Using AI as a grant writer can accelerate your grant writing process. While AI tools won't replace the entire grants process (we know grants are so much more than just the writing part!) they can be helpful for brainstorming, editing, and polishing your proposals.

Here are some practical ways to use AI and our 4 best tips for using AI as a grant writer. Let's make an AI tool work to your advantage!

It can help edit your intro, create an executive summary, create your grant cover letter based on your proposal, improve your program description, or even write social media posts to attract grant writing clients.

- Give it prompts and instructions in smaller chunks

I've found it's best to give it 2-3 instructions at a time, let it process and respond, then give it the next set of instructions. This allows to focus on the grant task at hand rather than getting jumbled up with too much information.

Here's an example you would use if you're trying to find foundations that fund a specific cause.

Example Prompts

1. Provide me the top 3 foundations that fund animal welfare in Illinois and their website link

2. Now, provide the grant guidelines for #1 and #2 in your list

3. Provide the main contact information and email of those 3 foundations

In this case, you're able to get the main information you're seeking finding foundations in Illinois that fund animal welfare, then you're able to choose from the list of foundations that look like the best fit for your organization.

Once you've found that, you're able to get exactly what you need, which includes grant guidelines and contact information. You can then save the Funder contact information and grant guidelines details in Grant Frog to always have on hand.

While you can give it 10 different instructions at once, you may not always get a helpful response. When you give it instructions in smaller blocks, it helps provide better responses to your prompts and allows you to guide the conversation.

- Give it a persona, like a specific job title, years of experience, and background information to help guide it

Tell it to respond like a specific persona would, like a job title or years of experience.

Example - “You’re a senior grant writer who’s been working for a nonprofit for 20 years and have received over $10 million in grant funds.”

Example - "You're a former foundation program officer who has reviewed thousands of proposals."

This gives it significant context and allows it to approach its response with more validity and understanding.

- Use follow-up responses so it responds with more substantial information

Once you've received a response, have it dig deeper into the "why" and "how". Ask it to provide deeper insight into what it's telling you.

Here are some useful follow up responses you can use:

• I’ll need more detailed information on that
• Based on that information, what about "this piece of information"?
• Here’s some background information
• You’re a "job title" (senior grant writer, CEO of a nonprofit, expert in grant administration)
• Try that again
• Provide 5 more examples
• Make the answer more practical, professional, personable, etc.
• Provide different answers, but this time without this information
• You missed "this piece of information"
• Provide links to validate this
• What's your reason for responding this way?
• Please be more precise in your explanation
• Please shorten this response
• Please expand on your answer
• Make this sound less like AI

Using these typically helps further guide your conversation and get information that's super useful.

- Advanced tips for using AI in grant writing

• Save your successful AI prompts

Keep a list of prompts that have give you great responses. Create a document of prompts that have generated helpful responses. You can create a Task inside of Grant Frog to store your AI prompts.

• Fact-Check any statistics

Use AI as a brainstorming tool, but verify all specific claims and statistics. AI does 'hallucinate' sometimes and doesn't always provide accurate information. You want to verify its claim either by asking it something like, "Is this factual information?", or a secondary source, such as an official data report.

• Use it to enhance your work

Use AI to enhance, not replace, the organization's unique perspective and mission and your grants process. Grants management is an entire process comprised of foundation research, communication with funders, communication with program staff, writing the grant proposal, gathering accurate documentation, grant reporting follow-up, and so much more. AI is a tool to complement your expertise.

• Use the Free Grant Writing Tools by Grant Frog

We have multiple generators that can help you as a grant writer. You can try our Grant Title Generator, Executive Summary Generator, Days Until Grant Due Generator, Grant Cover Letter Generator, and more.

• Join our AI for Grant Writers community forum to find more AI Use-Cases

Get ideas for AI prompts you can use to help you with grant writing in our community forum. We regularly post helpful ways to use AI in the grants process.

Integrating AI with your Grants Management System

While AI can enhance your writing process, combining it with a grants management system like Grant Frog ensures you stay on top of deadlines and your grants process is organized. Grant Frog helps you track grant proposal deadlines and details, your clients' grant proposals, funders, and tasks to manage the entire grant lifecycle in one place.

This powerful combination means you can:

• Manage grant deadlines and requirements
• Track funding opportunities by saving Funders
• Monitor your grant application status
• Follow up on grant reporting
• Organize funder relationships
• Manage your clients' grant proposals

This is a great start to ensure you're getting the most out of your AI requests for grant writing.

3 Favorite AI Tools

There are many AI and LLMs (Large Language Models) available today. I've found a few that are my favorite for grant writing.

Claude AI

Claude AI is my favorite AI tool for writing. It seems to sound the most personable and less AI- generated. Use it to generate summaries of your grant proposal, enhance program overviews, write reports to the CEO, improve your conclusions, and more. You can always guide it to sound similar to the tone of voice you need by with your initial instructions or the follow-up questions above.

Link

Perplexity AI

Perplexity is my top choice if you're researching information or looking for data and statistics. It scans the web, then generates summaries and bulleted lists of information, along with a link to the source, which is so helpful. It also displays Related questions you might ask and images and graphics related to your prompt. As a general rule of thumb, you still need to always verify the source.

Link

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is the OG of modern AI tools in recent years. This may have been the first tool you tried when it debuted in 2022. It's still great and has only improved with time. It's useful for summarizing information and or writing outlines and reports, whether that's for your proposal, your yearly grants plan, your client's grant schedule, or your consulting business.

Link

Other AI Tools

Copilot - Microsoft's signature AI tool with deep integration in Microsoft 365 and apps like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. (there's also an coding AI tool called Github Copilot)

Gemini - Google's AI tool that's built into the Google Drive suite like Gmail, Docs, and more.

Dall-E - Image generator AI - great for making quick images for social media or basic info. Don't expect it to be an amazing graphic designer that will do exactly what you want though.

Consensus - Search research papers for data and statistics

AI for Grant Writing

AI is a tool to enhance your grant writing process, not replace your expertise or unique organizational voice. By breaking down your requests into manageable chunks, providing clear context, and asking thoughtful follow-up questions, you can make AI your grant writing assistant.

Start with small sections of your proposal - maybe an executive summary or program description - and see what helps your writing flow better. At the end of the day, grants are about connecting your organization's work to funders who share your mission.