Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the grant writing world, but maybe not how you imagine. 

Sure you could go to ChatGPT, put in a Request for Proposal and ask it to produce a grant proposal. But that grant would not get funded. Why? Before AI can produce a quality grant proposal, you need to provide it with your own original content.  Today’s AI models need that original content to use, edit, and respond to. In other words, AI grant writing still requires work! 

In other words, the nonprofit sector still needs grant writers. However, AI tools can make grant writing easier and more efficient.

Through my Freelance Grant Writer Academy, I’ve trained thousands of grant writers, helping them build thriving grant writing businesses. It also gives me a unique insight into how grant writers are really using tools like AI. Let’s take a look at what’s working with grant writing and AI (and what isn’t).

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Use AI to Check Spelling and Grammar When Writing Grants

The most basic use of AI is to run  spell checks and grammar checks on grant proposals. Let’s call this “Grant Writing AI 101.”

You can use simple AI like Grammarly, Word,  or even ChatGPT to check on basic spelling and grammar errors.

Grammarly is effective if you have the software already and can use this for any part of your business (such as emails, notes, etc.). This is a paid subscription, but will automatically underline any grammatical or spelling errors.

Word has an integrated spell-check and grammar check inside of it. You can review spelling and grammar if you use Word Documents or Google Drive and Word. 

For many folks inside our Academy that utilize our Master Grant Template, they use the basic functions of Word Doc as that is the template we provide. 

ChatGPT is effective for giving you alternatives for grammar and spelling. You can literally just upload it into an AI tool (like ChatGPT) and ask it to run a spelling and grammar check. It will then give you a bunch of recommendations. Do note that ChatGPT is open-sourced, though, so your client’s information may not be entirely secure.

Always run your grants through a spelling or grammar check before submitting them! 

Inside the Freelance Grant Writer Academy, we conduct Done-4-You unlimited grant reviews, and me and the co-coaches always find a ton of spelling and grammatical errors. This is an easy fix to score more points. 

Because…first impressions matter. When grant reviewers start reviewing your grant, what instantly pops out are spelling and grammatical errors. They will automatically score you lower because the work isn’t professional. Let’s face it, grant reviewers can be snobs. I can say this because I’ve been a grant reviewer for years and have even caught myself being judgy. 

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Use AI to Help Write Your Grant Proposal

Using AI for grant writing is all the rage these days, but you need to make sure you first develop a Master Grant Application to utilize AI effectively.  You can first develop a Master Grant Application and then use AI to leverage that Master Grant Application to write future grants fast.

Using a Master Grant Application with AI

If you have written a Master Grant Application (like those in the Freelance Grant Writer Academy) or a number of grant applications for the same project area, then this makes AI come alive with the right information. 

A Master Grant Application Template is something we highly recommend ALL grant writers write for their clients or their organizations. 

What is a Master Grant Application Template? 

It highlights one to three priority areas for the organization for the year, and based on those priorities it includes the following:

• Abstract
• About the Organization
• Needs Section
• Goals, Objectives, Outcomes, Outputs
• Action Workplan 
• Challenges, Contingencies, Sustainability Plan
• Financial Capabilities 
• About the Board
• Staffing Structure
• Project Narrative
• Logic Model
• Data Management Plan
• Job Descriptions, Resumes
• MOUs, LOIs, LOCs
• Budget
• Budget Narrative

As you can, the Master Grant Application Template is very robust. This will ensure that you are developing, or defining, specific programs and understand what gaps there are, and how to meet those gaps with a plan and a budget.

When you have all this information (this usually turns out to be around 10 – 15 pages), you have a lot of important and relevant information to then leverage AI.

When folks inside the Academy have learned how to create this Master Grant Application, they say that it is the most valuable asset to help their clients stay on track and to find the most aligned funding.

Plus, if they are using AI, they now have copy that is relevant. 

Once they find a grant application (directions), they can put those questions in AI and then drop the Master Grant Application Template in AI and ask AI to pull from it to answer the grant questions.

They still review this and make sure that the answers are accurate and don’t sound scripted, but it helps them save tons of time.

But always, always, always review this thoroughly. 

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Using Specific Grant Writing AI Software

There are specific grant writing AI software now, such as Grantable. We’ve worked with Phil Deng, the founder of Grantable, as he is a former grant writer and knows that to utilize the software efficiently, it is best to create a Master Grant Application Template. 

When you create a project, as a human first, then the grant writing AI software is more efficient and relevant when using your copy. Plus, it won’t read as much as AI (believe me, grant reviewers can tell if a grant application was generated from AI vs. a human). 

Grantable has a free tier all the way up to more robust at paying tiers. 

There are other grant writing AI software platforms always developing that include:

• Grant Assistant
• Grant Orb
• GrantBoost

These are constantly evolving and newer grant writing AI software showing up.

We also see seasoned places like Grant Easy Management Software and Instrumentl adding new grant writing AI to their platforms where they offer other services. 

Training Up AI Tools Like ChatGPT for Grant Writing

Some folks are just training their ChatGPT with utilizing Master Grant Templates and grant instructions (NOFO, NOFA, RFPs). 

For example, they will just add their Master Grant Template into ChatGPT and then add in the grant application and ask ChatGPT to utilize the Master Grant Template to answer the questions from the application.  

This won’t be as nuanced or easy to use for multiple clients or grants compared to specific grant writing AI software, but it could be an alternative if you only are working on a small grant for one client.

However, do note that most of the above grant writing specific AI Software also has free plans for limited grant writing and would be more efficient.

Another reason for you to consider utilizing specific grant writing AI software vs. ChatGPT is that most specific software is not open AI, which means there is more privacy.

