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>However, IIRC, all proposals submitted become public
> documents and you could certainly get copies of the
> losing proposals and contact those firms to offer
> your services for the next contract.
>What a brilliant marketing idea!
It's a good idea, but IMHO, it probably will not work because:
1. All proposals submitted do not become public documents. The
winning proposal is retained; the rest are usually trashed after
a short period of time. Even a winning proposal may not be a
public document in the true sense of the phrase. The resultant
contract between the government and the winning bidder is a
public document.
2. In most cases, if you want to obtain a copy of a proposal, you
must submit a request via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA -
for federal agencies) or in accordance with a state or local
government's Public Information/Public Access regulations. To get
anywhere with this, you should be as specific as possible as to
what you are requesting. Asking an agency to send you all the
losing proposals (if they still actually have them) is unlikely
to get results. If you can be specific as to which companies'
proposals you are requesting, you will probably have to pay
copying costs (and possibly research costs), which can be
substantial.
3. Federal FOIA or state/local public information requests can
take months or even years for the government to fulfill, if
fulfilled at all.
4. For most solicitations, bidders are provided with an
opportunity to identify information in their proposals which they
consider proprietary or confidential, in order to keep the
government from distributing the proposal to others who may
request a copy. Many bidders restrict everything except
information that is publicly available.
5. Government agencies are not obligated to give out the names of
losing bidders; however, you may be able to get this information
through a FOIA type request.
Kind Regards,
Deborah
*****************************************************
Deborah L. Kluge dkluge -at- comcast -dot- net
Proposal Writing & Government Contracting
International Technical Assistance http://www.proposalwriter.com
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