Quick Tips
When Your Grant Competitor Is Also Your Partner
One of the hardest calls in federal funding happens when you realize another organization in your community is also applying for the same opportunity.
Here is the situation. A capable nonprofit is preparing a strong federal application. A longtime community partner currently holds a similar grant and also plans to pursue the funding opportunity. If your organization decides to pursue the opportunity, the two organizations become direct competitors with overlapping geographic impact: they will both be proposing to serve the same community.
If your organization steps back, a real community need goes unmet (the whole reason you were pursuing the funding opportunity in the first place!). But if you pursue it and win, you worry your partner might feel like you “stole their grant.”
Your relationships, your mission, the potential impact, and the funding are all on the table at once. And you have to make a decision fast, because the funding opportunity closes in four weeks.
It is worth slowing down, because the instinct to soften the conflict usually makes it worse.
What Empowerment Language Hides in Your Narrative
I recently read a post on LinkedIn about “empowerment” language, and it really got me thinking! Language is a living, breathing part of our work, and it changes constantly. When I first started grant writing more than a decade ago (now closer to two decades than one!), “empowerment” language was just entering grant writing, and it was considered fairly progressive. The idea at the time was that we were moving away from the nonprofit being the one doing the work to make the change to providing support to a community so they could make the change.
More recent critiques of empowerment language argue that it often overlooks what is already present in communities and still gives the organization disproportionate credit for the work that happens.
There is a sentence that lives in nearly every grant proposal I have ever read, and in plenty I have written myself: "Our organization empowers [women] to [build financial independence]." Insert your variable between the brackets. It reads as warm, mission-driven. It has done its job in thousands of funded applications. I want to slow down on it, because that sentence carries an assumption about who matters most in the work.
Empowerment language has become the sector's default vocabulary. It signals values. It tells a funder you care. It also, in the same breath, places your organization at the center of the story and the community you serve at the receiving end of your generosity. That arrangement is worth examining, especially for those of us who care about equity and want our grant narratives to reflect it.
Why AI Grant Writing Tools Fall Short, and What Builds Real Capacity Instead
Every few months, a new tool promises to write your grants for you. Plug in your organization, answer a few prompts, and out comes a proposal. For a nonprofit leader trying to expand a grants portfolio with a lean team, that promise lands somewhere between exciting and too good to be true.
It is usually the second one. The tools are getting better, and some of them are genuinely useful for a first draft. Here’s the problem with these tools: when you try to generalize something for everyone (selling a product to 1000s of nonprofits), the specifics get lost. And in grant writing, the specifics are the entire point.
Why Generic AI Grant Writing Tools Lose What Matters
A general-purpose AI grant tool is built to serve thousands of organizations at once. To do that, it has to flatten the way that it writes grants. When a tool is designed to work for everyone, it cannot hold the things that make your application yours. You get language that is technically competent and fairly interchangeable. A reviewer reading a hundred applications can feel that flatness immediately.
The deeper issue is what happens when the output is wrong. With a closed tool where you can’t rewrite the skills/code, you are stuck. You can regenerate; you can tweak your inputs, but you cannot reach into the system and fix what is actually broken because you did not build it and you do not understand how it works.
The Case for Training Your Team Instead
There is another path: when you train the experts in your organization to use AI effectively, they can fix the problems themselves.
I have been saying this for a long time (in AI years…so like at least 18 months…ha!): the real promise of AI is that you get to solve YOUR problems. The accessibility of the tech is the benefit.
AI Certifications in Grant Applications: What This Really Means for Grant Professionals
A client recently asked me to sign a certification stating that no part of their grant application involved AI. As soon as I read it, my stomach tightened.
My unease comes from knowing that signing that certification with confidence is a lot more complicated than the form makes it look and will become increasingly challenging to promise.
These certifications deserve more conversation than they're getting. The intent behind them is reasonable. The implementation is creating problems that funders may not fully understand.
Let’s level set:
Funder AI certifications have grown more common in the last year; I’d never seen one before 2026.
The tools to enforce this are unreliable.
False positives in AI detection tools are widespread and well-documented. As I read recently on LinkedIn, someone’s essay on " The Yellow Wallpaper” from high school English class back in the ‘90s gets flagged as AI generated. So do my standard grant narratives pre-2023.
Grant writers may unknowingly sign inaccurate certifications when clients use AI upstream. (Think: that really nice program description the program manager sent you or the annual report that you pulled language from? Could absolutely, and increasingly, so, be generated by AI).
The field lacks a shared definition of "AI use," making honest answers difficult. Are editing tools with AI built in “AI use”? What about using AI to order your citations? Or review your draft and help you improve it? Or create your logic model from your narrative?
What Your First Federal Grant Teaches You About Pricing (And What to Fix Before the Next One)
The NOFO said 60 hours. The grant took 250.
That gap between what the federal government estimates and what the work actually requires is where a lot of grant professionals get crushed on their first pass at a federal application.
You deliver. You submit. You collapse. And somewhere in the middle of all that, you also wrote the client a 20-page business plan that wasn't in your contract, chased down financial data until Saturday night before a Tuesday deadline, and rewrote the same narrative three times because the NOFO changed twice.
If any of that sounds familiar, you are not alone. This literally happened with a Federal Grants Accelerator participant. And they (and you) are not bad at your job.
