Join Us In Welcoming Your New NCA Board Members!
The APMP National Capital Area Chapter is thrilled to announce and warmly welcome our newest Board Members! These dedicated professionals bring a wealth of experience and expertise to our leadership team, and we are confident that their contributions will significantly enhance our Chapter's mission to support and advance the careers of proposal professionals in the region. Learn more about your new Board members below, connect with them on LinkedIn, and meet them on January 16th at our Monthly Member Meeting! Marketing Co-Chair: Jennifer Cassaday I have been a member of APMP since 2018 and over the last 18 months have become much more involved. I currently hold APMP Foundation level certification, as well as Bid and Proposal Writing micro-certification. I’m currently working on my APMP Leadership Academy certification and will be graduating in the spring. I have nearly 25 years of experience in proposals with 15 years of proposal management
Recording Available: “Let’s Get Agile!”
Our recent webinar about using Agile methods in proposal development had a record-breaking 351 registered! Clearly this is a topic that is front of mind for many. Thank you to presenter Neal Levene, to all who attended and to those who submitted such great questions. View the recording here >
Career Tools: Mentor, Advocate, Or?
by Tara Rethore, CEO of M. Beacon Enterprises LLC Mentorship is a fairly common tool for professional development, as part of both formal mentoring programs (e.g., APMP-NCA’s Mentor-Protégé Program) and selfinitiated personal development plans. An effective mentor is usually a more experienced person who guides someone along her/his professional journey based on her/his experiences and ability to model positive behaviors. Mentors can be helpful at just about any point in one’s career and often are
7 Key Pre-solicitation Activities for Proposal Management Input
Capture, marketing and proposal staff must perform key pre-RFP release activities to enhance proposal management and content as follows: 1. Perform Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for previous contracts, deliverables, SOPs and customer five-year plan to gauge previous contract activity, issues and initiatives 2. Obtain customer phone listing, e-mail addresses, and location addresses, organization chart, mission statements, operational platforms, toolsets and interface requirements 3. Find out Customer desires, needs, hot buttons, budget, problem areas,
Proposal Writers and Contracting Officers: We’re Not So Different After All! (And A Little Meditation Doesn’t Hurt)
Having had the opportunity to spend the day with some of the most motivated business professionals in the National Capital Region at the APMP-NCA Conference, I am more convinced than ever that proposal writers and federal contracting officers are birds of a feather. After attending some amazing sessions on technologies, success and creativity, the overlap between these two communities had me chanting “We’re not so different after all.” That was, of course, after several rounds of my newly learned
Why Get Practitioner (or beyond) APMP Certification?
First off, I understand that “everyone’s doing it” – that is, getting their Foundation certification. I mean, who doesn’t want CF.APMP after their name, right? According to Rick Harris at the 2017 APMP Bid & Proposal Con (June, New Orleans), there are 8,299 Foundation-level certified members (or as Rick said, “Let’s round that up to 8,300.”) Of those, 810 are Practitioner certified. Now I don’t do math, but I believe that’s less than 10 percent.
The Outsiders Why 3rd party reviewers rock at color team reviews By Erin Green, CF APMP
Like most proposal managers, by the time I get to a color team review, I might not know if I've written the best--or the worst--proposal in history. To make sure I have clear goals coming out of color reviews, I bring in... The outsiders. Bringing in someone to read the proposal like an evaluator is a critical best practice for effective color team reviews. The 'outsider,' or third party reviewer, can be someone who works
From Reviewers to Evaluators: Adding Value to the Red Team Review By Kevin Switaj
Proposal reviews are vital to constructing a high-quality bid. Unfortunately, too many people see them simply as a step mandated by process-focused proposal managers. Proposal professionals can gain increased buy-in through shifting the central proposition of our red team reviews. By focusing on our review teams serving as mock evaluators, proposal managers can get actionable, focused comments that improve the document as well as the evaluation score. This article provides advice on how to prepare
APMP-NCA
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Arlington, VA 22216-0711
www.apmpnca.org
A Publication of the Association of
Proposal Management Professionals
National Capital Area Chapter