Will there ever be one grant application for every funder?
Step two: one application, many funders
By Wesley Stevens, Founder of Quillify. October 3, 2026.
Will there ever be one grant application for every funder?
Probably never as a single form, and it may not need to be. Regional common applications have existed for decades, but funders accept them voluntarily and often add their own questions. What changes the picture is that adapting one proposal to many formats now takes minutes. Step two arrives as one strong description of an organization's work, read by every funder in the shape it prefers.
The common application has been tried
Funders have tried to agree on one form for a long time. Regional associations of grantmakers publish common applications, including the Minnesota Common Grant Application, the New York and New Jersey Area Common Application, the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers' common application, and common applications in North Texas and Colorado.
None of them took over. Funders are not bound to accept a form just because their association publishes one. The Washington association says plainly that each funder uses its template differently and may require additional information.
Why one form never won
A funder's questions are its strategy written down. A health foundation and an arts foundation are trying to learn different things about the same organization, and a single form either asks too little for both or too much for each.
There was also no pressure strong enough to overcome that. Reformatting cost the applicant, not the funder, so the funder had little reason to give up its own format.
What changes now
The cost that kept formats apart is collapsing. Once an organization has described its work well, reshaping that description for a new funder's questions, page limits and budget template takes minutes. In Quillify, revisions edit only the sections you name, so adapting a proposal for a second funder is a small job.
Some funders are moving from their side too. The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, for one, accepts proposals written for other funders, and accepting them is one of the steps the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project asks funders to take.
What step two looks like
Each organization keeps one excellent description of its work: its programs, the people it serves, its results and its finances. Every funder keeps the questions that reflect its strategy. Software does the translation between them, and checks every claim against the organization's own documents.
Funders also stop asking for what they can already read. A foundation that can see an organization's public filings and published results has less reason to ask for them again, and a shorter application becomes the norm.
Applicants get their hours back for the parts of a proposal that matter: the fit with this funder's purpose, and the case for the work.
What you can do today
- Reuse one proposal across funders
- Find the foundations that accept applications
- Is this grant worth applying for?
More in this series: How will AI change philanthropy? The future of grantmaking, Will AI replace grant writers?, How will foundations find nonprofits in the future?, What will replace the grant proposal?, What will grantmaking look like without applications?, What are the risks of AI in philanthropy?.
Start on the steps that are possible today.
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