Grant Expert
Your AI advisor for funder matching, drafting and critique.
👋 I'm the MEM Academy AI Grant Expert. Let me help you write the perfect grant.
Tell me about your project — what you want to do, who it helps, and roughly how much funding you need. Or pick one of the prompts below to get started.
/ Try a starter prompt
Unlock the numbers
Pick your grant size and bid count. We'll estimate funding unlocked vs hiring a writer.
- Expected funding unlocked
- £7,680
- Saved vs grant writer
- £2,400
- Total estimated value
- £10,080
Estimate based on a 32% success rate (typical for applicants using structured adviser support) and an average UK consultant fee of £800 per application at this tier. Actual outcomes vary.
5–10% becomes 25–40%
Success rates vary by funder, but assessor feedback and Clinks/Unlock benchmarks consistently show structured support roughly triples success.
- Generic project description that doesn't name your area or your beneficiaries
- Applies to any open small grant without checking funder fit
- Outputs (sessions delivered) confused with outcomes (lives changed)
- No simple theory of change to anchor the bid
- Story of why you're the right person to deliver this is missing
- Budget unjustified, and no plan for the business setup funders expect
- Funder shortlist matched to cic / social enterprise
- First-person drafts with strong, specific verbs and local detail
- SMART outcomes + theory of change scaffold sized for a small grant
- Clear authority statement on why your team is uniquely placed to deliver
- Budget with sensible UK unit costs benchmarked to ~£8,000 bids
- Critique pass on every draft before submission
Push your odds toward 40%
- 01Ask the adviser "Match me to a funder" before drafting anything.
- 02Use "Draft my Need section" with real numbers — postcode, beneficiary count, evidence.
- 03Paste your draft back and ask "Critique this and rewrite weak parts".
- 04Request a theory of change and a line-item budget for the funder you chose.
- 05Tighten with the one-line "What to tighten next" suggestion at the end of each draft.
Scroll up to the Grant Expert to start with any of these prompts
/ DOCHow we estimate success▾
The 5–10% baseline reflects typical first-time, unsupported applicants — drawn from publicly reported award rates and assessor feedback at UK funders.
The 25–40% supported range mirrors the uplift reported by infrastructure bodies that coach the same cohorts (criminal-justice charities, CIC and social-enterprise networks).
/ Sources we draw on
- National Lottery Community Fund — published award rates for Awards for All and Reaching Communities (~25–35% funded).
- Sport England — Movement Fund reporting and assessor guidance.
- UnLtd, Key Fund and Power to Change — published cohort outcomes for CIC and social-enterprise applicants.
- Clinks & Unlock — sector benchmarks on bid quality uplift for ex-offender-led organisations.
- MoJ Data Lab & Sport England Active Lives — evidence base for outcomes claims (verify the latest figures before submitting).
/ Per-tier success assumptions
- Micro grant (~£500–£2k): 40% with adviser support
- Small grant (~£2k–£10k): 32%
- Medium grant (~£10k–£50k): 25%
- Large grant (~£50k–£150k+): 18%
Larger grants are more competitive, so success rates fall even with strong support.
/ Consultant fee benchmarks
Average UK freelance grant-writer fees: £400 (micro) → £3,500 (large) per application. Source: typical day rates of £400–£900 across NCVO directories and ACEVO-listed consultants, sized to the bid complexity.
/ Planning estimates — not guarantees
The figures shown are indicative ranges to help you plan a realistic pipeline of bids — not a prediction of what you will personally win. Your actual success rate depends on three things we can't model here:
- • Fit — does your project match the funder's exact priorities, geography, beneficiary group and outcome themes for this round?
- • Timing — is the fund open, near a deadline, or oversubscribed this cycle? Many funders pause or shift focus year-to-year.
- • Competition — how many other organisations are applying, and how strong are their bids? Some rounds are 5× more competitive than others.
Use this estimator to plan effort and capacity (e.g. "is it worth spending 8 hours on this bid?"), not as a forecast of guaranteed income. Always verify each funder's current eligibility, deadlines and award rates on their own website before applying, and budget your time as if you may not win any single bid.
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