Jim Cranshaw, founder of Grants AI, which helps charities research and write grants way faster discusses his passion for social change and the challenges faced by the nonprofit sector.
"It's not just AI, but there's a number of technological revolutions that we're kind of really in the middle of or at the start of. And I think that's going to transform a lot about society. And I do think the sector's underprepared for that in a major way.’’ Jim Cranshaw
Takeaways
Nonprofits face challenges such as limited funding, stress, and burnout.
Technology can help nonprofits automate tasks and improve efficiency.
Grants AI aims to simplify the grants application process and reduce costs for charities.
The grants system should be more accessible, transparent, and accountable.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
03:16 Passion for Social Change
06:23 Challenges in the Nonprofit Sector
07:12 Tech and Nonprofit Collaboration
12:31 Introduction to Grants AI
26:28 Tech for Good and the Nonprofit Sector
31:26 Desired Change in the Grants System
34:32 Closing Remarks
Transcript
Alicia Teagle (00:02.594)
Hi everyone, happy Thursday today, just for the Long Bank holiday weekend. My name's Alicia. I'm one of the hosts for the Tech for Good Southwest podcast. And today I am joined by Jim Cranshaw, who is the founder of an amazing startup called Grants AI. And today we're going to dig into a ton of different things from his huge amount of experience in the NFP space.
Grants AI and actually what that does, both from the AI perspective and also funding. And just Tech for Good in general, Jim's always sort of advocated for that. So really excited to dig into a few different areas. So Jim, first of all, thank you so much for coming on today. First of all, yeah, your whole career has been in the non -for -profit and sort of charity space.
Where does this passion come from and why after university did you fall into the industry?
Jim Cranshaw (01:08.462)
I've always been passionate about social change and I've always been attracted by the non -for -profit space. I started off working in homelessness and in fact even before uni I was volunteering in homelessness and I just got a lot of pleasure and joy out of that experience and then I thought I could make a career out of it so after university I went into homelessness and then after a few years...
I started to think that the poverty that you saw every day in homeless hostels was being reproduced by systems and policies. So then I did a masters and went into more advocacy and campaigning. And I worked on that for years. And all, ever since then, ever since 2008, I've been fundraising for the programs that I've done, or I've been fundraising for the wider charities that I've worked for.
And then more recently, since 2016, I've been a consultant to nonprofits. So I've supported them with fundraising, with research, with strategy and evaluation. So yeah, I'm a bit of an all rounder in the nonprofit space. And now I'm doing grants AI on top of that. So yeah, I've got quite a lot of varied hats.
Alicia Teagle (02:32.258)
Awesome, no, it's great to say to have someone with so much experience and to have been in the industry for so long and really loyal to the industry is quite rare to see. So yeah, we definitely want to keep you in it. Where does the actual passion sort of come from?
Jim Cranshaw (02:49.39)
I think both of my parents are just really natural campaigners and they've done a huge amount of campaigning and activism in their lives. So it's just completely natural to me. I think I probably knew about these concepts as a child before I knew about things like going to the dentist or whatever.
Alicia Teagle (03:16.814)
Awesome. No, yeah, when you're brought up with it, again, it's very similar to myself. I come from a family of huge philanthropists. And so it was just bred into me to give back and to try and help people that are not as privileged as myself. So, no, I completely get that. With your work, and I'm so excited to jump into to Grants AI, but in terms of the nonprofit space and also the charity space. Obviously, we've had COVID, we've sort of been four years now since that happened. From your perspective, what sort of state of the industry at the moment? Is there anything that you could really think of or what does the industry, what the challenges at the moment that you're seeing mainly within the NFP space?
Jim Cranshaw (04:09.294)
I think there's a number of challenges. Some of them are eternal and some of them are perhaps new. So the eternal one is that there's never enough money. So there's more demand than supply of funding to the charity sector in this country and in any country, even though we are quite a generous country compared to some others.
So that's a massive problem and that feeds down to, I think also a massive problem of stress over work and burnout. Something like 94 % of charities surveyed said that their workers suffered from stress and burnout in a recent survey. So it's just, that's absolutely huge.
