Community and Social Service Tenders
Since we established our consultancy in 2014, we have provided a broad range of community and social services firms with assistance with their bids and tenders. Community and social services are a range of public services provided by the government, private, profit and non-profit organizations. These services aim to create more effective organizations, create stronger communities, and promote more equality and opportunity. Some of the community and social services bids and tenders we have worked on include:
- Education: We have helped community groups and private companies apply for a broad range of education bids. These include for the provision of out-of-hours school care in public schools across NSW and Victoria, the provision of adult education services across Australia including in Western Australia, and the development of a rural education and learning program for Indigenous people located in remote Australia.
- Health care: Including assisting community nursing home operators as well as private medical providers with community and social services contracts in regional and remote Australia. We have assisted a range of medical professionals including psychologists, speech therapists and doctors to write bids and win government contracts for services in regional and remote areas as well as to provide allied health services to community groups (and through social service organisations) in metropolitan areas including Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
- Training: We have assisted a broad range of training providers to bid for government and private sector training contracts. Many of these training providers are not for profit, social services and community providers who provide training to vulnerable groups. We have helped respond to RFPs to provide training to a broad range of disadvantaged groups. These often involve tendering to the Department of Education, and variety of vocational training training bodies.
Subsidised and community housing: We have assisted community housing operators to apply for government grants and applications. These include for the operation of boarding houses and other accommodation initiatives including group homes. We have helped clients develop programs that tackle affordable housing challenges within communities across Australia. - We have worked on community development programs for clients. These bids for community development and small local infrastructure projects encompass initiatives for promoting social inclusion.
- Indigenous and remote community development programs: We have helped private and public organisations submit proposals to provide services to remote Indigenous and remote communities. We understand the process and requirements for writing bids which promote cultural sensitivity and sustainable development. These include initiatives focused on healthcare, education, housing and economic empowerment.
- Social inclusion and diversity programs: We have written tenders and proposals for services and programs that promote social inclusion, diversity and equality.
- Community health and wellbeing programs: This includes writing bids for community based health services providers involved in mental health support and wellness initiatives. We have written these proposals to local health departments and state health agencies.
- Workforce development: We have written proposals and tenders for programs designed to address employment challenges and workforce development by deploying initiatives for job creation, skills training and career support. This included a tender to the Department of Jobs and Small Business for the provision of workforce development recruitment and services. We have also written bids to employment agencies and the Department of Health Care and Ageing.
- Social inclusion initiatives: We have helped clients write bids and tenders to the Department of Social Services and other social services government departments at the local, state and federal level. These bids were associated with social inclusion, diversity and community initiatives and events. We have also written tenders for translation companies who tender to a range of government departments to provide translation services. A lot of these are associated with social services bids where translation services are provided to community groups.
How we can help you write winning community and social services bids
We have over 10 years of combined experience in community and social service tender writing. Our team of writers can help you:
Write your content. This will involve gathering the necessary information from you to write your bid or tender. We will create a template response for each question so you can be certain we will put forward a comprehensive response that scores well. We will work with your key stakeholders to gather the necessary information in order to submit a comprehensive response.
Review your proposed bid. If you write your bid in-house our team of writers can review it prior to submission. We generally recommend a week or so prior to submission or that we review the first draft. The reality is that most people who work in the social services and community services industry are great writers and experienced in writing in the government language. Where we often see we add significant value, is in reviewing the structure of your responses and providing suggestions to improve that structure. For example, a tender or bid may ask for information on your innovations and value added services. We will brainstorm these with you and help you come up with ideas and suggestions that will make your response more comprehensive.
Remember the criteria
It is important to read and understand the evaluation criteria of the tender. Doing so helps you understand what is required of you and whether your business can provide additional value on top of the tender’s requirements. This is known as formulating a win theme or a win strategy. This is designed to give you a distinctive advantage over competitors.
Win themes to win rates
A win strategy or win theme is designed to increase your tender win rate by demonstrating your business’s capability to provide additional value on top of the tender’s minimum requirements.
This can be achieved in a number of ways depending on your industry and which bid you are applying for. In Community and social service tenders you can leverage your industry knowledge through demonstrating an understanding of the community’s needs and demands, and how your business can exceed expectations in regards to them.
Prepare the right documents beforehand
Community and social service tenders may require a lot of policies and insurances as you will handling a problem in the community or society that will require specialist industry knowledge.
You will be asked for documents such as:
- Insurance policies
- Implementation plans
- Methodologies
- Key personnel CVs and experience
- Referees
It is always a good idea to have these ready on hand before beginning the tender process, otherwise, you may find yourself scrounging for certain documents such as key personnel’s up to date CVs whilst some of them are sick or unavailable.
You may have to investigate Social Policy and the administration of social services, including policies for health, housing, income maintenance, education and social work; needs and issues affecting the users of services, including poverty, old age, health, disability, and family policy.
We take pride in our high-quality tender writing services. We ensure that all tenders are written using proven methods that increase win rates and help businesses grow.
By working with us you do not only invest in an initial service but an on-going relationship that can benefit your business for future tenders and success.
Other strategies to win more community and social services tenders across Australia
Understand your client’s need: This is important in order to write a quality response. With any community or social services contract, there is always a driving need or force behind it. It is sometimes a social issue or other need such as a lack of low-cost accommodation in a certain area. Your tender needs to address the immediate need and questions, as well as address any underlying challenges that may not be explicitly mentioned in the tender but do exist and may be important to the reader and procurement team.
Build Strong Relationships: It is important to build a profile of your organisation in front of key decision makers prior to the RFP being released. This can be through networking, attending industry events and participation in consultations with industry s well as through writing white papers. This helps build credibility in the minds of procurement personnel once you submit your bids or tender.
Showcase quality and impactful case studies: You need to go into detail and talk about what you have delivered in previous contracts, how you have maintained quality in your service provision, and also what impacts your activities have had. Feel free to talk about the challenges you have encountered in servicing other contracts and how you have overcome them and provided solutions.
Demonstrate your relationship with the community: By the very nature of community work, proving that you have solid partnerships in place with local organisations and community groups is critical. This does not come only in the form with other contracts, but also general relationships your business or community group has with other community groups.
Demonstrate you take into account Cultural implications: A key theme and often a requirement to win any community or social services bid is to recognise and be considerate to the diversity of communities you propose to services. You need to not only demonstrate your understanding of Indigenous perspectives as well as those from immigrant backgrounds.
Highlight Staff Training and Development: It’s important to practice what you preach and also to ensure that all your staff undergo the appropriate training. Demonstrating your investment in your staff training is a key component to ensuring quality assurance particularly over the longer term.
We’re ready to help
We offer free consultations to answer any of your tender related questions on 0410 448 770 or email at info@thetenderteam.com.au.
We help organisations across Australia and New Zealand and have experience writing bids and tenders to all level of government. These include:
Federal: Our bid writing consultants have worked on bids to the Department of Social Services (DSS), the Department of Health, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) and the Department of Education, Skills and Employment.
State: Department of Communities and Justice (New South Wales), the Department of Health and Human Services (Victoria), Communities Queensland (Queensland), the Department of Social Inclusion – DCSI (South Australia), the Department of Communities (Western Australia), the Department of Health and Human Services – DHHS (Tasmania) and the Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women.
Local government authorities: We have helped our clients write and win contracts with councils, shires and a range of other local government authorities across Australia. These include the larger Councils such as City of Sydney, City of Melbourne, Brisbane City Council and City of Adelaide to Councils in regional and remote areas where many of the tenders and contract opportunities for community services are released.
