Asset Management RFPs: What Issuers Ask and How Managers Respond

An asset management RFP, also called an investment management RFP, is the request for proposal an institution issues when it wants to hire a firm to manage its money. It asks each manager to describe its organization, investment team, philosophy and process, performance record, fees, risk management, and compliance, and it sets a deadline, a format, and rules on contact with the issuer.

The issuer scores the written proposals, interviews a shortlist, and usually sends a due diligence questionnaire (DDQ) before it awards the mandate.

This guide explains what these RFPs ask, how they are scored, and how asset managers respond, with examples from public RFPs along the way. It covers institutional investment mandates only. Digital asset management, IT asset management, and property management RFPs are different documents with different buyers.

What Is an Asset Management RFP?

An asset management RFP is the document an institution uses to choose an investment manager, and the manager it picks usually holds the mandate for several years.

It goes by several names: investment management RFP, RFP for investment management services, investment advisory RFP, and manager search RFP. An RFP for investment advisory services and an investment advisor RFP are usually the same document, seen from the issuer’s side.

The institutions that issue them include:

• Public and corporate pension plans
• Endowments and foundations
• City, county, and state treasuries and other public funds
• Insurers and other institutional investors

Some issuers run the search themselves and post the RFP on their own website. Many larger plans hire an investment consultant instead. The consultant screens managers in consultant databases, sends its own questionnaire, runs the RFP, and recommends finalists to the plan’s committee. For how that works stage by stage, see how an investment consultant RFP runs.

Winning the mandate starts a long relationship, usually with a multi-year contract and regular reporting. The City of Healdsburg’s 2022 RFP for its treasury funds, for example, set a three-year contract with up to two one-year extensions, a written report every quarter, and an annual oral report to the City Council.

What an Asset Management RFP Asks For

Almost every asset management RFP asks the same core questions: who the firm is, who will manage the money, how they invest, how they have performed, what it costs, and how the firm stays compliant. The scope of work at the front of the RFP tells you which mandate is on offer, so read it before the questions.

Most RFPs also ask for attachments: a current Form ADV, audited financial statements, SOC reports, insurance certificates, the code of ethics, and sample client reports. Collect them early, because they sit with other teams.

A few kinds of question need extra care:

• The issuer’s as-of date. Issuers often fix the date for performance and AUM, and it may not be your latest quarter. The CCSU Foundation’s 2025 RFP, issued in May, asked for returns as of December 31, 2024.
• Fee basis and benchmark. Say whether each return is before or after fees, and name the benchmark beside it.
• Questions that repeat. Long RFPs often ask the same thing twice in different sections. Give both answers the same facts.
• Outdated terms. Older templates may ask about “AIMR reporting standards”. AIMR is CFA Institute’s former name, so answer the question and name the performance standard your firm follows today.
• The issuer’s own rules. Public issuers often name the laws that govern their investments, such as a state investment code or, for endowments, the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA), and expect your answer to show you know them.

Issuers that write their own RFP often start from a template such as CFA Institute’s model request for proposal for equity managers, written for small institutional investors and also published in fixed income and real estate versions.

How Issuers Evaluate Asset Management Proposals

Issuers score written proposals against criteria they publish in the RFP, and returns are only one of them. The criteria usually cover:

• the experience and qualifications of the firm and the people assigned
• the investment approach and how it fits the issuer’s portfolio
• performance history
• fees and total cost
• reporting and client service
• knowledge of the rules that govern the issuer’s investments
• sometimes diversity, local presence, or responsible investing
• sometimes the quality of the proposal itself

Many issuers list their criteria without weights, and some say plainly that they will not simply pick the lowest fee or the best returns. When weights are published, they show how evenly the points spread. The City of Healdsburg’s 2022 scoring sheet split 100 points across six criteria:

Performance history earned no more points than cost of service.

Investment committees and consultants often sum up manager evaluation as the four Ps: people, philosophy, process, and performance. Published scoring adds what the four Ps leave out, such as fees, reporting, knowledge of the issuer’s rules, and how well the proposal answers the brief.

