Ep: 397 How AI Is Changing Grant Writing and What You Need to Know
Download MP3Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the number one grant writing podcast in the world, the grant writing and funding podcast, where
Holly Rustick:we help passionate people create stable incomes and flexible schedules by getting ideal non profit clients with the best grant writing and non profit sales strategies in the industry. My name is Holly Rustic and I have more than twenty years of grant writing and non profit experience as well as federal grant reviewing experience. And I went from working fifty plus hours per week as a grant writer inside a nonprofit and living paycheck to paycheck to opening my own freelance grant writing business and only working part time hours while earning multiple 6 figures per year. Inside our programs, the Freelance Grant Writer Academy and the Grant Professional Mentorship, I have helped more than 200 change makers get out of toxic nine to five jobs and replace their full time incomes while working part time as a grant writer from home and around the world simply by learning how to write grants through our grant writing formula and implementing our unique approach to nonprofit sales strategies. Join these aspiring and seasoned grant writers so you too can secure ideal nonprofit clients with cause areas that you fully believe in, get them massive funding, and be a key part in advancing these movements.
Holly Rustick:Be sure to join our weekly newsletter, the Write Grants Get Paid newsletter, where you get stress free nuggets on the financial stability components and skills of being a freelance grant writer and updates about the academy and the mentorship. Just go to grantwritingthefunding.com. And now let's get ready for the most bold, empowering, and approachable coaching
Holly Rustick:Hello. Hello. It's Holly Rustic here
Holly Rustick:with Grant Writing and Funding, and we have another episode for you today. This is all about AI in grant writing. So definitely just some simple, simple tips of what not to do and some things you can do for sure. So for all of today's show notes go to episode three ninety seven. We'll also have some links there to some other episodes we did with Feldang on AI and grant writing.
Holly Rustick:So so good. So before we get into our tips, here's a word from our sponsor, GEMS. And thank you to Grant EZ Management Software for sponsoring today's podcast episode. We love GEMS, GrantEZ Management Software, because GEMS is a software tool that organizes all of your grants. It also gives you an opportunity to invite your nonprofit clients into the software and you can put every single grant you've submitted.
Holly Rustick:You can also put every single note with funding sources that you've connected to. At a click of a button, you can see everything that's pending, everything that's been secured, everything that's been denied, and your clients can see that as well. We love that GEMS actually says, hey, bring GEMS into your meeting with your nonprofit clients so you can show them exactly where you're at with all of the grant writing strategy as you are working with them. And there's even a time tracker inside of GEMS so you can track your time with all of your clients. Never miss a deadline again.
Holly Rustick:Never miss a document again. Go ahead and join GEMS, grant easy management software. Sign up for a free demo today, and you can also get a $50 off coupon code when you mention g w f, Holly, h o l l y. Go to grantwritingandfunding.com/gegems. Thank you, GEMS, for being a sponsor for this podcast episode today.
Holly Rustick:Alrighty, y'all. Here are some tips for what to do and not to do with AI and grant writing. Artificial intelligence, or AI, is changing the grant writing world, but maybe not how you imagined. My name is Holly Rustic, I'm the CEO of the Freelance Grant Writer Academy and the Grant Professional Mentorship. We help aspiring and seasoned grant writers replace their full time income on flexible hours writing grants from home and to scale businesses with a part time team, systems, and a scaling offer without burning out.
Holly Rustick:Let's talk about five ways how AI is changing grant writing and how you can actually leverage it. Sure, you could use ChatGPT and just put in request for a proposal and ask it to answer all of the questions, but you wouldn't get a grant awarded that way. So why you need to have content first to use that makes sense for AI or chat or whatever software you use to use and respond. Let's look at five different ways that we are seeing that grant writers use AI. Number one, use AI to check spelling and grammar.
Holly Rustick:Here's the most basic use of all. Let's call this grant writing AI 101, use spell check and grammar check. But forgetting basics and trying to be so sophisticated with AI can miss the mark. Grammar reviewers aren't necessarily scoring you on spelling and grammar, but sometimes they actually are. Not that you actually have the best grammar in the world, but blatant misspelled words and grammar can skew a grant reviewer's feelings about professionalism.
Holly Rustick:Let's face it. Grant reviewers can be snobs. I can say this because I've been a grant reviewer for almost a decade and have been caught myself being a little judgy. You can use simple AI like Grammarly, Word, even ChatGPT to check on basic spelling and grammar errors. Always run your grants through this before submitting.
Holly Rustick:This is just basic. So before you get sophisticated on me, do the basics, which have been around for a long time. But I have to stress this point because inside the Freelance Grant Writer Academy, we review grants almost every single day as we have unlimited grant reviews in the program. And what we see time over time over time over again, it's just having basic misspelling and grammar. And that's one of the first things we always mention is clean that up.
Holly Rustick:That's the easiest thing you can actually clean up. And then we're getting to all the details in there as well. And I don't have the best grammar in the world at all, and I can still write high scoring grants, but I need to make sure my spelling is fixed up before I submit a grant. Number two, use AI to write a grant. As I mentioned, you won't get the best outcomes if you go into AI without first actually developing or having a grant written or even understanding a program.
