Experience of previous calls indicates that many bidding proposals fail for not paying attention to one or more aspects pointed out in this document. In order to be successful in the Mink’a de Chorlaví Fund Call for Projects, our suggestions are:
 

1.           Read the 2006 Call and the 2006 Official Regulation of the Mink’a de Chorlaví Fund carefully and inquire about all those points you have doubts on. It is almost impossible to succeed if you do not comply with this minimum step.
 

2.           Make sure that the Executing Organization of the project is a legal entity in a Latin American or Caribbean country and is a non-profitable private company.
 

3.         Submit your project within the stipulated deadline (day and hour); all projects arriving even a few minutes late are automatically rejected, without exceptions. The deadline is September 29, 2006 at 1:00 pm, Santiago de Chile time.
 

4.           Submit complete documentation required by the Regulation: bid, two bid annexes and the Executing Organization letter of undertaking.
 

5.           Follow the compulsory form established in the Regulation, including the maximum length of 15,000 words. We prefer brief and concise, but well-thought and well-organized bids.
 

6.            Do not request a financial contribution to the Fund above the maximum limits established in the Regulation: US$ 15,000 if the project is implemented in only one country or US$ 20,000 if the project is implemented in two or more countries.
 

7.           Make sure that your bid schedule is limited to a maximum period of 12 months, which means, the project financed by the Fund will conclude no later than December 2007.
 

8.          Participate only if your project is clearly  framed in the Call topic, as defined in the 2006 Call: “International migration and development of poor rural territories in Latin America and the Caribbean”.
 

9.           It will not be enough for you to use a couple of key words because at least two expert evaluators will read your bid.
 

10.      Make sure your bid corresponds to the systematization project, research-action or applied research fields. Do not participate if it deals with a development or an academic research project.
 

11.      Become familiar with the merit evaluation criteria in detail. These are explained in the Regulation and the total score assigned to each criterion is indicated in each one.
 

12.      Check your own bid to make sure it contains sufficient information so evaluators can apply all and each one of the merit evaluation criteria. If information is missing from one criterion, your bid will be given zero points on it.
 

13.         Pay special attention to the merit criterion used to evaluate treatment of the equity issue. This is where many bids lose their option to be selected.
 

14.       In objectives, method, outputs and results, do not make promises that are impossible to carry out in a 12-month period and with a limited budget. Submit a down-to-earth project.
 

15.      Offer something innovative regarding conceptual and methodological approaches. We are quite willing to take risks in testing new ways of learning from development experiences.
 

16.    Participate only if you have a really innovative experience, from which many can learn relatively new things.
 

17.   Organize a good team of people to participate in the project. We are looking for teams with experience and knowledge on the Call topic.