How to use AI in Good Grants: Sample prompts for real grantmaking tasks

In this article

• What AI fields do in Good Grants
• Sample prompts to get you started
• Information prompts for simple lookups and summaries
• Evaluation prompts for analytical and interpretive queries
• Financial prompts for funding, payments and allocation reasoning
• Insight + decision prompts to synthesise multiple data sources
• How to trigger AI fields in Good Grants
• Tips for writing great AI prompts

AI is opening new possibilities for grantmakers, but this shouldn’t mean complicating your workflow or removing the human touch. Good Grants AI fields give you a simple, private and secure way to draw insights from the information you already hold.

This means no sharing sensitive data with third parties, no external datasets, no guesswork. Just clear, useful insights drawn directly from your applications, reviews, allocations, payments and reports, which you can use to help you in making good grant decisions.

Whether you’re reviewing progress, preparing application summaries or checking financials, the AI field type in Good Grants helps you get to your data faster. It can make complex information feel manageable, consistent and easier to communicate, all while keeping your sensitive data safe.

In this guide, you’ll find practical, real‐world prompt examples you can try today with the AI field type in Good Grants. These prompts are grouped by task and complexity so you can adapt them to your program’s needs.

What AI fields do in Good Grants

The AI field type in Good Grants provides a private, intelligent way to interact with the information you already hold: your applications, reviews, allocations, payments and reports. The field doesn’t connect to the internet or external datasets. Instead, it helps you quickly understand, evaluate and communicate the key details about a single applicant or grantee.

Whether you’re checking progress, drafting a summary or preparing a report for your team, the AI field can work alongside you to make sense of complex grant information clearly, consistently and securely.

You can set the field to be hidden for applicants, and in this way, it becomes an effective tool for grant managers to see and analyse application information at a glance, dramatically reducing the time spent compiling summaries or reviewing feedback.

Or, you can set the AI field to be viewable by applicants and grantees, which can be helpful in a variety of use cases, such as:

• Sharing feedback with applicants
• Translating an application into another language, and sharing that translation for verification with the applicant
• Providing a financial summary or update for an entrant
• And more

Keep in mind that only program managers have the ability to generate an AI response. Applicants, grantees and reviewers can only view the outputs, and only if you permit them.

Back to top

Sample prompts to get you started

Information prompts for simple lookups and summaries

These prompts help you extract facts or create light summaries from the information available in an application or report.

Simple prompts

• Summarise the applicant’s main objectives in this application. Use bullet points.
• List all reviewers who assessed this application and show their average scores.
• Please count all the words used by the applicant on this application.
• List any potential conflicts of interest in this applicant’s proposal.

Intermediate prompts

• Summarise the key strengths and weaknesses in the reviewer comments of this application.
• Summarise all reports submitted by this applicant, include any noted challenges.

Advanced prompts

• Provide a summary of the applicant’s journey from application to the latest report. Highlight progress, milestones and challenges.

Back to top

Evaluation prompts for analytical and interpretive queries

These types of prompts can help you understand quality, alignment and feasibility, key parts of any grantmaking process.

Simple prompts

• Does this proposal clearly explain how the requested funds will be used? Yes or no answer.
• Summarise whether the project aligns with the stated funding priorities.
  Tip: include the funding priorities directly in the prompt or add them to a hidden field for multiple AI fields to reference.

Intermediate prompts

• Based on reviewer comments, summarise areas where the applicant could strengthen their proposal.
• Assess on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) whether the applicant’s described outcomes appear achievable within their stated timeframe.

Advanced prompts

• Pretend you are an auditor. In less than 50 words, evaluate the average human judges’ scores of this entry from [XYZ] score set and identify any significant deviations. Summarise your findings in bullet points, followed by a one-sentence takeaway.
• Provide an overall evaluation of the applicant’s capability to deliver this project, using reviewer feedback and reporting history.

Back to top

Financial prompts for funding, payments and allocation reasoning

These are especially helpful for monitoring spend, checking variances and preparing financial summaries.

Simple prompts

• Summarise the total amount allocated and payments made to date.
• List payment dates and their purposes.

Intermediate prompts

• Summarise whether the grantee reported any underspend or overspend.
• Explain how the funds were distributed across budget categories, based on the application and reporting data. (Useful when funding is categorised)

Advanced prompts

• Provide a short financial summary of this grant from allocation to completion in bullet point format. Highlight total disbursed, reported spend and any noted variances.

Back to top

Insight + decision prompts to synthesise multiple data sources or simulate decision support

AI fields can help build stronger recommendations when you need to bring together comments, scores, reports and financials.

Simple prompts

• Summarise the overall sentiment of the reviewers for this application.
• List recurring keywords or themes in the review comments.

Intermediate prompts

• Summarise how the grantee’s reported outcomes compare to their original objectives in their application form.
• Provide a brief grantee summary suitable for inclusion in a board note or decision memo. Two sentences only, less than 70 words.

Advanced prompts

• Provide insights into how effectively this grantee has used the funds, referencing both financial and narrative reports. (Works best when your program collects both financial and narrative reporting.)
• Recommend an appropriate fund allocation for this application based on the allocation criteria. Use the judging result and available funding as inputs. (Include funding criteria information)
• Sum the total allocations this applicant has received, note any payments and advise if there are any outstanding grant reports.

Back to top

How to trigger AI fields in Good Grants

AI fields can run automatically or on demand:

1. Application submitted: Set a field to generate automatically when an applicant or grantee submits a form, such as an application or report.

2. Manual, on demand: Navigate to the relevant application or report, locate the AI field and click Generate AI response whenever needed.

Understand the context around the prompts

Good Grants supports the following prompt contexts, so the AI field knows where to look for information:

• Application
• Reviewing
• Allocations
• Grant reports

You can choose the context that best matches the task to improve the quality of the output.

Back to top

Tips for writing great AI prompts

Creating precise, purposeful prompts helps you get better, more consistent insights. Here are some tips to help you succeed. 1.

1. Use adjectives — AI is sensitive to them.
Show review scores of this application.  
“Show the average human reviewers’ scores of this application from XYZ score set” ✔

2. Be clear about purpose or outcome. 
“Evaluate the average human reviewers’ scores of this application from XYZ score set and identify any significant deviations.” ✔

3. Ask for a specific format in the response.
Bullet points, numbered lists, short paragraphs — whatever helps your workflow.

4. Set constraints. 
Use word limits, set the tone, length, level of expertise and more.

5. Ask the AI to play a role.
Roles such as auditor, analyst or grant officer help frame the output.

Tips for deploying AI to a form

• Label your field clearly and include the prompt in the hint or help text.
• Create a hidden tab for AI fields so they can quickly reference all outputs when moving between applications or reports.

Back to top

Good grantmaking, powerful processes

AI fields in Good Grants are designed to support — not replace — your expertise. They help you move faster, stay consistent and keep your focus where it matters most: making a positive impact with your funding.

Start experimenting with prompts, adjust them to your program’s needs and discover how the AI form field can help make good grantmaking easier, fairer and more insightful.

Learn more about AI fields in the Good Grants Help Centre: Using AI fields

Back to top