Holly Rustick:But 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 you're requesting funding for, then this makes AI come alive with the right information and with enough information. If you also ask AI then to answer questions from a funding opportunity announcement or grant application RFP and provide the master grant application or narrative, then you are able to get words on the paper that may save you some time and may make sense. But always, always, always review this thoroughly. And Grantable is one place that is specifically for this, and we are seeing a lot more software coming out as well. And even folks are training up their own ChatGPT to talk more like a grant writer.
Holly Rustick:But you still need to have enough information about the program and you cannot have it write your grant first. You need to, as a human, develop it first and understand it. Number three, don't use AI for grant research and citations, please. As of early twenty twenty five, when we are producing this video, AI is still terrible at citing research. It will give you beautiful citations if you ask for research, but those are usually fake.
Holly Rustick:Okay? So you still need to check all URLs to that it develops to see if they even exist or if there's actual research on those pages it references. Unfortunately, you still need to do the grant research to find citations, sources, and references for your grants that you need to state in your grant applications. And I was really bummed that I saw that it does not do a good job. AI does not do a good job at this because I often go down the rabbit hole of research.
Holly Rustick:But if you do have a lot of resources, here is one thing AI can be super helpful at this time in putting together is creating a bibliography or works cited document. Just make sure you tell AI to do an MLA style or APA style. And we also have a reference here, but make sure you still go find the sources, actually have them, all of that. But AI can save the time to make all of the references that you then find make it pretty and consistent. And that can save a lot of time if you need a Works Cited page in a grant.
Holly Rustick:Number four, what AI is changing in grant writing? Use it for replacing the banned federal words. With the Trump administration in 2025, we are seeing a radical shift in what words will trigger scrutiny or just banning grants from being accepted from grant applications. You can use ChatGPT to run your grant applications through a review and cross reference the banned words and switch them out with more acceptable quote unquote words that may not trigger reviews. And in fact, we have a free workbook on what these banned words are and how to replace them, and we also have already developed alternative words for you.
Holly Rustick:Number five, run an audit on your grant. So AI can be really helpful on that. So another usage of AI is to run your grant through like something like ChatGPT and then put in the grant instructions, I. E. The funding opportunity announcement, request for proposal, and ask the following questions.
Holly Rustick:Is there anything that is ineligible in my grant application? Another question is, have I thoroughly answered all questions? This is really important. So if your grant instructions have a criteria area as well, this is where they tell you all the specific questions and how many points per section. These are typically more in federal grants, but sometimes in foundation grants too, you can find this criteria.
Holly Rustick:Be sure you also run this criteria along with your application through AI and ask, have I given specific examples for each of these questions? This can also be really helpful in catching any issues, right? But do not rely on this audit to be your initialized. First, use your initialized to ask these questions, then run it through chat to catch anything as well. You still need to have a human to read your gram instructions and ensure that you adhere to the instructions.
Holly Rustick:You need it to also make sure that you align your programs to the priorities and have all the attachments that are required. Think of AI in your grant writing as a support, not necessarily as a team member. It's more of an editor at this point in time than a writer, even though one of its jobs is to write. But so far, we still, as far as grant writing, we need to understand what are the priorities of the organization? What are all of the requirements?
Holly Rustick:What's ineligible? What's eligible? And then you can run that through as an audit, but you still need to understand it as a human. In the future, I'm sure that AI will become more sophisticated with grant writing and research, but a human still needs to understand the designing of the programs and how they meet needs in real life. So these are your five steps on how AI is being used in grant writing today.
Holly Rustick:And yes, there are many more ways that it's being used, but these are just five tips that we're highlighting for you. Make sure you subscribe so you can get all of the tips as we keep coming out with new things around grant writing and trends that have always continued. I hope you enjoyed listening to the grant writing and funding podcast episode today. For today's show notes, go to grantwritingandfunding.com. And while you're there, join our email newsletter, write grants, get paid, where every single week week you get proven strategies to be able to replace your full time income on flexible hours writing grants from home.
Holly Rustick:We give you all of our beliefs and strategies to run a freelance grant writing business and to improve your grant writing skills. Be sure to join because we have the best email newsletter in the industry with amazing weekly tips. You also find out when the podcast drops, when we have offers coming up, when the doors to the academy and mentorship are open, and so much more. So make sure you go to grantwritingandfunding.com. And we also have some other free goodies for you over there, including our five steps to become a freelance grant writer and a free grant writing class.
Holly Rustick:You're definitely gonna wanna check that out at grantwritingandfunding.com. And if you love this podcast, please do me a favor. Please make sure you subscribe on your podcast platform and leave a review. We love reading all of the reviews
Holly Rustick:as it's a way we feel
Holly Rustick:like we can really interact with all of our listeners. So thank you again for listening to the number one grant writing podcast in the world, grant writing and funding. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.
