Grant writing involves much more than jotting down an explanation of your plans for a project.
Research, background context, budgets, partnership plans, schedules, and more all must come together to create a persuasive and coherent whole that will compel funders to choose your proposal.
To support all the separate tasks and sections that go into a proposal, you’ll need a robust grant writing toolkit on your side. Grant writing software and tools come in all shapes and sizes, and they can help with multiple or individual aspects of the process.
With the rise of AI grant writing tools, nonprofits will be able to consolidate more of their grant resources into comprehensive platforms. However, it’s still important to understand what makes an effective grants toolkit so that you can best tailor yours to your organization’s needs and budget.
Here, we’ll review 10+ of the top grant writing tools and others that can support your grant writing efforts, covering all the essential categories.
Grant Assistant - Best AI grant writing tool
Grant Assistant by FreeWill is the most advanced AI grant writing tool available today. If you’re looking to craft world-class proposals in a fraction of the time, this is the solution for you. The platform offers a complete range of expert-built, easy-to-use features that help mission-driven organizations win more grants, faster.
Unlike general tools, Grant Assistant is built by grant pros and trained on over 7,000 winning proposals. It splits the complex grant lifecycle into two streamlined workflows—Discover and Respond—allowing you to create high-quality proposals in a third of the time.
Here’s how Grant Assistant empowers organizations to revitalize their grant programs:
- Discover best-fit funding. Grant Assistant uses advanced matching to find opportunities aligned with your mission in seconds.
- Write winning proposals fast. The tool autogenerates outlines based on funder requirements, whether you need a basic application or a complex narrative-style proposal. Plus, use the AI chatbot to overcome writer’s block.
- Create content that actually reflects your voice. Unlike generic templates, Grant Assistant uses advanced semantic AI to learn from your past proposals and documents, personalizing every draft to your organization’s voice.
- Catch errors and gaps before you submit. The platform automatically develops a compliance matrix to scan your proposal against the funder’s specific requirements, so you never miss a mandatory detail.
- Protect your data. You can trust that your data is fully secure and never used to train our AI models.
Users like TechChange and Pets for Patriots report reducing their proposal writing time by 50–90%, essentially layering an expert grant writer on top of their existing teams.
Our grant writing software is incredibly versatile and perfect for corporate grants, foundation grants, government grants, and government contracts. You can learn more about Grant Assistant here or contact our team to take it for a test drive.
Coefficient - Best data analysis tool for grant writing
You're not alone if you find yourself battling with spreadsheets and feeling out of your depth when preparing financial information and other background data for grant proposals. This is an area where AI tech can be extremely impactful, and Coefficient is an excellent example.
Coefficient is an AI solution that connects your spreadsheets with your various data tools, like your CRM, to create automated dashboards and reports. It takes the guesswork out of navigating multiple platforms and generating real-time data insights for grant proposals and post-award reports.
Coefficient’s free package likely includes all the features you’ll need for smaller or less intensive grant writing initiatives. Extra capabilities and data capacity are available starting at $49/month.
Candid - Best legacy grant research tools
Candid has long been a go-to resource for grant-seeking nonprofits and grantmaking foundations. This platform includes several key tools that you’re likely already familiar with, including:
- GuideStar
- Foundation Directory Online
- Extensive nonprofit training resources
- Access to industry-leading datasets and reports
For grant seekers, Foundation Directory Online is the most immediately valuable Candid offering. This leading grant opportunity database gives your organization the confidence that it’s finding the best and largest range of available opportunities. It’s among the most well-regarded of paid grant databases.
An Essentials subscription to Foundation Directory Online costs $54.99/month or a one-time annual payment of $449.
GrantStation - Best grant seeking strategy tools
GrantStation is another grant database that offers more extensive planning and research tools.
The database includes both charitable and government grants from the U.S. and Canada, as well as international charitable grants.
However, what stands out about GrantStation is the extensive strategic planning and research tools included with membership. The platform’s package of resources, templates, and training courses make it easy for newer grant seekers to establish coherent long-term grant and funding strategies rather than scattershot awards that become difficult to manage.
GrantStation memberships start at $219 quarterly or $699 annually.
Grants.gov - Essential federal grant writing platform
If you seek U.S. federal grants (or want to), acquaint your team with Grants.gov. This is the official location for all things federal grant seeking.
Grants.gov centralizes all federal grant opportunities and offers a wide array of training and support materials to help nonprofits succeed in this more complex arena of funding. Grants.gov also offers a Workspace feature that makes it easier to track grant opportunities and collaborate with your team without losing progress or information along the way.
Grants.gov is entirely free to use, although you’ll need to formally apply and provide documentation about your organization.
Learn Grant Writing - Best online grant writing training tools
For organizations and nonprofit professionals (and even freelancers) just beginning to invest in their grant writing skills, training is a must. Grants can be complicated, and a baseline understanding of what they entail will ultimately save more headaches and time than jumping in unprepared.
