As a grant writer, you know that crafting a compelling proposal is crucial to securing funding for the projects and organizations you believe in. It's a process that can be time-consuming and challenging, especially when you need to condense complex information into digestible responses. In this blog post, I'll cover my top three questions or prompts that grant writers can use to make their writing process more efficient and effective.

1. Rewriting Responses to Fit Character Limits

All grant writers know that character limits can be a… constraint when we’re trying to convey essential information in a grant proposal. One way to leverage ChatGPT and other AI tools is by asking them to help you rewrite a response to fit within a specified character limit, like this:

“Please help me rewrite the following response to the question ‘[INSERT QUESTION]’ in 1,000 characters or less: ‘[RESPONSE].’”

By providing the AI with the original response and desired character limit, it can generate a streamlined version that still answers the question while adhering to the constraints. This can save you time and effort, and it ensures that your proposal remains concise and impactful. Alternatively, you can ask ChatGPT to reduce your character count by a certain number (including spaces, of course).

2. Identifying Redundancies and Unnecessary Information

Another challenge in grant writing is self-editing – when we’re up close to the information, determining which parts of a response are essential to answer a question can be challenging. AI tools like ChatGPT can help by identifying redundancies and unnecessary information, allowing you to focus on the most critical aspects of your proposal. To utilize this feature, try asking:

“Please tell me which parts of this response could be removed while still answering the question, ‘[QUESTION]:’ ‘[YOUR RESPONSE].’”

The AI will analyze your response and suggest which sections can be omitted or rephrased, allowing you to present a more coherent and efficient answer to the question.

3. Calculating and Analyzing Data

A compelling case for support usually requires grant writers to aggregate or disaggregate large amounts of data to demonstrate the impact of the program at hand. Instead of spending hours crunching numbers and getting lost in Excel spreadsheets, let ChatGPT do the heavy lifting for you. Just provide the AI with the necessary data and calculations by asking:

“Please help me calculate [ANY MATH YOU EVER NEED TO AGGREGATE OR DISAGGREGATE DATA. EVER.].”

With this prompt, ChatGPT can provide you with accurate calculations and analysis for various data sets, helping you present a compelling case for your project's impact and effectiveness.

Embracing AI in Grant Writing

Grant writers may initially feel hesitant about incorporating AI tools like ChatGPT into their workflow, fearing that it could lead to a loss of control or diminish the human touch in their proposals, but these tools have the potential to revolutionize the grant writing process by saving time, effort, and resources for consultants and staff grant writers alike. By addressing character constraints, identifying redundancies, and analyzing data, ChatGPT allows you to focus on the most important aspects of your proposal.

AI is meant to assist, not replace, human expertise. By automating repetitive tasks, condensing information, and performing complex calculations, ChatGPT helps grant writers save time and energy that can be refocused on strategic thinking, storytelling, and relationship-building – aspects where human creativity and empathy truly shine. AI tools like ChatGPT have the potential to help grant writers enhance their proposals while retaining their unique voices and ensuring that the mission and values of their organization are effectively communicated. With the right balance of human insight and AI capabilities, you can create a powerful grant proposal that stands out from the competition in less time (if not effort).