The written proposal decides who gets an interview, and some issuers reserve the right to rank firms on it alone. Make each answer easy to score: follow the issuer’s numbering, answer the question in the first sentence, and make it clear which criterion the answer addresses.

After scoring, the issuer interviews a shortlist of finalists, runs due diligence, often through a DDQ, and its board or committee approves the award.

How to Respond to an Asset Management RFP, Step by Step

Asset managers respond to an RFP in seven steps, from deciding whether to bid to presenting as a finalist, and the performance, fee, and compliance review happens before anything is sent.

1. Decide Whether to Bid

Check the issuer’s minimum qualifications first, then your capacity, your fees, and your fit with the mandate. Some RFPs rule firms out before anyone reads an answer, with minimums on years in business, assets managed, or the length of the track record. A go/no-go review puts the issuer’s minimums at the top and your firm’s own criteria below them.

2. Log the Rules and the Dates

Record the deadline, the questions deadline, the quiet period, the format, any page limit, and how long the proposal must stay valid, in one place the whole team can see. Write every time in the issuer’s time zone. The questions window closes well before the deadline, and it is your only chance to clarify the scope.

3. Give Every Question an Owner

Map each question to a named owner: performance, compliance, legal, the portfolio manager, operations, or information security. Asset management RFPs mix in questions only specialists can answer, such as SOC reports, cyber incidents, and business continuity plans. Assign them in the first week so owners have time to gather evidence.

4. Draft From Approved, Dated Content

Start from your current approved answers for the firm, the strategy, and the vehicle. Check each as-of date against the one the issuer asked for, then tailor the answer to the issuer’s portfolio, rules, and priorities. The most common slip is pasting last year’s answer with last year’s AUM.

5. Review Performance, Fees, and Compliance Wording

Performance and compliance answers carry the most risk. Every return needs its period, fee basis, and benchmark, every figure has to match the firm’s Form ADV and other filings, and marketing language needs compliance sign-off. Book this review before final assembly, not on the due date.

6. Assemble and Submit

Gather every attachment in the required format, check the page count after converting to PDF, add any signed forms, and submit at least a day early. Late proposals are often refused outright. Keep a record of what you sent, because the DDQ will ask for much of it again.

7. Prepare for Finals and the DDQ

Finalist interviews test the team behind the written answers, so the portfolio manager and the people who will run the account should present. Due diligence usually follows. Hedge fund mandates often add an operational review, and the guide to hedge fund operational due diligence explains what it checks. Many hedge fund investors base their questionnaire on a standard template such as the AIMA DDQ. If your firm is not selected, ask whether the issuer offers a debrief.

How Long Does an Asset Management RFP Take?

The issuer sets the calendar in the RFP. The response window is usually a matter of weeks, and the whole search takes months.

A search the issuer runs itself usually follows this order:

1. The issuer releases the RFP.
2. Written questions close, and the issuer shares its answers with every bidder.
3. Proposals are due.
4. The issuer scores the proposals and interviews finalists.
5. The board or committee selects a manager.
6. Contracting and due diligence follow, then the mandate starts.

In three small public searches (the CCSU Foundation in 2025, the Philadelphia City Fund in 2026, and the City of Healdsburg in 2022), managers had between under three weeks and seven weeks to respond. Consultant-led searches add a database screen and a questionnaire before the RFP.

Inside the response window, the slow parts are performance sign-off, compliance review, and attachments held by other teams. Start those on day one.

The Team Behind an Asset Management RFP Response

An asset management RFP draws on most of the firm, so one owner runs the calendar and the rules while specialists answer the sections only they can answer.

The owner is usually an RFP or proposal manager, sometimes titled RFP writer or RFP analyst. For the role itself, see what an RFP writer does.

In-House Team, Outsourced Support, or Software?

Asset managers cover RFP work in three ways, and many firms combine them.

An in-house team holds the firm’s knowledge and knows every owner. Its capacity is fixed, so a cluster of deadlines stretches it.