What you are missing is the systems that protect you, the pricing formula, the contract language, and the client expectations that experienced federal grant writers build over years of exactly this kind of expensive lesson.
Here's what those systems look like in practice.
Before You Write Another Prompt, Build “Rooms” in the “House”
Most grant writers discover AI through prompting.
They type a careful instruction — "You are an experienced grant writer with 20 years of experience in foundation grants. Write a compelling needs statement for a literacy program targeting elementary school students in low-income communities." They get something back. It's pretty good. They edit it. They move on. They call this an AI workflow.
It isn't. Or rather, it's the beginning of one, but if you stop there, you’ll remain frustrated with AI being over hyped.
The barrier to consistent, high-quality AI output in grant writing isn't prompting skill. It's context and folder usage. Once you employ these approaches, your experience of AI will change rapidly.
Shadow Work in Grants
Shadow work is the hidden labor behind every successful grant—from rebuilding budgets to chasing internal data. New research shows it’s costing organizations an average of $53,700 a year and forcing many to walk away from major funding opportunities. This post explores what’s really happening behind the scenes and why it’s time to rethink how grant work is supported.
Three Common Language Traps in Grant Narratives
Part II of our series “The Power and Politics of Language in Grant Narratives” explores three common language traps in grant narratives and offers practical strategies to write more accurate, respectful, and grounded needs statements. It challenges grant writers to move beyond deficit-based and exaggerated language, and instead center community agency, context, and truth in their proposals.
Grant Writing. It’s Political. And Your Needs Statement Proves It.
Grant writing isn’t neutral. The language used in needs statements and project justifications shapes how communities are perceived—and funded. This blog explores how to write compelling narratives that tell the truth without reinforcing harmful deficit-based framing.
We Confused Scaling a Program With Delivering It at Scale
Many nonprofits have been told for years that if a program works, it should scale. But we’ve blurred an important distinction: scaling a program is not the same thing as delivering it at scale. The result is that many nonprofits feel trapped between staying small and under-serving, or growing until something breaks.
Preparing Now for the Earmark Window Ahead
Many organizations wrote off earmarks in 2025. That was a mistake. While headlines focused on partisan narratives, three appropriations minibus bills quietly moved through Congress — and they included Congressionally Directed Spending. Organizations that stayed engaged with their representatives and senators secured millions. Those who assumed earmarks were dead stopped paying attention and missed the window.
Positioning Yourself for Federal Grants Using Your Existing Strengths
Federal grants are often seen as too big, too complex, or out of reach. In reality, readiness has less to do with size and more to do with clarity, consistency, and strong systems. Federal readiness is not about becoming something different. It is about making your work structured, measurable, and aligned with long-term growth.
Priority Trends Under this Administration
After reviewing several federal funding opportunities released earlier this year, one thing is clear: the same types of priorities keep reappearing, shaping eligibility, scoring, selection decisions, and even post-award requirements. Administration priorities are showing up as priority points, eligibility gates, selection discretion, and post-award compliance requirements.
AI in 2026 Federal Grants
As AI becomes an unspoken signal of “innovation,” the real question for 2026 is not whether AI will appear in federal grants, but who gains power, who bears risk, and whose voice is included when technology enters work meant to serve the public.
You’re Not Too Small. You’re Just Underestimated.
Some folks look at your org and see “small.” We see something else: underestimated. In this blog, we bust a few myths, share insight on a winning approach, and provide a four-step playbook for small organizations that want to compete for federal dollars.
All the Reasons We Don’t Learn Federal Grants
Grant professionals care deeply about the communities we serve, but we often hesitate to step into the federal space, even when the opportunities seem more plentiful than they currently do. Let’s speak plainly about the reasons we don't learn about federal grants — and the practical ways to move past each one.
The Federal Government has Reopened. Now What?
If it felt like the entire nonprofit sector collectively held its breath for the last several weeks… you’re not wrong. The federal government has officially reopened. If you are excited to apply and think things are returning to “normal” quickly, I’ll gently invite you to take a big sip of water and temper those expectations. Let’s break down what to expect.
What to Do When You’re Told “You’re Not a Fit”
If you are in federal grants long enough, you will hear it: “You’re not a fit.” In this blog, we name what “no” really means (and doesn’t), unpack a practical debrief process you can use immediately, and offer insight for building a resilient posture for the long game of federal funding. Most importantly, I’ll invite you to share your story, because our field is stronger when we compare notes.
Equitable Grantmaking: How Federal Grants Can Advance (or Hinder) Equity
Let’s not sugarcoat it. Equity in federal grantmaking is under siege. Language about underserved and marginalized communities is disappearing from federal RFPs, data requirements are softening, and equity-centered technical assistance is being cut. The result: well-resourced institutions are advantaged while rural, Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and other underfunded communities are pushed back to the margins.
Why the “Run to Foundations” Strategy Was a Red Herring
When federal dollars felt uncertain, a lot of folks rushed to private foundations. The result? More applications, not more money, meaning far tougher odds. The smarter move now: strengthen relationships with the funders who already know you (of every type - foundation, government, corporate), be candid about your reality, and ask for targeted support. And no, federal grants are not gone, but your strategy may need to change.