Learn Grant Writing is the leading training resource and community for grant writers, offering a range of free resources, introductory courses, and intensive paid training.
The platform’s flagship offering, the Global Grant Writers Collective, is a membership program that offers comprehensive training, one-on-one coaching, and access to an active community of grant writers of all skill levels and backgrounds. It has many success stories of members who’ve transformed their organizations’ funding strategies and freelancers who’ve built thriving consultancies with the help of professional training and support.
Learn Grant Writing offers several free introductory resources, and membership to the complete training program and community costs $500/month. Although costlier than other training providers, Learn Grant Writing’s system is truly comprehensive and up-to-date. Completing the training program also provides professional certification and 90+ continuing education hours for CFRE members.
GrantHub - Best dedicated grant management software
GrantHub, part of the larger Foundant software ecosystem, is a trusted grant management platform used by over 900 organizations.
After receiving a grant, taking care of all the additional reporting and execution steps required can be complicated. It’s notoriously tricky for grant seekers whose organizations may be unprepared to handle the logistics of grant management.
GrantHub offers comprehensive tools to help you better manage your relationships with funders, track program revenue and expenses, create financial reports, set notifications and schedules, and create spend-down plans to finish funded projects strong.
GrantHub offers two packages: The first includes basic features most helpful for the pre-award stage at $95/month, and the second includes the full suite of pre- and post-award management features at $349/month. Bolstering your organization’s grant management capabilities quickly pays off down the line, although brand-new grant seekers or very small organizations may want to grow their grant programs before investing.
Grammarly - Best drafting support tool for grant writing
If the writing part of grant writing isn’t your strong suit, remember that there are many tools that can help with this most fundamental part of the process—including AI grant writing tools like Grant Assistant that take all the guesswork out of crafting your proposal’s message.
If you want a smaller-scale solution, Grammarly can help. Grammarly is a well-known spellcheck and writing recommendation tool that can help you effortlessly improve your writing in grant proposals.
The platform has also developed innovative AI features in recent years. These tools can help you better adjust your tone and voice alignment, improve your drafts for clarity, and more. Grammarly is also easy to use in both Google Docs and Microsoft Word.
Grammarly’s basic version, including some simple AI features, is free to use. A Premium version costs $12/month and includes a more robust suite of helpful drafting and AI features.
Trello - Best project management tools for grant writing
Project management is a critical but often overlooked part of successful grant writing. Keeping all the moving pieces of a proposal organized is itself a challenge, and if you need to coordinate with multiple team members and departments, information and deadlines can easily fall through the cracks.
Trello is a Kanban-style project management tool that makes it easy to split complex projects into discrete steps, assign ownership and deadlines, and move tasks from one stage to the next as they’re completed.
Trello stands out for its ease of use and simplicity, which makes it ideal for smaller grant writing programs that need a quick way to keep projects organized. The basic plan for up to 10 collaborators is free to use, with Standard and Premium plans available for larger teams and organizations at $5 and $10/month.
Honorable mentions for other easy-to-use web-based project management platforms include Asana and Monday. Each platform is well-reviewed and brings its own unique style and set of features, so consider your organization’s preferences and needs when making your selection.
Google Workspace - Best productivity tools for grant writing
Finally, you can’t forget the essential productivity tools that serve as the foundation for your grant writing toolkit.
For many organizations, the most useful and easiest-to-use choice is the Google Workspace of products. Its apps include:
- Gmail
- Calendar
- Drive
- Docs
- Sheets
- Slides
- Chat
The Google ecosystem is the preferred choice for many organizations because its apps work seamlessly with one another, and many other platforms offer pre-built integrations with them. Google Drive is particularly helpful as an intuitive cloud-based storage system for teams to easily save and access files. Google’s tools also come infused with Gemini, the ecosystem’s generative AI assistant.
Between file storage, document creation, easy collaboration, spreadsheets for reports, slideshows for grant kickoff presentations, and more, this suite of tools can give you everything you need to keep the focus on grant writing and research rather than logistics.
Access to Google Workspace apps starts at $7/user per month for 30GB of storage or $14/user per month for 2TB of storage.
Diversifying your revenue stream beyond grants
Securing a major grant is a huge milestone. However, relying only on grants leaves your organization vulnerable to shifting political climates, changing foundation priorities, and economic shifts.
True organizational sustainability requires diversification. By expanding your fundraising toolkit to capture non-cash wealth and long-term legacy commitments from individual donors, you can protect your mission from budget shortfalls and build a predictable financial future!
FreeWill offers two core product suites to help nonprofits move beyond traditional cash and grant fundraising, making it easy to tap into multi-generational wealth to secure a sustainable future.
