To secure revenue for your mission, your nonprofit needs to modernize its approach by adopting new technologies, organizing internal information, and deepening its funder networks. Let’s explore how these three focused strategies will help your development team submit stronger proposals in less time and build a healthier financial base.

1. Collaborate with purpose-built AI to win more grants

Chances are, you’re constantly battling the clock. Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way nonprofits like yours operate, helping busy teams accomplish more with limited resources. By using AI platforms designed specifically for grantseeking, you can reduce the hours lost to manual prospecting and drafting.

To successfully integrate these tools, think about which repetitive workflows are slowing you down. Then, make a plan to use AI as a collaborative assistant rather than a replacement for your nonprofit’s unique and authentic perspective. Let's explore two specific AI use cases for grant management.

Use AI to find and prioritize funding opportunities

Targeting the right foundations requires deep research, and AI can streamline the heavy lifting. Intelligent grant research tools can cross-reference your organization's mission with historical giving data to dig up the most aligned funding opportunities. FreeWill’s guide to nonprofit grant databases explains that modern platforms allow you to automate your initial research by filtering out irrelevant leads and flagging high-probability grants. Some solutions will even assign a score to indicate the strongest open opportunities.

Data-driven matching helps your development team stop wasting time on misaligned applications. For example, a food bank can use AI filters to immediately exclude foundations focused solely on the arts. Instead, they can uncover funders with a verified history of supporting food insecurity initiatives.

Draft applications efficiently with AI

You can use generative AI to accelerate the writing process by strategically feeding it your historical data. AI can organize past successful grant narratives into functional templates for future applications, ensuring that a consistent tone is maintained across all your submissions.

Additionally, prompting AI to break down complex program results into clear, concise statements saves hours during the drafting phase. You can even instruct the assistant to adhere to strict character limits, so your answers don’t exceed the limits of each funder's application system.

Beyond the initial draft, you can feed your AI assistant the foundation's stated evaluation criteria alongside your completed draft to receive a preliminary compliance score. This automated review process acts as an immediate sounding board, checking that you address every requirement before hitting "submit."

For the safest and most effective results, prioritize a purpose-built platform over generic large language models like ChatGPT or Claude. As DNL OmniMedia’s AI fundraising guide emphasizes, any artificial intelligence tool you adopt must comply with strict data protection regulations. Drafting grant applications requires you to input sensitive donor histories and internal organizational financial metrics. A specialized platform designed for grant writing makes sure that proprietary information remains completely secure and is never used to train public models.

2. Centralize and repurpose institutional data

Siloed information can hinder grant success, particularly when program outcomes and financial metrics reside in separate departmental systems. Breaking down internal barriers allows your development team to write strategic, data-backed proposals without constantly hunting down the latest figures.

Improve your team's efficiency by structuring your internal data with these strategies:

• Address siloed information. Audit where program and financial metrics currently live across different departments and software platforms, making it easy to locate.
• Compile a central library. Organize existing institutional data into a central online library, allowing your team to easily pull and leverage foundational content. It's also critical that this data be kept up-to-date, so make sure someone on your team is assigned the task of stewarding this library.
• Repurpose metrics for consistency. Reusing well-crafted narratives and up-to-date metrics across multiple applications breeds consistency and reduces turnaround time, especially when you use clear tags to distinguish between restricted and unrestricted funding histories.

Periodically schedule cross-departmental alignment meetings to review and update this centralized data repository. Having program directors and finance leads validate the numbers quarterly guarantees that your grant writers never submit outdated or contradictory information to prospective funders.

3. Build relationships with funders

While strong writing and organized data capture a reviewer's attention, the interpersonal elements of grantseeking ultimately close the deal. Transitioning from a transactional mindset to a relational approach sets your organization apart.

Try these five tips to cultivate strong funder relationships:

• Prioritize the interpersonal element. Shift focus from the purely technical aspects of grant writing to actively networking with funding partners.
• Initiate early conversations. Reach out to foundation program officers before applying to gain a clearer understanding of their philanthropic priorities.
• Communicate challenges transparently. Share program challenges and budgetary needs openly to foster trust and position your nonprofit as an honest partner.
• Demonstrate long-term sustainability. Grantors want to fund programs that will outlast their initial investment. Discuss how your organization plans to sustain impact after the grant period ends or build capacity to better serve its mission, demonstrating that you’re a forward-thinking partner.
• Stay on top of reporting. Promptly demonstrating impact leads to positive relationships. Meet reporting deadlines and show funders exactly how you spend their grant money.

Track every interaction with grantors directly in your nonprofit’s grant management software to build a comprehensive history of the relationship over time. Documenting preferences, conversations, and specific feedback helps institutional memory remains intact even if your primary grant writer leaves the organization.

Essentially, winning more grants requires your development team to modernize its processes and focus on relationship-building. Don’t wait for the next major deadline to overhaul your grant workflows. Start auditing your current approach today to identify exactly where automation and centralization can provide immediate relief.

About the Author: Patrick Schmitt, Co-CEO of FreeWill

Patrick Schmitt and co-CEO Jenny Xia founded FreeWill at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 2016. FreeWill’s charitable giving platform makes it easier for nonprofit fundraising teams to unlock transformational gifts, and to date has generated more than $6.6 billion in new gift commitments for thousands of nonprofit organizations. Patrick hosts FreeWill’s popular webinar series, educating thousands of nonprofit fundraising professionals each month about planned and non-cash giving strategies.

Before FreeWill, Patrick was the Head of Innovation at Change.org, where he helped grow the organization to 100 million users in four years. Prior to that, he ran email marketing for President Obama and served as Campaign Director for MoveOn.org.