Guidelines for Researching and Writing Capabilities Statement

Outline the cape, adhering to length and formatting requirements in the RFP and following the headings given in the RFP so the evaluators will be able to score the cape. You will have to decide whether to organize the cape by technical area (for example, decentralization, quality assurance), country or project. It is common to organize it by technical area, but that approach may be impractical if you need to cover work in many different countries. Sometimes the cape is organized by project and the projects may be grouped under countries or regions.

Research to find content for the cape in sources that include:

Recent capes and past performance references. The information you use should be updated. It is inappropriate, for example, to write a cape in fall 2008 that says “A series of workshops on quality assurance will be held in the summer of 2008.”

Communication materials, including annual reports, project and technical brochures, the Pocket Guide and fliers.

Project evaluations and annual and final reports.

Project publications and documents (workplans, trip reports, briefing papers).  

Limit your research to what is necessary to write a cape of the length and level of detail required. You usually need to peruse only the major parts of long reports (such as the Executive Summary, Introduction and Recommendations). It is not cost effective, for example, to compile many pages of information to write a two-page cape.  

Organize the information you have gathered under the headings in your outline.

Rewrite what you have compiled so it conforms to the proposal strategy and length limit for the cape. Adhere to the basics of persuasive writing:

The cape statement should be written as if the audience is unfamiliar with the organization’s capabilities and portfolio of projects.

Use the active voice, short sentences and lively verbs.

Simplify wordy, jargon-filled text (Note that “past experience” is redundant).

Limit acronyms, unless they are frequently used in the RFP and will be defined in a list at the beginning of the proposal. Define unusual acronyms on first use.

Be clear about what pronouns refer to and use the name of your organization. . . we” (not “it”).

Be consistent in your use of verb tenses.

Substantiate claims about your organization’s expertise with evidence of results. For example: “The maternal health program trained 300 midwives in the new procedures in the first year and provided them with materials to use in outreach. The number of births assisted by trained attendants in the project areas rose from 40% to 60% in the second year of the project. By the end of 2001, nearly 75% of women had received prenatal care (at least three visits) versus 58% in 2000.” If you cannot find quantitative evidence of the impact of your organization activities, seek qualitative evidence about the project’s success, the quality of the organization’s technical assistance and the depth of its experience (for example, a quotation from the project midterm evaluation or a satisfied client in the Ministry of Health).

Edit the cape (preferably by reading a hard copy and making the changes to the file after that) and then use spell-check. The level of effort required to produce this first version may vary from a few hours (for a very brief cape for which current information is available and time is short) to a week.

Coordinate the circulation of the first draft to have an opportunity for internal and external reviewers to review it. Ask reviewers to comment specifically on the completeness, accuracy and currency of the information. Once in print, mistakes of fact get passed down every time they are pirated by the next proposal writers.

Save the final version of the cape statement.