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Composition Program.
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Date: September 1, 2000
To: Center Interns
From: Center Team Leader
Subject: Proposal to Study the Design of Business Proposals
The purpose of this proposal is to outline the need for a project that analyzes the use and design of business project proposals. In response to the Center's mission to analyze business communications practices, this project will seek to answer the following questions:
Since business proposals are typically intended to produce some kind of change in an organization, they have historically been viewed as a means for employees to take initiative by suggesting improvements that might benefit the company or organization. An employee or group of employees may write a proposal and submit it to the appropriate management personnel, who will then evaluate the proposal and accept or reject the suggested project.
In non-profit organizations or academic institutions, proposals are often a means of procuring funds or other resources for specific projects or even day-to-day operations. In this case, the proposals are sent to funding agencies, where they are evaluated as to whether the proposal matches the criteria of the funding agency, and whether it's judged to be the best use of the resources that the funding agency has allotted for distribution.
In order to analyze the proposals, this project will investigate the use and design of proposals in both for-profit and non-profit situations. We have already established contact with two local for-profit organizations and two local non-profit organizations who have indicated their willingness to allow us to interview their staff, review their file of proposals, and analyze their procedures for writing proposals.
In addition, we will be consulting with a local organization who specializes in writing grant proposals for non-profit organizations. Our work with this organization will allow us to access a wide variety of proposals and will give us the opportunity to work with proposal "experts."
We will look at both formal and informal proposals. While informal proposals may be structured in basic memo format, formal proposals are more complicated often following a format similar to those of fromal reports:
The result of this project will be an analytical report that discusses the rhetorical and structural components of proposals, both in for-profit and non-profit situations. In addition, the report will suggest practical strategies for designing rhetorically effective proposals. In order to complete this project, we will follow the schedule below:
| Initial research complete: | September 14 |
| Progress report submitted: | September 21 |
| Analysis of data complete: | September 28 |
| Final report drafted: | October 3 |
| Final report submitted: | October 6 |
We believe that this project will fill an existing gap in the Center's knowledge base, a gap that undermines our organization's ability to effectively serve its clients by providing comprehensive information about business communications practices. We are eager to undertake the project and look forward to hearing any comments and suggestions that you have. If you wish to discuss this proposal, please contact us by phone or email (555-5555, cap@123.com).