And then some newer sort of trends that are on the horizon is obviously things like climate change are increasing demand for all sorts of things that charities do, whether it's humanitarian aid, everything from humanitarian aid to housing, to poverty alleviation. So that's the kind of structural decline and an increase in demand and an increase in problems. So that's forcing a lot of people in the charity sector to look at how they can transform the way that they do things and the way the whole sector does things, I think, because it's not going away. It's not going away for a long while, at least. Automation and AI is going to be absolutely huge, I think. I think people really don't get it. You know, there's a lot of pioneering people in nonprofits that are very switched on and very keyed in.
Alicia Teagle (05:46.378)
Yeah, yeah.
Jim Cranshaw (05:57.806)
to the news, but less of them are watching the tech news and what's coming out of Silicon Valley and what's coming down the pipe with all of this stuff. And it's not just AI, but there's a number of technological revolutions that we're kind of really in the middle of or at the start of. And I think that's going to transform a lot about society. And I do think the sector's underprepared for that in a major way.
And then I guess we're all facing closures of civic space as well. So it's more hard for NGOs to operate in this country and around the world because of government policies. So that's a new challenge for all of us. So yeah, I'd say those are the big picture things that I see around me.
Alicia Teagle (06:43.17)
Wow, that's a lot. When you and you're the one to know is a lot and it's yeah, when you when you think about it, we just need so much more. We need to use technology better. We need to educate so much more. Just, yes, so much to do. In terms of obviously the challenges. There's I think a real disconnect between tech and the non -for -profit space. How do you think tech and non -for -profit sector could start coming together to hopefully, more than anything, solve the problems and the challenges that you've just mentioned?
Jim Cranshaw (07:26.03)
And there's a lot of different ways, I suppose, at different levels. One of the things that you're obviously involved in is tech for good and connecting tech volunteers with either socially orientated startups or nonprofits. And I've had a great experience with that when I've reached out to you for very different things that I've been involved in, whether it's grassroots organizing or this new Grants AI startup, which will also have a lot of social benefit, but it's a very different kind of thing. And in both cases, you've connected me with the right people at the right time and just having technical people and having coders suddenly come in, it just transforms practice and it can take a matter of days or weeks. And you think, wow, we've changed so much in that time.
So that's one thing that tech can do. Like on a broader level, I think the charity sector is pretty tech -averse generally. I guess it's coming from the same structural features, which is the underfunding of the sector leads to this overstress and overwork culture.
Jim Cranshaw (08:48.334)
And then that makes people feel that they can't really invest in the future at any level of organizations, particularly with small charities, which is the vast majority of charities. So they don't invest in technology, but because they don't invest in technology, they are more stressed because technology could do a lot of the work for them. So it's a bit of a vicious circle.
So there definitely needs to be a lot more in the way of upskilling at every level, at the strategic level, at the operational level, at the grassroots level, at the volunteers level. There's so much work that could be automated away actually within the charity sector, but people just don't have the head space to do it. And it's not like they'd need to go on a one -year tech redevelopment project. could make early wins and easy wins, but generally, a lot of the time they're not.
So that's another thing. And then I think that the biggest picture thing is that, as I said, we're going through these technological revolutions at the moment, one of which being AI, but others around longevity and all sorts of technologies and robotics and so on that are kind of all feeding off each other and expediting progress together. And it's going to change a lot about the world in many different ways. And I don't think charities are necessarily ready for that. And a lot of these technological changes are on a kind of exponential curve.
We don't really understand exponential curves very well as humans. It's quite difficult to understand something that doubles every year or whatever. It's just a spectacular level of growth. And I think that will change a lot of things very fast. So we do need to be there engaging in those policy conversations as well, because otherwise, technological change will be driven by whatever Silicon Valley wants to do.
Alicia Teagle (10:43.458)
Yeah.
Jim Cranshaw (10:59.63)
And we need to get stuck into those debates as soon as possible because the change is happening fast.
Look, in terms of less dig into grants AI, because I think everything that you're saying just leads so perfectly onto the challenges that you're trying to solve. And like you said, I read an article the other day that was actually by Sabata, who's, I think her role is a philanthropy manager at the Quartet Foundation. And she wrote an article for TechSpark where she mentioned that 43 % of charities in the third sector, had no knowledge of AI at board level. And you've just obviously explained, like you said, automation can help solve so many problems.
It can take away so much manual, mundane and long tasks, make everything quicker so that charities can spend more time doing the great work that they're doing sort of on, whether it's community or sort of on outwards, rather than worrying about or using an Excel spreadsheet for all of their volunteers. It's just so much to do but I also get it's a hugely underfunded area and driven a lot by volunteers but you are creating something which is going to hopefully solve some problems so please tell us all about Grants AI and this amazing startup that you're building with some incredible people.
