Will AI replace grant writers?
What the job becomes
By Wesley Stevens, Founder of Quillify. October 3, 2026.
Will AI replace grant writers?
It will replace most of the hours. Research, eligibility checks, requirement lists and first drafts are already moving to software. The grant writer's job moves toward what funders weigh most: choosing what to pursue, building relationships with program officers, and judging what is true and worth asking for. Over the next few years the role becomes strategist, editor and connector, and the best grant writers will serve more organizations than they can today.
Where the hours go today
In our conversations with customers, one foundation proposal takes between 50 and 400 hours. Most of that time goes to work a reviewer never sees. It is spent finding funders and checking eligibility, reading announcements for every requirement, and rebuilding the same program description and budget in each funder's format.
That is the work software now does well. Quillify searches grants, government contracts and community lenders in one place. It reads the full announcement to tell you whether you qualify, lists every requirement with the risk of missing it, and drafts from your organization's own documents. Those hours are step one of a larger change, and they are leaving the job first.
What funders actually weigh
The parts of a proposal that win are the parts that come from people. More than 250 academic institutions and research institutes have worked with John Robertson's firm, which teaches the Write Winning Grant Proposals seminar. Its advice is to find a program that wants to fund what you propose, and to talk to that program's officer early, because program staff, alongside the review panel, shape which applications get funded.
Someone has to choose which funder to pursue and understand what that funder is really trying to achieve. Someone has to decide what an organization can honestly promise, and build the relationship that gets a proposal read. That is judgment, and it is where an experienced grant writer was always most valuable.
Some funders now say so in their rules. The National Institutes of Health will not treat an application substantially developed by AI as the applicant's original ideas. For that work, the research strategy stays in the researcher's own words, and the grant professional's role as editor and adviser matters more.
How the job changes, step by step
Step one, faster applications. A grant writer who hands research and first drafts to software can carry more clients at the same quality. Holly Rustick, who trains freelance grant writers, describes AI as "more of an editor than a writer", and expects writers who can judge its output to become more valuable.
Step two, one application for many funders. When adapting a proposal costs minutes, the writer's time goes into making the core description of an organization excellent once.
Step three, funders find you. Grant writers become advisers on being findable: an accurate tax filing, a clear public description, published results, and the board connections that open doors.
Step four, the living record. When a current record of an organization's work replaces the proposal, someone has to keep that record honest and readable. That is editing and verification, and it is skilled work.
Step five, no applications. The grant writer becomes a strategist and a connector, the person who understands both what an organization does and what each funder is trying to change, and brings them together.
What grant writers can do now
Charge for judgment. The hours of research and drafting are the ones software takes first, so pricing built on them will shrink. Strategy, relationships and the final read are what clients will keep paying for.
Learn each funder's AI rules, and be ready to tell a funder plainly how a proposal was prepared. Clients will ask you, and funders increasingly do.
Take on more clients. The writers who use software for the research and first drafts can serve organizations that could never afford a consultant before.
What you can do today
- Quillify for grant writers and consultants
- How funders treat AI in applications
- What to say when a funder asks how you used AI
- How to write objectives a reviewer can score
More in this series: How will AI change philanthropy? The future of grantmaking, Will there ever be one grant application for every funder?, 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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