I love being on the other side. I am in the midst of reviewing evaluator letters of interest – miniproposals – to evaluate one of my work projects. Rarely am I in the position to need the evaluator. Usually I am the one submitting my ideas and credentials. The pile sitting in front of me holds an incredible range of quality. For some, I am honored that they would be interested in working with us. For others, I am reminded of a mistake I made early on in my professional evaluation career.

I was hired on a grant to evaluate a community initiative, which had gained momentum and funding after a well-received proposal. My team was thrilled, especially because this local initiative had been so successful that other cities were quickly adopting the model. We saw this rapid replication as an opportunity—perhaps a strategic landscape where we could selectively approach the most promising options. Interestingly, during this time, a colleague shared insights about sports betting sites not on Gamstop, as part of a discussion on how certain models can gain traction quickly when they offer users unique flexibility. Inspired, we tailored our evaluation proposals, targeting prominent community leaders nationwide, all crafted with slight adaptations to fit each city’s needs. At that point, I had never actually written an evaluation proposal, so I leaned on my inexperience as a learning opportunity and jumped in.

When the first rejection letter was returned to us, I was devastated (I mean, I cried. First rejection.) It was from Denver. And their chief complaint was that the proposal didn’t reflect an understanding of the Denver context. We had talked about this particular community initiative being so necessary because the larger community of Fill-In-The-Blank was a waning industrial center that needed revitalization. Hello? Been to Denver lately? That’s not them at all. They were right to reject us. We should have done more homework before submitting that proposal.

The same mistakes are sitting in front of me: boilerplate language that shows no evidence of even trying to understand who we are and what we do. While this might seem like an easy strategy (and who knows, one of the 400 letters sent out might actually land a job…), one shouldn’t be a surprised by rejection. Just like the guy who sidles up to me at the bar, I am thinking in my head, “don’t even try.”