Bid Writing Resources

I’ve been asked quite a lot for bid writing resources recently, mostly because of the current funding that is available to support e-learning development. Several of my colleagues have been kind enough to share their bid writing bits and pieces with me so I thought it also worth summarising a couple here.

To begin with, some help with ‘Bid Writing – what to do…

· The Regional Support Centre in the Northwest has an eMagazine Supplement which provides a broad overview on the process of preparing funding bids. Click here to download this from the web. This guide focuses on the key questions that will help learning providers appraise their ideas, understand better what they are hoping to achieve and then think about how they demonstrate to a potential funder that they match their criteria.

· JISC Guide to Bidding - This is a guide to bidding for JISC funding but it does contain some useful tips to note to ensure your bid stands out from the rest.

Then there's, Bid Writing – what not to do…

· I was also given an analysis of recent unsuccessful bids from a bidding round which highlighted a number of key problem areas with applications. This was from a specific round of JISC funding but it does highlight a number of things to avoid when writing a bid. It noted such things as weak partnerships, no links to local strategy and/or plans, project “has been done before” etc. This could be a useful checklist to go through to make sure your bid doesn’t fall into any these traps.

Finally, we are currently supporting a number of applications for funding and are happy to discuss individual project ideas either over the phone or in person. If anyone wants any more information or assistance, please do get in touch.