Outsourced RFP support adds writing capacity. The writers still depend on the firm’s approved facts and its compliance review, and the firm stays accountable for every answer.

Response software drafts from the firm’s approved content, and the owners still review and approve each answer before it goes out.

Before choosing a tool, see how RFP and DDQ tools for asset managers compare.

RFP vs RFI vs DDQ vs Consultant Database Profile

An asset manager answers four related documents in one search cycle, and each asks for overlapping facts at a different moment and depth.

In consultant-led searches, consultant databases are usually the first screen. A consultant filters managers on the data they have submitted before any manager receives an RFP.

The RFP and the DDQ are often confused. For the full definition, see how a DDQ differs from an RFP.

Keeping RFP and DDQ Answers Consistent Across Funds

Asset managers keep answers consistent by keeping one approved, dated set of firm, strategy, and fund facts and drafting every RFP, consultant questionnaire, database profile, and DDQ from it.

The fact set holds the figures and wording that recur in every document. That means firm AUM and client counts with their as-of dates, team bios and tenure, and the approved wording for philosophy and process.

It also means performance by composite or representative account, with its fee basis and benchmark, plus fee schedules, policies such as the code of ethics and conflicts policy, and regulatory history that matches the Form ADV.

Firm-wide facts live in one place. Facts that differ by fund, strategy, or vehicle get their own variant, each with an owner and a review date, so each vehicle’s answer uses that vehicle’s figures.

Keep the issuer’s as-of date apart from your latest quarter, and label every figure with its date. AUM can change between the RFP and the DDQ, and a dated figure lets the issuer see an update where an undated one looks like a contradiction.

Write every answer as if it could be published. Public issuers often treat responses as public records once the mandate is awarded, and some ask for a redacted copy of anything you mark as proprietary.

AutoRFP.ai keeps asset management RFP and DDQ answers consistent by drafting each one only from content your team has approved and showing the source behind it, so a reviewer can check any figure against the document it came from.

AutoRFP.ai gives every RFP and DDQ draft a Trust Score for how strongly its sources support it, so reviewers start with the weakest answers, and it flags any question your approved content cannot support for a person on the team to answer.

AutoRFP.ai also tracks past responses and flags inconsistencies, so a consultant and an investor hear the same answer about the same fund, and its fund-specific and firm-wide approval layers mean each fund’s answers are signed off by the people who own that fund’s facts.

Investment firms such as Partners Group and HEPTAGON Capital use AutoRFP.ai for DDQs, and our page on DDQ response software for investment firms shows how AutoRFP.ai answers investor due diligence from approved content, with every answer citing its sources.

Why Responses Get Marked Down or Rejected

An asset management RFP response gets rejected when it breaks a rule the issuer printed in the document, and it loses points when it misses the question or its numbers disagree.

• Late, or in the wrong format. Public issuers often refuse late proposals, and some return any that miss their format rules. The City of Healdsburg’s 2022 RFP capped proposals at 10 pages.
• A missing item or attachment. Build the response from the issuer’s own numbering, not from last year’s proposal.
• Contact outside the official channel. During the quiet period, every question goes to the named RFP contact in writing. The CCSU Foundation’s 2025 RFP warned that any other contact “may result in disqualification”.
• Performance on the wrong date or basis. Pull returns for the issuer’s date and fee basis, and label both.
• Figures that disagree. AUM in the overview, the strategy section, and the DDQ from different quarters make reviewers doubt every other number.
• Answers that miss the criterion. A strong answer to the wrong question scores nothing. Check each answer against the criterion it is meant to earn.

Where to Start Before the Next Asset Management RFP Arrives

The best time to prepare an asset management RFP response is before the RFP arrives, by putting the facts, the attachments, and the approvals in order once.

Each item on the checklist below answers a question or attachment request that comes up again and again in asset management RFPs, and each needs an owner and a review date.

After selection, the next document is usually a DDQ, and the same fact set carries straight into it. For what to check before you send one, work through our DDQ response checklist.