Awarded's RFP Alignment Checklist
The 234 items any submission will ask for.
Eighteen sections, a scorecard, and four standings. What a property management firm assembles before the solicitation posts, not the week it is due.
234Items
18Sections
31Marked core
25 daysMedian bid window
Why it matters
Firms lose on responsiveness, not capability.
✓
The window is 25 days.
National median from posting to deadline. Seventy-one percent close inside 30.
National median from posting to deadline. Seventy-one percent close inside 30.
✓
The library gets built during drafting.
Insurance certificates, five references, resumes, and a fee baseline get assembled at the worst possible moment.
Insurance certificates, five references, resumes, and a fee baseline get assembled at the worst possible moment.
✓
One weak section carries the risk.
A firm at 74 percent overall can still sit at 20 percent on Financial Capacity. Scorers read sections, not averages.
A firm at 74 percent overall can still sit at 20 percent on Financial Capacity. Scorers read sections, not averages.
Bid readiness is broader than a company brochure.
This is the full library: what a property management firm assembles before a solicitation posts, not the week it is due.
What is inside
The eighteen sections.
Every item is tagged with what it establishes for a scorer and whether it is CORE.
| # | Section | Items | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pursuit Strategy / Bid Decision | 16 | Which solicitations are worth pursuing |
| 2 | Prior RFP / Proposal History | 10 | Where past bids gained and lost points |
| 3 | Company Overview | 18 | Who the firm is and how it is staffed |
| 4 | Entity Map | — | Which legal entity carries what |
| 5 | Eligibility & Registration | 8 | That the firm can legally hold the contract |
| 6 | Insurance | 10 | That required limits are carried or reachable |
| 7 | Portfolio | 11 | Scale, asset mix, and comparable experience |
| 8 | Key Personnel (Resumes) | 10 | That named people can run the work |
| 9 | Client References | 9 | That someone will vouch for the work |
| 10 | Comparable Contracts | 6 | Evidence of contracts at similar scale |
| 11 | Financial Capacity | 10 | That the firm can carry the contract |
| 12 | Disclosures | 7 | Anything an agency will find on its own |
| 13 | Technology Stack | 27 | The systems the work runs on |
| 14 | Operations | 20 | How the work is actually performed |
| 15 | Compliance Experience | 20 | Programs the firm has operated under |
| 16 | Fee Structure (Baseline) | 20 | The inputs a cost proposal draws from |
| 17 | Sample Reports (Redacted) | 18 | What the agency will receive and when |
| 18 | Brand Assets | 14 | That the submission looks like one firm |
| Total | 234 | 31 marked CORE |
Score it
Then the score tells you what to do.
Delivered counts as 1, partial as 0.5, missing as 0. Exclude N/A and divide by what is left.
80–100
Bid ready
The library exists. The bid window goes to drafting and pricing instead of assembling the company.
60–79
Nearly ready
Competitive today, and losing time rebuilding evidence while the clock runs.
40–59
High friction
A meaningful share of the submission gets created during drafting, at the worst possible moment.
Under 40
Build first
The evidence a scorer needs still has to be assembled. A live bid would be written from scratch. Start with the 31 CORE items.
What did you score?
Send the number and your three biggest gaps. You get back the order to close them in and how each one creates risk on a live bid. No cost for the read.
Send your scoreProof
One bid. 1,215 units.
A Los Angeles-based third-party property management firm engaged Awarded to run a City of San José interim housing bid while the company was mid-Yardi integration and carrying a live 1,000-unit transition. Awarded ran the bid, drafted the layered cost proposal, rebuilt it for the City's Best and Final Offer, and presented to the Department's evaluators alongside the client's executives. The client won. Its fourth municipal contract, and the largest it has been awarded.
1,215Units awarded
15Sites
$5.2MAnnual NTE
4.5 yrsTerm with all options
Questions
Before you download
What does it cost?
Nothing. Awarded makes money running bids, not selling checklists. Firms that score themselves and find gaps are the firms that hire us to build the library or write the response.
What do I do with the score?
Send the number and your three biggest gaps to James@AwardedRFP.com. You get back the order to close them in and how each one creates risk on a live bid. Score each section on its own as well as the whole. A firm at 74 percent overall can still sit at 20 percent on Financial Capacity.
Is this only for government RFPs?
It is built from twelve years of public property management solicitations, so the sections mirror what agencies score. Most of the library carries over to institutional and private RFPs, which ask for the same evidence in a shorter form.
Who sees what I send?
Awarded, and nobody else. Your information is used to send the checklist and read your score. It is not sold, shared with other firms, published, or reproduced in any client deliverable.
Get the checklist
Get the checklist.
The full 234-item library, the CORE flags, and the scorecard. Sent as a PDF you can work through with your team.
Your information stays with Awarded. It is not sold, shared with other firms, or published.