This is important when you are working on grant applications and have private information about nonprofit organizations or other organizations. We have budgets, plans, and so much more that need discretion.

Additionally, in the new world landscape of 2025, grant writers may want additional privacy for the cause areas of nonprofits and organizations they work with that conflict with the 2025 Federal Executive Orders. 

We do recommend that if you utilize ChatGPT for grant writing, you (at the very least) create a private ChatGPT that will offer more privacy. 

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Do NOT Use AI for Grant Research and Citations

As of early 2025, AI is still terrible at citing research for grant proposals. It will give you beautiful citations if you ask for research, but the sources AI generates are usually fake. 

I cannot emphasize this enough. Citing imaginary research in your grant proposal can easily get even a great grant disqualified. With AI, you need to check all reference sources and URLs it provides to see if they even exist or if there is actually research on the pages it references.

Unfortunately, you still need to do your own research to find the citations, sources, and references that you need in grant applications. 

DO use AI for organizing your own grant research citations

Despite this major gap in AI functionality today, you can still use AI to help you organize the citations from your own research. 

For example, if you found articles, blogs, YouTube videos, articles, and more online and have all the URLs, you can easily drop these URLs into ChatGPT.  

Ask ChatGPT to provide APA or MLA citations from each source and create a Works Cited page.   If you have a bunch of sources, AI can be helpful in putting those together in a pretty bibliography or Works Cited document. 

Just make sure you tell it to do MLA or APA style. 

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Use AI for Replacing Banned Words in Grant Proposals

With the Trump Administration in 2025, we are seeing a radical shift in what words will trigger scrutiny in government grant applications. 

You can use ChatGPT to run your grant applications through a review and have it cross-reference banned words and switch them out with other more ‘acceptable’ words.

For example, if you are writing a grant on an environmental program, and you have been used to using the term ‘environmental justice,’ that may now be a flagged term in certain federal grants. 

So you could upload your grant and then upload the grant instructions and ask it to replace the words ‘environmental justice’ with a synonym phrase from the grant instructions. 

Or you could simply upload the grant instructions and ask ChatGPT to find the most similar terms to ‘environmental justice’ and then use that term for your grant application. 

Once again, make sure it makes sense and that the grant will still fund the essence of environmental justice programs.

We have a free workbook on what these banned words are and alternative words. 

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Use AI to Run an Audit on Your Grant

AI can be a fantastic grant writing partner to ensure your proposal follows all guidelines to the letter. You would be surprised how many grants get turned down simply because the writer does not follow guidelines! 

Using AI to audit your grant is simple. Once you have written your grant proposal, you can run it through ChatGPT and then put in the Grant Instructions (i.e., Funding Opportunity Announcement or Request for Proposal) and ask the following questions (prompts):

1. Is there anything that is ineligible in my grant application?
2. Have I thoroughly answered all the questions?

If your grant instructions have a criteria area (this is where they tell you all the specific questions and how many points per section), be sure to also run this criteria, along with your application, through AI and ask:

1. Have I given specific examples for each of these questions?

AI can help you catch any issues you may have missed in your own review. And yes, you should absolutely do your own review before consulting AI. You still need to, as a human, read the grant instructions and ensure you adhere to the instructions, align your program to the priorities, and have all required attachments. riorities, and have all required attachments. 

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Do NOT Use AI to Teach You Grant Writing

Grant writing is a practiced skill. ChatGPT will absolutely give ‘directions’ on how to write a grant, but it won’t give you the real-world experience or practice in thinking through a grant.

This is why grant writers are not losing their jobs during the AI era. In fact, the ones that are learning how to leverage AI are able to write MORE grants. 

But if you only rely on learning grant writing from AI and not from humans, what happens is you probably won’t really learn.

Follow me here. If you put in “teach me grant writing” in ChatGPT, it will give you directions. And then it will also follow up and ask if you want templates, etc.

What happens here is you will start just grabbing templates and using them, instead of really going through the process of learning grant writing.

I wrote a grant writing book, so I definitely know you can learn from written instructions on how to write grants. BUT my book is also a workbook. My mantra is always, “To get better at grant writing, write grants.”

You need to understand grant writing, and to also write grants from the ground up to really understand how to write them. There are nuances to grant instructions, and it is important to have the experience of writing a grant and understanding the methodology of it.

We even see this with AI in schools where if teachers just say, “Write a paper on Shakespeare” many students just spit this inside ChatGPT without really learning anything. 

So if you really want to learn how to write a grant, it is important for you to write grants, and not just rely on AI. 

Once you develop a full Master Grant Application Template, then you can absolutely leverage AI as you have human-based writing and research. 

That is why we first teach students in the Freelance Grant Writer Academy to learn our Master Grant Application Template (and do this as a deliverable for their clients) before they use AI to write grants. 

Additionally, we offer real, customized feedback on grants our students write. They can easily submit these for review and our coaches provide loom video recordings with verbal feedback on how to improve grants. And you better believe that we can tell when a grant application was 100 percent developed by AI and tell you it won’t score well.

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AI and Grant Writing: A Support, Not a Replacement

Think of AI in your grant writing as a support, not necessarily a team member. It’s more of an editor at this point than a writer, even though one of its jobs is to write. 

In the future, I am sure that AI will become more sophisticated with grant writing and research, but a human still needs to understand how to design effective programs and how they meet needs in real life. 

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Links Mentioned

Freelance Grant Writer Academy

Why AI Won’t Take Your Grant Writing Job

Using Chat GPT and AI for Grant Writing with Philip Deng

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