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AI - Artificial Intelligence - is here.  If it hasn’t shown up on your doorstep yet, it will.  Prepare for it.  Embrace it.  Grantmakers and grantseekers, just like everyone else, use technology where it is effective from a cost and outcome perspective.  We only care that a PC or internet provider is fast enough and cost-effective enough to meet our needs, not which PC maker or internet provider is providing the service.  Everyman AI, or Personal AI,  is a technological revolution on par with the introduction of personal computers and the internet.  Because of our interconnected world, the pace of AI tool growth and adoption is proceeding faster than any internet phenomenon before it.  Whatever speed is beyond warp speed is how fast it is moving.  OpenAI’s ChatGPT conversational AI signed up 100 million users in 2 weeks.  It took TikTok about nine months after its global launch to reach 100 million users and Instagram 2-1/2 years.  It has as many applications as there are tasks to be performed.  Once you use it, the benefits become obvious.  You are going to use it the same way that you use word processing - easily and frequently.  If your word processing software or email attempts to predict the next word(s), then you’re already painlessly using AI.

Given that you are not going to stop grantseekers from using Microsoft Word and Google Docs - not that you would have any reason or desire to do so - what should be your position on AI in the grant application process?  As I said before, embrace it, both as grantmakers and grantseekers.

For a grantmaker, there are AI tools that have some success at recognizing the output of an AI.  You could run your grant applications through them and perhaps ‘catch’ grantseekers that used AI.  You might ‘catch’ grantseekers effectively using legitimate technology available to them to enhance their chances of being awarded the grant.  As does every grantseeker applying for the grant when they use Word or Google Docs or some other composition tool.  You don’t begrudge them that.  In fact, if you used to take paper applications and now only accept online applications, there are legitimate business reasons for that, and it is only smart to use technology to better serve your mission.

And what is your mission?  To put a temporary speedbump in the adoption of new business technologies?  As a grantmaker, you want to promote your organization’s values and mission by financially supporting programs that align with them.  You should welcome any technologies that support you in that endeavor, be they used by your organization or grant-seeking organizations.  AI can do that in multiple ways.  I’ll give one example that helps both grantmakers and grantseekers.

Your grant process has standards and rules and formats, and a scoring system for all of those.  You couldn’t efficiently, or maybe even practically, process grant requests if they were custom one-offs.  AI can help grantseekers provide the information you require in the format you require, which improves the grantseekers' odds of success and eases your processing of the applications, giving you more time and tools to consider the merits of the project/program.  A technological win-win.  And that’s great because your mission is not to be a technology monitor but rather to fund those projects and programs that align with your values and goals.  

The application portal you currently use is just a filter to force the grantseeker to gather the required information and put it in the required format.  Grantseekers are usually free to use whatever methods of data collection and tracking that work for them or that they’re capable of performing.  Grantmakers exact no penalty for tracking data on pieces of paper rather than expensive computer hardware and software, and no penalty for grantseekers that can afford such systems and/or the services of grant writers.  There should be no penalty, and no concern on the grantmaker’s part, if the grantseeker uses AI technology to manage and produce their data for your portal.  They would be doing so to help them better meet the requirements of your portal, after all.

I would go further and say that it is in the grantmaker’s interest for the grantseeker to employ AI technologies in their organization for data tracking and reporting purposes.  An organization that uses AI in its business processes has more time to spend on non-business processes, such as the programs for which they seek funding.  As a trivial example, an organization that uses Quickbooks for accounting rather than written ledgers is going to be much more efficient and productive than organizations that use ledgers.  I would expect grantmakers to endorse the use of Quickbooks in this example.  In fact, if a ledger-using grantseeker had a great program that aligned with the grantmaker’s mission, it might even behoove the grantmaker to gift the grantseeker a copy of Quickbooks.

There are several ways that grantmakers could give the AI equivalent of a copy of Quickbooks to grantseekers to help them collect, organize, and report on their program or project data.  Paper ledgers, or Quickbooks, or AI are all just tools to track the paperwork and accounting for the projects and programs you actually care about.  For grantmakers, using AI could standardize application form data even further, making scoring and separating the wheat from the chaff easier and more efficient.

What are the consequences of further streamlining and standardizing the application portal filter function?  It gives more time for grantmakers to focus on the features and story of the program to be funded instead of the process.  Imagine for a moment that we lived in a world of seamless, secure data exchange.  When applying for a grant, a grantseeker would give the grantmaker a portal into the organization’s data as relates to the technical requirements of the grant (e.g., basic organization data).  If the grantseeker passed the technical check, then they would be allowed to propose their program.  Taking care of the technical aspects of the grant application in the background lets the grantseeker focus on telling their story about their program and the good it is going to do if funded.  We aren’t at the level of data-interchange trust yet, but it is technologically feasible now. Something like that scenario could automate the application process while making more room for the human impact aspects of the grant application.  Would manually gathering the necessary data and putting it in the proper format enhance the program’s performance or its impact on people, or does it just consume time?  Would you care that your systems reviewed and vetted the technical aspects for the preliminary phase rather than have a human do it?  Humans should validate the process and review the results, but there is no value in having them perform tasks that computers can do faster.

AI technology will be used wherever there is a business case to do so.  There are legitimate business reasons to employ AI for both grantseekers and grantmakers.  Its potential and compelling uses for the grant community should be explored and implemented wherever they make the work of fulfilling the grantmaker’s mission easier to perform.  Increasing automation of the grant application process with AI tools is an idea that is already here in various forms.  Do you have a strategy to deal with it?  If not, why not?  Also, if not, embrace it.  It’s not coming, it’s here.

Tom Allred, RN