I’m reviewing a group of five RFPs for a major contract with my org. In reviewing these, one of the five has DEI information mentioned. This stood out to me because the others not only don’t mention it, but their teams are mostly white people. I don’t think this will weigh heavily on the RFP selection in the end, but it is important for me to see it.

Have you ever had this come up during RFP reviews?

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Responders typically only respond with DEI information, in my experience, if the requester specifically mentions it in the RFP.

And then, unfortunately, there’s a lot of gaming the system: using mushy and fuzzy diversity terminology without solid metrics; using “diversity” as a broad term without defining what it means to them or using hard numbers; photos of diverse interns and contractors (but no full-time employees) in the pitch/response materials; and the most widely-used tactic of all, which is bringing in diverse faces temporarily as part of the response team (interns, contractors, freelancers), who won’t be there full time regardless of whether they land the pitch or not.

In the face of all that, if a responder is taking time to mention DEI, it could be that it is indeed important to them (in which case, ask questions about specifics), it could be leftover verbiage from a previous pitch (ditto, still ask questions about specifics), or it could be something that shows consumer market knowledge which translates into better reach and potentially returns than the others in the group.

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I like the suggestion of asking more probing questions about it. That’s important.

My agency has a dei info page as a standardized part of our proposals that we send out. I cant say we have the most diverse team but our creatives do their diligence in supporting dei efforts like diverse casting in marketing spots, and culturally sensitive market research in our strategic recommendations. I appreciate that even though it feels like dei was a trend corporate america is walking away from my agency leadership seems to still be trying to uphold some of what they learned in the last few years. Small wins are better than none I guess.

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I like this. I’m going to see if I can make this a standard piece of our RFPs going forward.

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