What Grant Scout is, and what it isn't
Grant Scout is a research assistant inside the board's private admin area, under Grants → Scouting. It uses Google's Gemini to look for grant programs the Foundation might be eligible for and hasn't recorded yet. A board member then checks each result, which the site calls a find, before it joins the board's scouting list.
What it isn't matters just as much. It isn't a source of truth, and its score isn't the score of record. It never submits anything. Nothing it produces appears on the public site. Every find has to be checked against its sources before anyone relies on it, and the whole design is built around that check.
It starts with a brief
AI research is only as good as what you tell it. So the first thing the site does is put together a brief: everything Gemini is told about the Foundation.
- The board's own description. A written brief of up to 20,000 characters that the board edits. It covers who the Foundation is, what it does and where, typical program costs ($1,500 to $15,000), what it's looking for this year, and what it never funds: the police department's normal operations or replacing the City's budget, which the bylaws forbid, and cash to individuals.
- An optional focus for the run, such as "Shop with a Cop funders in King County."
- Facts the site adds fresh every run: the published initiatives, the active donation funds, the grant-readiness checklist (what's ready, such as the IRS letter and W-9), the latest yearly outcome figure for each program, and four basic facts about the Foundation (incorporation date, state, UBI number, and fiscal year end).
- A list of what not to bring back. Every funder and program already recorded, with its status and reason, including about 45 funders the board has set aside as "do not research"; every grant already in the pipeline; and every find dismissed in the last two years.
That last list is where having everything on one platform pays off. The board's own records tell Grant Scout what to skip, so a run isn't spent rediscovering funders the board already knows about.
Before anything is sent, a brief page shows exactly what will go to Gemini, section by section, with an estimate of its size.
Two ways to run the research
Paste a report (available today). A board member copies the brief, runs it as Deep Research in the Gemini app under the Foundation's Google for Nonprofits license, and pastes the report back into the site. The research usually takes 5 to 20 minutes. Having the site read the report costs about one cent.
Scout now (built, but switched off). The site can also start Google's Deep Research agent itself and check on its progress whenever someone has the run page open. A run can be cancelled while it's researching, and it's stopped after 75 minutes. Each run costs about $1 to $3, so it counts against a monthly cap the board sets, anywhere from 1 to 10 runs, with a default of 4. Pasted reports never count against the cap. This option stays hidden until the site owner sets it up; until then, pasting is the only way in.
Only one run can be open at a time.
From report to a list of finds
The site turns the report into up to 25 structured finds. A find with no funder or program name is dropped, and the site counts how many were dropped. If a report can't be read after three tries, the run fails, but the report is kept so someone can read it.
Each find is then compared with what the board has already recorded and labeled one of four ways: New to us, Funder already recorded, Program already recorded, or Dismissed before (in the last two years), with a link to the matching record.
A find is a full research note, not a one-line lead. It includes:
- the funder (name, kind, and website) and the program (name, page, and what it funds)
- why it fits the Foundation's programs
- an eligibility verdict (eligible, doubtful, or not eligible) with the tests behind it
- geography and award size
- how often it opens and the dates found, including whether the source actually stated the year
- what applying requires, and the obligations if awarded
- a public contact: a role and a page, never a person's name
- facts to confirm
- a draft score with reasons, and Gemini's confidence
- the sources it cited, as links
The sources and the facts to confirm are there for the reviewer. They're how a board member checks a find instead of taking it on trust.
A score that knows its place
Each find gets a draft score on six criteria, each rated 0 to 3: eligibility, program fit, place, award fit, readiness, and odds. The total, out of 18, is shown on a 0 to 100 scale. Eligibility comes first: a 0 on eligibility makes the whole score 0, and a 1 caps it at 44. The bands are Strong (70 or more), Possible (45 to 69), and Long shot (under 45).
An AI score is always labeled "Draft (AI)," and a board member's own score always wins over it.
A person decides every find
A board member accepts or dismisses each find. The run closes once every find has been decided.
Accepting a find adds it to the scouting list under the reviewer's name. The reviewer chooses which funder it belongs to: the one it matched, another existing funder, or a new funder made from the find. For a new funder, only the name, kind, and website are copied; contact details are never copied from the AI. The program is marked "Suggested by AI," its dates are marked unconfirmed, and it carries the Draft (AI) score. A date with no stated year is set to this year or next, marked "Expected," and treated as repeating yearly. From then on it's an ordinary program on the scouting list, which the board can verify, rescore, or start an application from.
Dismissing a find requires a short reason, because that reason is what the next run is told. The reviewer can also set the program aside for good, with a reason such as weak fit, invitation only, ineligible, or ended, so it's never researched again. A plain dismissal is remembered for two years.
Who can do what
- Any board officer, or a global administrator, can start a run, accept or dismiss finds, and cancel a run that's still researching.
- The Treasurer, the President, Vice President, or Secretary, or a global administrator, can edit the brief and the monthly cap.
- Board members without an office, and site administrators, can read everything but change nothing.
- Grant volunteers can't see Grant Scout at all.
What Google sees, and what it never sees
- Never sent to Google: donors, members, residents, board members' names, email addresses, gift amounts, or anything from expenses, the board room, or the inbox. The brief describes the organization, never people.
- No free tier. When the site calls Gemini itself, it goes through a paid Google Cloud project, and under those terms Google doesn't use what's sent to improve its models. The free tier is never used.
- Two different agreements. The Foundation's Google for Nonprofits license covers the Gemini app, and so the pasted-report route. It doesn't cover the site's own calls to Gemini; those run under the paid Google Cloud terms.
- Kept inside the admin area. Reports and finds never appear on the public site, in site search, in the email contact system, or in the sign-in system.
- How long things are kept. A run's report and prompt are to be blanked after two years, while the finds and decisions stay. Google keeps its own copy of a Scout now task for 55 days, or 7 if the site owner sets that. A pasted report stays in the board member's own Gemini chat history.
It helps with applications too
Grant applications are written on the site, and the same brief helps in two places. Neither searches the web or counts against the monthly cap, and each costs a fraction of a cent.
- Read the funder's form. The grant's owner pastes the form's text or uploads its PDF (up to 15 MB). Gemini proposes the questions with their word or character limits, up to 60 of them, and the owner checks them before anything is saved.
- Draft this answer. Gemini writes a first draft of one answer from the brief's facts, aiming for about 90% of the limit and flagging anything the facts don't support as [confirm: …]. A person always edits it before marking it ready, and the site records that the answer started as an AI draft.
Why it's built this way
Grant Scout assumes Gemini will sometimes be wrong. That's why dates arrive unconfirmed, why a year the source didn't state is marked "Expected," why contact details are never copied, why the score is labeled a draft, and why nothing reaches the board's list until a person has decided it. Gemini does the reading. The board does the judging.
If your board is looking for grants with a spreadsheet and a search engine, a free assessment will tell you plainly what a tool like this would and wouldn't change.