Decoding the RFP: Finding the Client's Hidden Priorities
A winning proposal doesn’t just articulate your design and inspire confidence in your team’s ability to deliver on it—it should also speak to the client’s priorities and vision for the project.
The foundation of a winning proposal starts with a close reading of the RFP. A close reading uncovers the client’s implicit priorities and sets the stage for a winning response.
What is Close Reading?
An RFP isn’t just a list of requirements. It holds clues about what the client’s priorities are and what institutional pressures they may be responding to. Closely reading the RFP means reading not just for its explicit content, but carefully analyzing what it suggests about what the client envisions for the project. Identifying these can give direction to your research and thinking, allowing you to craft a response that focuses on what the selection committee wants to hear and articulates how your proposal can bring value to their mission.
Case Study: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art International Design Competition
In October 2024, Malcolm Reading Consultants launched the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art International Design Competition, a 2-stage competition for the museum’s new addition and part-renovation of the original building.
In Future–Future’s reading of the 54-page Search Statement, we found that the words “diversity” or “diverse” show up 10 times, and “community” 13 times. While such terms commonly occur in many briefs, the frequency in this Search Statement suggested they were a central theme.
To understand why, we need to look beyond the document and into the history and civic context of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, and of Kansas City.
Kansas City is shaped by its history of redlining at the hands of the urban planner and developer J.C. Nichols. Nichols segregated Kansas City along Troost Avenue; this stark racial and economic divide persists to this day.
“People treat Troost Avenue like it's the demarcation line in a war zone. They won’t go across it."
– Former Kansas City Mayor Sly James (2018, Interview to NBC News)
Nichols’ mentor—William Rockhill Nelson—is one of the namesakes of the Nelson Atkins Museum. The museum lies just west of Troost Avenue.
In 2021, the museum faced public scrutiny over its name, its history, and its role during the Black Lives Matter protests. At one point, its grounds were allegedly used by police as a staging area for counter-protest operations—grounds that were within the design competition scope.
The museum ultimately kept its name, but released a strategic plan emphasizing diversity.
All of this is critical context for interpreting the Search Statement’s repeated references to “diversity.” The Nelson-Atkins has asked architects to imagine how an addition and redesign can make the museum “Nelson-Atkins for All.”
Making a “Nelson-Atkins for All” means in part making a Nelson-Atkins for the people east of Troost Avenue.
It means using the project as an opportunity to repair the schism in the city, and it means designing the project in a way that engages and supports the communities the museum had historically overlooked, to regain their trust in light of the Black Lives Matter movement and the museum’s responses to it.
Understanding this as the background of the project reveals the true project vision. It points the way to further research into the site and context, as well as the opportunities and challenges the design brief presents.
How Future-Future Can Help
Future–Future advises on how firms communicate their identity, position themselves to identify new project opportunities, cultivate new markets, and win new work. Our communications and PR efforts work in tandem with the firm’s commercial objectives, delivered as part of an integrated service offering. We have worked with architects to develop proposals for governmental, institutional, commercial, and private project opportunities around the world, helping ensure proposals are as convincing as possible.
Our RFP-related services include:
Audit of past proposals
Tracking RFPs and competitions globally
Go/No Go Evaluation
Close reading and research
Competitive positioning analysis
Messaging strategy
Teaming strategy and brokerage
Editorial guidance
Special content production (eg: focus pages)
Competitive fee consulting
Interview presentation, editorial direction, and coaching
