring failure is a well-written section that answers something near the requirement but not the requirement. It reads fine and scores badly, and the writer never understands why. ### Bad Requirement: "Describe your approach to maintaining service in occupied facilities." Response: three pages on the company's general maintenance methodology. ### Good Re-read the requirement after drafting and check it literally, phrase by phrase. Occupied facilities means occupied facilities: noise, hours, access, disruption, safety around building users. --- ## Gotcha: winning something the organization cannot deliver **Why it matters:** Bad performance damages the past performance record, which is the asset that wins everything afterward. For a small organization, one bad record closes a lot of doors for years. ### Bad Bid it because the dollar figure is attractive and worry about staffing later. ### Good Capacity is check 4 of the go/no-go, before fit and odds. Reimbursement-basis awards get a specific cash-flow question, because floating six months of costs has broken small nonprofits that won. --- ## Gotcha: submitting without explicit approval **Why it matters:** A submission is a binding commitment with certifications attached. It obligates delivery, pricing, and reporting, and there is no editing it after the portal closes. ### Bad Complete the package and upload it because the deadline is close. ### Good State exactly what is going, to whom, by when, and what it commits the organization to — including the reporting burden that follows a win. Wait for a yes. Then submit, early enough that deadline-day portal traffic is not a risk. --- ## Gotcha: dropping the post-award obligations **Why it matters:** A missed grant report can cost the next award and sometimes claws back the current one. It is a more common failure than losing the bid was, and it happens because the work feels finished at submission. ### Bad Award announced, celebrate, close the file. ### Good On award, put every reporting date, drawdown deadline, and renewal date on the calendar with lead time. Say plainly what the ongoing burden is — for a small nonprofit, quarterly narrative and financial reporting is real work that has to be staffed.