Write grant applications for charities, with AI as the drafting engine
UK funders publish who they gave money to, how much and when, as free open data. Feed in the charity numbers of a few groups like your client and a script tells you exactly who funds that kind of work. Then build an evidence bank, let AI draft only from it, and charge a fair day rate for applications assessors enjoy reading.
- Fee models that keep you trusted: day rate, retainer and a research report, with the maths and an engagement letter outline
- Outreach that leads with value: a free one-page funder note, a CVS talk and a proposal email
- Python 3.9 or newer, nothing else to install. New to the terminal? Terminal survival kit
- Any AI chat. For client documents with personal details, a local one keeps them on your PC: Your own private ChatGPT
- Clear, warm writing, and the patience to chase clients for evidence
- Optional: Turn any file into text your AI can read for long funder guidance PDFs
Why small charities pay for grant writing
See where the money and the gaps are, and what a good writer actually adds.
Thousands of small charities, community groups and social enterprises run on grants, and most have nobody whose job is to win them. The chair writes applications at 11pm after a day job. They apply to the same three famous funders everyone else applies to, miss local trusts they've never heard of, and send the same text to every funder. A freelancer who finds the right funders and writes a clean, evidenced application is worth far more to them than the fee.
What AI changesThe slow parts of grant writing are turning a pile of notes into tight answers, cutting to word limits, tailoring one project to five funders' language and checking budgets. AI does all of that in minutes. What it can't do is supply the evidence, and that's the whole skill: you collect the facts, AI shapes them, you check every word.
Careful- What it takes. About a day for a small application (under £20,000) once you're practised, and three to five for a big one.
- Chasing evidence: clients are busy volunteers, so a third of the job is getting accounts, numbers and case studies out of them.
- Patience with decisions: funders take weeks or months, and many good applications are turned down simply because funds are oversubscribed.
- Strict honesty: every fact traceable, every number sourced.
- Who this suits: you write clearly, you like organising messy information, and you care about community work. People with charity, council, teaching or NHS backgrounds pick this up fastest.
The kitread the kit overview or download everything: the peer funder script, evidence bank and prompts, sample application, pricing calculator and outreach scripts.