About RFP Free
A fair investment advisor search, free for the institutions that run one.
RFP Free is a tool for nonprofit committees selecting an investment advisor, consultant, or OCIO. It replaces the spreadsheet and the stack of mismatched PDFs with one place to draft the RFP, invite firms, and compare sealed responses side by side.
Why this exists
An investment advisor search is one of the most consequential decisions a nonprofit board makes, and one of the least well supported. Most committees run it from a template found online, a shared inbox, and a spreadsheet someone builds the night before the meeting. Responses arrive in different formats, quote fees on different bases, and answer different questions. Comparing them honestly is hard, and the paid tools that could help are priced for the firms, not the fiduciaries.
RFP Free gives the process a spine. Every search asks the same sixty-two core questions in identical wording, so answers are directly comparable. Fee proposals are normalized into effective basis points on a common asset level. Every extracted value carries a citation back to the response it came from. The result is a comparison your committee can defend to a board, an auditor, or a successor.
Who it is for
Endowments, foundations, hospital systems, universities, religious organizations, associations, and any other nonprofit institution with a fiduciary duty and a committee that answers to a board. Committees that already work with a consultant can run the same process here and spend their meetings on the decision instead of the collation. Advisory firms use RFP Free too, by invitation only, to respond to the searches they have been asked to join.
What we hold ourselves to
Organizations never pay
Not for the platform, not for the comparison layer, not for the decision record. The plan is for the advisor side to fund the platform over time, through tools that speed up a firm's own work. Today it is free for everyone, and it stays free for organizations.
Nothing is for sale that touches your decision
No placement, no ranking, no early access, no influence on the comparison, and never the identity of an organization that has withheld it. We take no success fee when a firm wins, so our revenue never depends on which firm you choose.
The comparison cites, it does not score
RFP Free extracts and lines up what each firm actually said, with every value linked to its source. It will never rank firms, name a best fit, or nudge a choice. The judgment stays with your committee.
Confidential by construction
Draft searches are unreachable outside your organization. Responses stay sealed until your deadline, measured against our server clock. These rules are enforced in the data layer, not left to a setting.
What RFP Free is not
It is not an advisor, a consultant, or a recommendation engine. It does not tell you who to hire. It is not a public procurement system or a marketplace; there is no open board and no unsolicited bids, and firms only see a search because your committee invited them. It is the plumbing, not the advice.
Read more
- How it worksThe six stages of a search on RFP Free, from guided intake to a board-ready decision record.
- NeutralityWhat we will and will not sell to advisors, stated plainly.
- Data & privacyWhat is aggregated, what is never touched, and the floor that protects it.
- For advisorsHow firms are invited, how they respond, and what they can and cannot buy.
Questions?
Write to us with anything about running a search, inviting firms, or becoming a listed advisor. We read everything and reply by email.