The Request for Proposal Database (RFPdb) was created to facilitate the submission and sharing of competitive bidding business opportunities between organizations and contracting firms/independent contractors. This goal of the RFPdb is to provide a public site for organizations to post their Requests for Proposals (RFP) to a centralized location that will garner them the most responses and a destination for companies seeking projects to bid.
By encouraging our users to upload projects that they are not bidding on the RFP Database is able to offer a steady stream of available projects for everything from accounting and public relations to construction, architecture and web development. If each user in the system (of which there are over 57,300 currently registered) submits 1 RFP a month. We also strive to keep all costs to our users to a minimum so as to make the projects more accessible to all businesses that are interested in them; this translates into no membership fees, no commissions, and a low per-project access exchange rate.
We believe in two things: encouraging competitive bids on projects and making valuable projects available to anyone that is interested in them without making the process cost prohibitive.
First and foremost: there are no membership fees and no commissions. Publishing/announcing a RFP in the database is entirely free.
To gain access to projects you must use credits; each project that you want to get the full details for requires you to spend 2 credits. Credits can be gained in two ways: you can purchase credits for $1 each with a minimum purchase of $10, or you can earn credits by uploading valid RFPs that you've found but aren't bidding on. For every project that you upload to the website you will immediately be awarded 10 credits.
When you register a new account we provide you with 4 credits to start you off. Each time you access the full details of a RFP, you use 2 of your credits. You will be able to view a short description of the project, the proposal deadline, location of the project and the reputation of the uploader; at that point you should have enough information to decide whether it is worth using 2 credits to view the details. When you choose to get the full details you will use up 2 of your credits at which point you will be provided with the full user submitted description as well as any link or file provided.
After using your initial 4 credits you can go to the "Add an RFP" page to upload a RFP and earn 10 credits or you can go to the "Buy Credits" page to purchase them for $1 each.
Please be respectful to the community! We reward users that provide us with feedback, bring problematic RFPs to our attention, and continue to upload quality projects. We require that the information you upload be as complete as possible, not a duplicate of existing content, and not junk content used to game the system.
Sign up for personalized mailings
When you register in the site we automatically enroll you to receive a weekly email summary of RFPs added in the past 7 days. You can personalize these weekly mailings, and also sign up for nightly mailings of RFPs that are uploaded and match your preferences, by going to your profile page. On the bottom of your profile page, select the specialties that you are interested in receiving and hit the "update specialties" button at the bottom of the page.
Stock up on credits
Finding RFPs can be easy if you are just looking for valid ones. You can visit your local city's procurement site or do a quick search, such as "rfp 2009" with any combination of services such as accounting, public relations, advertising, recycling, etc. When you find a stash, upload as many valid RFPs as you can and stock up on credits. The credits never go bad and will come in handy when a project is listed which aligns with your interests.
Access more projects
To be perfectly honest about RFPs you need to spend time evaluating whether you are potentially the best candidate for the project before spending the extensive time necessary to write a winning proposal. We have purposely kept the cost of accessing projects low on the RFPdb to encourage you to access more projects and enable a higher success-rate. If you take advantage of the tip above (stock up on credits) you will never have to pay for those leads.
Use the RSS feeds
Using these RSS feeds will help ensure that you are receiving notices of newly posted RFPs and give you the most time possible for responding. If you have your own blog you can also integrate our feed and content into your site which will help you draw traffic from search engine results.
The RFPdb was created by Confluent Forms LLC, a boutique design and software development firm based in Northampton MA. Founded in January of 2002, Confluent Forms has provided web design, application development and hosting services to customers from the Fortune 100 to local non-profit organizations and academic institutions. Our goal in every project is to provide a superior final product that empowers our customers and their users. We created the RFPdb as a service for organizations seeking to gain competitive bids for their projects.
This application was developed by Confluent Forms LLC. Not for use without permission.