Planned Giving Suite: Securing your mission’s future
Legacy fundraising used to be reserved for giant organizations with massive legal teams. FreeWill’s Planned Giving Suite democratizes this space, allowing nonprofits of all sizes to build scalable legacy programs with minimal effort!
At the heart of this suite is an intuitive, legally vetted online estate planning platform that you can offer to your supporters for free. As donors create their wills or trusts, the platform uses gentle, research-backed prompts to encourage charitable bequests to your cause.
Here’s why nonprofits trust FreeWill’s planned giving tools:
- Builds sustainability: Estate plans created on FreeWill are 4x more likely to include a charitable gift than the national average, yielding transformational legacy gifts that safeguard your future.
- Educates donors: Our Planned Giving Microsites demystify complex legacy giving options with clear, jargon-free information, making it easy for supporters of all financial backgrounds to understand how they can make a lasting impact.
- Boosts immediate cash giving: Committing a legacy gift actually encourages donors to give more during their lifetimes. We see legacy donors increase their annual cash giving to provide an immediate lift to their preferred nonprofits’ current operations.
- Expands your donor network: Through Featureships, your nonprofit is placed front and center before thousands of active, high-affinity will-makers outside your existing database, introducing your cause to an entirely new pipeline of supporters.
Don’t just take our word for it! See how the American Heart Association raised over $65 million through the FreeWill National Featureship:
Smart Giving Suite: Unlocking non-cash wealth
While standard donation forms only accept credit cards or checks, cash actually accounts for around 1-3% of wealth in the United States. The other 97-99% is tied up in non-cash assets like stocks and retirement accounts. If you aren't asking for these assets, you're missing out on the vast majority of donor wealth.
FreeWill’s Smart Giving Suite removes the friction from asset transfers, giving donors a user-friendly way to make tax-advantaged impact gifts in real time.
The suite empowers your team to easily accept and manage:
- Stocks and securities: Seamlessly receive stocks, ETFs, and bonds through a streamlined interface.
- Qualified charitable distributions (QCDs): Allow older supporters (ages 70 ½+) to donate directly from their IRAs, lowering their tax burdens.
- Donor-advised funds (DAFs): Provide an effortless way for supporters to initiate DAF grants directly to your organization.
- Cryptocurrency: Secure crypto donations without having to navigate complex blockchain logistics yourself.
Curious how accepting non-cash gifts can support your mission? Watch this video to learn how NOCO Humane leverages FreeWill to modernize their fundraising:
Grant writing software FAQ
What is grant writing software?
Grant writing software is specialized technology designed to help nonprofits, development teams, and other applicants draft and coordinate grant proposals. It helps you discover funding opportunities through aggregated databases, organize your submission timelines, and use artificial intelligence to analyze RFPs and draft compelling proposals. Ultimately, it automates the repetitive and administrative parts of grant seeking so you can focus on communicating your mission.
Will funders reject my proposal if I use AI grant writing software?
No, as long as it is used responsibly. Funders look for compliance, alignment with their mission, and community impact. Advanced AI grant writing platforms like Grant Assistant don’t generate generic text; they act as a force multiplier to analyze RFPs, build compliant outlines, and organize your thoughts. You’ll want to use AI to handle the tedious drafting and structure, while your team reviews and infuses the proposal with your unique organizational passion.
Is our nonprofit’s sensitive data safe when using AI grant writing software?
It depends on the tool you choose. General-purpose, public AI platforms (like the free versions of ChatGPT) may use your inputs to train their models. However, purpose-built software designed for nonprofits, such as Grant Assistant, features enterprise-grade security. This means your historical proposals, donor data, and organizational secrets are completely secure and are never used to train public AI models.
What is the difference between grant writing software and grant management software?
The main difference lies in the stage of the grant lifecycle. Grant writing software (like Grant Assistant) helps you in the pre-award phase—discovering funding opportunities, analyzing RFPs, and drafting proposals. Grant management software is used for the post-award phase—tracking deadlines, managing spend-down budgets, and organizing the rigorous compliance reporting required after you’ve won the funds.
Building your grant writing software stack
With the right tools on your side, building a thriving grant writing program for your nonprofit becomes much easier.
An effective grant writing software stack will help you find the perfect grant opportunities, stay organized, collaborate with team members, effectively manage your programs, create reports for funders, and more in less time.
Plus, AI promises to streamline the grant writing process further. Purpose-built platforms like Grant Assistant are revolutionizing the work it takes to research and draft complex proposals, while even simpler tools like Google Docs are quickly integrating AI features that can help grant writers produce better results faster.
To learn more about the future of grant writing, explore these recommended resources:
- Can you use AI for grant writing? What you need to know
- AI grant writing tools for nonprofits: The top 15 platforms
- Webinar: A deep dive on five practical AI uses for nonprofit fundraising
- Grant management software: Buyer’s guide & top-rated options
