Pro7 minute read· Updated 5 November 2026
Bid or no-bid: deciding what not to apply for
Score every grant and tender on six factors, apply hard stops and spend your bid time only where you have a real chance of winning.
Finding opportunities is no longer the hard part. Raise Lens lists hundreds of open grants and thousands of public tenders, and any search turns up more calls than a small team could ever answer. What decides your results is what you choose not to apply for. This guide gives you a scored bid or no-bid sheet, a short list of hard stops and a 15-minute routine, so your best people spend their time on bids you can win.
Inside this playbook
- What you need
- 1. Accept that saying no is the job
- 2. Check the hard stops first
- 3. Score six factors
- 4. Use the match score breakdown
- 5. The template
- 6. Run the 15-minute decision
- 7. Record the no-bids
- 8. Protect the bids you choose
- Checklist
- Further reading
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