500% More Grant Proposals During a Funding Crisis

There is a moment in every crisis when the old way of working is no longer good enough. For Global Refuge, that moment came when federal funding for refugee resettlement work disappeared virtually overnight.

After the public-private partnership — a bedrock of the organization during its 85-year history — was suddenly dismantled, the grants team was tasked with securing 100% private funding.

"We were forced to make very painful decisions about closing offices, laying off our talented and very dedicated staff, scaling back certain services at a moment when global displacement was reaching record highs. That's why we worked really hard to adapt and build resilience and find new ways to keep our doors open to those seeking safety."
— Bethany Barkley

Despite the headwinds, the grants team embraced the challenge and chose to double down on their use of Grantable.

A 5th Team Member

When Natalie Ledeboer-Cid, the team's Grants Coordinator, learned about Grantable, the team had questions. Would AI compromise writing quality? Could it understand the nuance of their funder relationships? Was this another tech solution that promised more than it delivered?

"I was a reluctant user of AI. I was an English major. I loved to write. I loved that creative process. [With Grantable] I still get to write and I get to do some of my favorite parts of writing, which are making it shine."
— Hannah Freedberg, Foundation Relations Officer

The reality was clear. "We simply could not put out the volume required with 2.5 frontline fundraisers," Natalie explains. They needed to try something different.

As Grantable became an integral 5th member of the team, staff named her "Aileen" (AI-leen), playfully reflecting the team's culture of collaboration and mantra to "work smarter, not harder."

How It Actually Works

Building on source material: The team uploads past proposals, reports, and organizational documents into Grantable, creating a searchable repository and powerful starting point for new proposals. "We've incorporated our theory of change and our logic models for each program into Grantable, which starts as a great framework for setting up our proposals."

Strategic content adaptation: Grantable handles one of grant writing's most time-consuming challenges — adapting content to different word limits. "Whether it's 'tell us about your mission in 50 words or a thousand words,' I now have a smart library with probably a hundred different ways that I have described our mission in the past."

Alignment and brainstorming: When funders have specific priorities, Grantable helps identify meaningful connections between programs and funder interests — like connecting capital funding requests for aging minivans to health and integration outcomes.

First draft generation: Rather than starting from a blank page, the team uses Grantable to create initial drafts by pulling relevant content from their library and adapting it to new RFPs.

"What took us two hours before to pull a first draft together now takes 20 minutes to get to the first round of editing."

Since integrating Grantable into their workflow, Global Refuge averages five submissions per week while maintaining a 100% partner retention rate over the last two years — and beating national grant award averages by 10 percentage points.

The most important metric might be this: zero team burnout. Despite increasing their output from 19 proposals in 2020 to a projected 130+ in 2025, the grants team has reduced their stress level.

"The ROI for Grantable is tangible proof that I care about work-life balance. There's no way 118 proposals would have kept their mental health intact [without Grantable]."
— Bethany Barkley

The grants team now has time for gathering client stories, building authentic funder relationships, and thinking strategically about long-term sustainability.

"This tool allows us more time to tell our funders the stories of our clients, to walk alongside them day to day. It's opened up a new world where we can go further together."
— Kendra Hernandez, Corporate Giving Specialist