How We Increased Grant Funding by 35% Without Hiring

Healing Meals Community Project is a $1M organization providing medically-tailored meals to families in health crises across Connecticut. Executive Director Sarah Leathers had a classic nonprofit problem: a part-time grant writer (25 hours/week) maxed out at 40 applications yearly, bringing in $150,000. She knew bigger grants existed—they just couldn't write enough applications to chase them.

Six months after adding GrantLoop's AI agent Harper, they're tracking toward $205,000 this year. That's 35% more funding from 50% more applications, with a 10x ROI.

The twist: AI didn't make their grants better or boost their 65% win rate. It just made them faster.

The Bottleneck

Their grant writer crushed small awards ($2K-$5K) but couldn't handle the detailed proposals big funders wanted. Sarah had tried ChatGPT and general AI tools, but they hallucinated and produced shallow content.

The choice felt binary: hire another grant writer or keep missing opportunities.

The Breakthrough

Instead of hiring, Sarah invested in Harper—AI built specifically for grants.

Initial skepticism was high. Early drafts felt generic and needed heavy rewriting. But two things changed everything:

Training mattered. Harper needed their past winning proposals, impact data, and voice—like their 100% healthy birth rate stats.

It wasn't about replacement. As their grant writer put it: "Harper doesn't write better than me. But it gets me to first base. And that means I can tackle applications I would have had to skip entirely."

How It Works

Simple system:

1. Harper creates complete first drafts in under an hour

2. Grant writer adds strategy, relationships, and polish

3. Sarah reviews—spending way less time in the weeds

Result: Applications they used to skip entirely became possible.

The Numbers

• Funding: $150K → $205K (35% increase)

• Applications: 35% more out the door

• Win rate: Still ~65% (unchanged)

• Time: First drafts in under an hour vs. blank page

Eight months in, they've already matched their entire 2024 funding.

Beyond Speed

Harper expanded how they talk about their work. As Sarah noted: "We've kind of been stuck in how we say things. But now you're doing that like within five minutes."

For their grant writer: No more blank page paralysis. For Sarah: More time for strategy, less time managing drafts.

The Takeaway

Same small team, now competing for grants that were previously out of reach.

For nonprofits leaving money on the table: the solution might not be hiring. It might be maximizing the capacity you already have.

Founded in 2016, Healing Meals also runs youth development, intergenerational volunteer, and maternal health programs.