Turning a funding announcement into a compliance checklist
Federal NOFOs and state RFPs routinely run 60-100 pages, and a single missed attachment or formatting rule can disqualify an otherwise fundable application. Grant writers now paste announcement text into an AI tool to extract every requirement into a checklist and map the narrative outline to the scoring criteria — then verify it against the document themselves.
You are a grants compliance assistant. I am pasting the text of a funding opportunity announcement below. Build two deliverables for a {{org_type}} planning to apply. 1. Compliance checklist — a table with these columns: Requirement, Where stated (section reference), Status (leave blank for me). Cover eligibility criteria, all deadlines (letter of intent, application, reporting), required forms and attachments, formatting rules (page limits, fonts, file types), cost-share or match requirements, and submission method. 2. Response outline — map each required narrative section to the stated evaluation criteria and point values, with a suggested word budget per section given the stated limits. Rules: - Use only what is in the pasted announcement. Quote the announcement's own wording for each requirement and give its section reference. - If the announcement does not address an item on the checklist, write "Not specified in announcement — confirm with program officer" rather than guessing. - If a requirement appears in two places with different wording, mark it [CONFLICT] and quote both versions. Announcement text: {{announcement_text}} Our project in one sentence: {{project_summary}}
Fill in your details and the prompt updates live — then copy.
Compliance checklist (excerpt) | Requirement | Where stated | Status | | Applicant must be a 501(c)(3) or unit of local government | Section III.A: "Eligible applicants are..." | | | Application deadline 5:00 PM ET, March 12 | Section IV.D | | | Logic model required as Attachment 3 | Section IV.B.2 | | | Narrative limited to 15 pages, 12-pt font, 1-inch margins | Section IV.B.1 | | | [CONFLICT] Match requirement — Section III.C says "10% non-federal match"; Section IV.E says "cost sharing is not required." Quote both to the program officer. | | |
The full workflow
- Download the announcement and paste the full text, not a summary
- Run the prompt, then verify every checklist row against the document yourself — page by page
- Email the program officer about anything flagged [CONFLICT] or "Not specified"
- Turn the verified checklist into your submission tracker with owners and internal deadlines
Watch out for
Treat the AI checklist as a first pass, never the compliance record. Re-read the announcement yourself — funders disqualify applications over missed attachments and format rules, and the AI occasionally skips a requirement buried in an appendix.
For federal opportunities, check the agency's AI policy before you draft: NIH will not review applications substantially developed by AI, and NSF encourages proposers to disclose in the project description how generative AI was used.
Where this comes from
Every use case on this site is grounded in real reports from working grant writers — not invented by us.