Drink Responsibly: Using AI and other tools for editing grants

For better or worse, grant applications with character and word counts instead of page limits are the new norm for most online proposals.

And yes, I have been writing grants long enough to remember white-knuckled trips to the post office, emergency toner runs, and printing 990s and audited financials onto reams of murdered trees. No, I am not in favor of more finicky, non-standard narrative limits that can replace time spent in old-school paper grant busywork.  Proposals measured in character counts may speed the read for grant reviewers.

How nice! I love that for them.

But when cutting and pasting answers to multiple questions into a single online box feels like a desktop version of Five Nights at Freddy’s (1 or 2, take your pick), here are a few tips for creating compelling grants that fit those diabolical character counts.

Write to Fit: Check out this recent question and character count:

“Describe your program and how it impacts the community need. How will your program lead to self-sufficiency for participants? Is this a new program? (Maximum Character Count: 3,000)”

For those keeping score at home, this is a four-part question disguised as a single question with a 3,000-character count maximum. According to Microsoft Word’s Word Count feature, that equals about 450 words or the equivalent of one single-spaced page of 11-point font. Unfortunately, no one standard character count or proposal format exists yet—which is another rant for another day. But getting comfortable translating different limits will help you craft a first draft that won’t require excessive editing, which leads to the second tip.

The 20% Rule = Slash and Burn:

If you are more than 20% over the character limit, it’s time to slash and burn whole sentences or paragraphs rather than pruning each sentence word by word. In the previous example, 20% over 3,000 characters translates into slicing 600 characters, or almost the entire second paragraph of this blog post. The 20% Rule is all about saving time in what can quickly become a tedious, frustrating editing process.

Beyond Active—Be Direct:

Writing in the active voice will always save space. Combining active voice with the elimination of common and unnecessary phrases will quickly reduce that character count. “The program is designed so that food boxes will be provided to families able to access the school-based food pantry based on eligibility,” totals 137 characters with spaces. “Eligible families will receive food boxes at the school’s food pantry” covers the same ground in 69 characters with spaces.

And here’s the drink responsibly part…

One more tool worth adding to your grant writing kit: AI. Used thoughtfully, it can save real time on the most tedious parts of the character count battle. But be aware that you must have good, sound data and information in your grant in the first place; that some funders prohibit the use of AI; that tech companies and billionaires are force-feeding us AI; and that overbuilding data centers is wreaking economic havoc in communities across the nation.

1. Paste your overlong draft and the character limit, and ask your AI platform of choice, such as ChatGPT or Claude to reduce your character count to the correct character max (or less). Both are remarkably good at the slash-and-burn step—and unlike you at hour three of editing, they never get frustrated.
2. Microsoft Word’s built-in Editor + Copilot and Google Gemini include editing and word and character count features that can also help trim grant narrative content to fit. Again, you must make sure the original narrative is sound and fully developed; otherwise, it’s the old garbage-in, garbage-out scenario.

And if you’ve made it this far, here’s a bonus tip on me:

Pro tip: Don’t ever enter your answers directly into an online portal. Create a Word document and use the Word Count feature to measure “character counts with spaces.” (Picture a grant writer, a deadline, a squirrel who made questionable life choices near a power line, and a neighborhood-wide blackout. Everything I typed directly into the portal. Gone. Every word. I now draft first in Word like I wear seatbelts—automatically and without discussion.)