Imagine this: You’re up against a tight deadline, your team is stretched thin, and the pressure of crafting the perfect grant proposal feels overwhelming. Enter AI – a powerful tool that can help you organize your thoughts, communicate your mission, and craft a winning grant proposal.
If you’re like most nonprofit professionals, you may be skeptical. Can AI truly help write better grant proposals faster and meet funders’ expectations?
The answer is yes! AI is actually incredibly helpful for framing your thoughts, bringing fresh perspectives to your proposals, and improving your success rate when used effectively and in line with your strategic plan. Not to mention, you can save hours of time, which can be spent focusing on your programs and community outreach instead.
Let’s explore how AI can be a valuable ally for grant writing.
Why should nonprofits use AI to help write grant proposals?
When competing for funding on limited resources, efficiency is key. Writing grant proposals can be time-consuming, but it’s a task that requires careful attention. AI can make the process faster, smoother, and even more effective.
Here’s why leveraging AI is a smart strategy:
- Efficiency and speed: AI reduces time spent on routine tasks like researching, drafting, and formatting. Instead of spending hours on preliminary work, your team can focus on strategy, creative input, and refining the proposal’s narrative.
- Research: Grant writing requires thorough research to understand the funder’s priorities and find relevant data to support your claims. AI can help you gather this information more efficiently, reducing the effort needed to dig through documents.
- Brainstorming ideas: If you’re stuck on how to approach a section, AI can help you overcome writer’s block. It can help you brainstorm ideas for what to cover and suggest structures, helping you think outside the box.
- Refining language: AI can polish your proposals by quickly checking for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. It can also make your writing clear, helping you communicate your mission, goals, and impact persuasively.
Still, you might wonder if AI is safe for activities like grant writing and whether it can truly understand your mission. It’s natural to have concerns about nonprofit data privacy or whether AI will capture the true essence of your nonprofit. However, using the right tools strategically can enhance your proposals without compromising your nonprofit’s privacy or unique voice.
Essential Reminder: AI is a tool, not a replacement.
FreeWill’s AI grant writing guide explains, “Even the best generative AI isn’t perfect…It’s an efficiency partner to collaborate with and help speed up rote tasks, not a replacement for human thought and judgment.”
Grant proposals require understanding the funder’s priorities and your nonprofit’s unique voice and impact. While AI can brainstorm ideas and clean up your language, the heart and soul of your proposals will always come from your team’s deep understanding of your mission, goals, and community.
Instead of solely relying on AI to generate your proposals, use it as a supplementary tool. Let AI assist with tasks like idea generation, organizing information, and refining language. Meanwhile, you can focus on crafting a personalized narrative that will resonate with funders.
How do you begin using AI for grant writing?
AI can be used to support various stages of grant writing. To maximize its impact, you first need to understand the types of AI available and how they cater to different parts of the process. For instance, two common types are:
- Purpose-built AI platforms: These tools are specifically designed for grant writing. They are trained on nonprofit-specific information and programmed to complete specific tasks related to grant writing, such as researching funder requirements, drafting, editing, and structuring proposals.
- All-purpose generative AI: Popular generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini can streamline parts of the grant writing process. While not tailored to nonprofit grant writing or even nonprofits in general, these platforms can help brainstorm ideas, suggest structures, and refine language.
Your best bet is to use purpose-built, nonprofit-specific platforms. You’ll ultimately save time by not having to rework and contextualize every little detail since purpose-built platforms are trained on nonprofit-specific data from the start.
AI use cases in grant writing
After selecting an AI tool, collaborate with your team to identify how it can elevate the quality and efficiency of your proposals. Beyond writing, AI can also support other aspects of grant-seeking.
Some effective ways your nonprofit can use AI throughout the grant writing lifecycle include:
- Research grantmakers and analyze their giving patterns, such as the causes supported by corporate grantmakers through CSR initiatives
- Draft simple, clear language about your nonprofit’s history and mission
- Summarize documents and create structured outlines
- Draft longer sections of your proposals based on input notes and supporting materials
- Create visuals to present your data
- Arrange your proposal content into a clear, cohesive structure
- Analyze both external and internal data, such as patterns in funding priorities, donor behavior, and the interests of major donors, to uncover trends and insights
While AI can streamline different parts of the grant lifecycle, your nonprofit should assess whether its investment in these tools will deliver a meaningful return in efficiency and impact.
What should nonprofits keep in mind when using AI to write grant proposals?
While AI offers significant benefits for grant writing, it poses some risks, particularly when handling sensitive data and ensuring accuracy. Here are some common risks to know:
- Security concerns: Avoid inputting sensitive data in a large language model (LLM) system like ChatGPT. These solutions are trained on massive sets of public data and user interactions, meaning they use the information you input to improve responses. For example, if you’re entering sensitive details about your nonprofit’s financials, donors, or internal strategies, you should avoid using general AI platforms that store and process this data. Instead, choose purpose-built tools that prioritize security and privacy.
- Accuracy: Generative AI tools can be prone to errors. These systems are programmed to generate helpful responses, often causing them to “make up” information. Since grant proposals require precise and accurate details, relying on AI without human oversight is risky.
To help nonprofits navigate these challenges, DonorSearch’s generative AI fundraising guide outlines a Responsible AI Framework for nonprofits, addressing critical factors like security, data ethics, inclusiveness, and legal compliance. These principles provide additional guidance for using AI ethically and effectively.
Purpose-built AI tools are often safer and more reliable than popular tools like ChatGPT for grant writing. These specialized platforms are designed for the nonprofit sector, often with additional layers of security and data privacy protection. They also tend to be more accurate since they’re trained in the nuances of grant writing.
All generative AI tools pose some level of risk, but purpose-built solutions are more reliable and secure.
How to build an effective AI workflow for grants
To mitigate risks and make the most of AI, establish clear workflows and guidelines for your team. For instance, set rules for data privacy, define best practices for using AI tools, and outline when and how to review AI-generated content.
Beyond creating policies, follow these best practices:
- Start with grant writing, not management. Focus on using AI for grant writing tasks first—like drafting, brainstorming, and refining language. Once you’re comfortable with that, expand to other simple tasks of grant management, such as tracking deadlines, managing funder communications, and reporting progress.
- Master prompt engineering. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of your AI tools so you know when to rely on them or intervene. Experiment with different prompts. Then, teach your team to craft specific, clear prompts for better responses.
- Add an extra layer of quality control. While AI is a great assistant, you should always double-check the writing’s accuracy, tone, and alignment with your nonprofit’s mission. Consider adding an extra step for peer review to ensure high-quality work.
By understanding your AI tools and balancing their outputs with human input, you can turn AI into a powerful asset for both your proposals and overall grant management. Ultimately, you’ll save time and create more compelling proposals while maintaining the human touch that makes your nonprofit’s mission stand out.
AI has the potential to revolutionize your nonprofit’s approach to grant writing, from researching funders to drafting content. Remember that AI is here to enhance, not replace, the invaluable human insight that powers your work. By balancing AI’s capabilities with your human expertise, you can strengthen your grant writing and secure more funding.