Jim Cranshaw (12:31.63)
Yeah, I'm really excited about this. As a fundraiser myself, I'm basically building this for people like me and basically almost everybody involved with Grants AI comes out of fundraising themselves. So just another statistic, in the UK, the vast majority of charities are under £100 ,000 turnover per year. So the vast majority, so they're classified as small charities. Of those charities they spend an average of 38 % of the grants income that they make on seeking grants. That's an average. So obviously some might be at 60%. 60 % of the grants income is spent on seeking grants. That is crazy.
That is not what anybody thinks that philanthropic income is going on, it should be going into programs, basically. That's what we all want. That's what trusts and foundations want. That's what charities want as well. It's not their fault by any means. And the reasons for this is that there's just, there hasn't been much standardization across what trusts and foundations do. So,
Every single one of them is incredibly bespoke and they all have their own questions and they all do things slightly differently and have different processes. And if you multiply that across 16 ,000 trusts and foundations, it means that charities are spending just a great deal of time just slightly amending this and that for other people. And it's just, it's busy work that isn't really related to their goals, but they have to do it to get the money. And another problem is that there's a vast numbers of trust and foundations that just categorize themselves as general charitable purposes. And they don't have a website. So charities don't really know whether they'll fund them or not. But, you know, general charitable purposes, that sounds good. So let's give it a go. Let's try and apply for that.
And then it turns out that actually they only fund three health charities in Grimsby year in, year out. But there was no indication of that. So 2 ,000 other charities have wasted their person hours in making those applications. It is crazy. Apparently, £900 million a year is spent on grants, fundraising by the sector.
Alicia Teagle (15:25.41)
In the UK? Wow.
Jim Cranshaw (15:26.478)
Yeah, and 726 million of that is spent on unsuccessful applications. So something is going wrong there. A number of things are going wrong. That is a broken system. And by the way, of larger charities, only 16 % of their time is spent on their grants income is spent on seeking the income. So again, you've got a structural discrimination there against smaller charities if you think about it, because they're having to spend more of their resources on getting grants income, vis -a -vis the larger charities. So they're always going to be getting worse off in that regard as well. So it was these kinds of problems and these have been going on for years and there's report after report coming out by sector bodies that says, come on funders, you need to do things differently.
You need to make clear what you want so that charities know which to apply for. You need to standardise your processes so that they don't have to do a slightly different version of the same thing 50 times over. And it was those kind of really big structural long -term problems that we've seen as fundraisers that led us to make grants AI. And when Track GPT came out in 2022, I started using it and I was blown away. It was like a revelatory experience, like religious experience. I just couldn't believe that I was talking to a computer. I thought, wow, this will make my work so much faster. And then I became obsessed with it really ever since then and just watched loads of YouTube about it and learned a lot about it. But it's not just as simple as that. You can't just rock up to the free version of Chat GPT and it'll sort out your fundraising work for you. There's actually a great deal of complexity in what grants fundraisers do. So we've built this app to sort of synthesize that complexity and make it simple for non -technical people who are grants fundraisers to save a ton of time and money of their organizations in grant seeking. And that's what it does.
Jim Cranshaw (17:46.542)
It helps to use AI for both researching grants, like what is the right prospect for my charity, and also writing cases for support, letters of inquiry, and application forms.
Alicia Teagle (18:02.53)
Cool. Incredible. Where are you at? I think it's a game changer. I've never heard anything like it and I've been in tech for 11 years and also within the Tech for Good and the non -profit and the charity space as well. And I know it's just gonna add so much value, especially to those smaller organizations. But you never know where it could go, right? So where are you on the journey at the moment? Is it live? Yeah, where are you at?
Jim Cranshaw (18:32.878)
Yeah, when this goes out, I think it will be broadly available to all at the moment, which is listeners two months in the past. We are just in the beta testing. So I put out like a one line email to a trust funding list that I'm on just saying, oh, by the way, we're working on a AI grants fundraising app, if anybody wants to beta test, let me know. And then immediately within hours got flooded by people wanting to be on the beta testing. So I had to write back to the list saying we're full up now, we can't do any more beta tests. I think it is that kind of idea that's got that kind of electricity and that kind of velocity to it, because it's so central to what charities need. We all need money and we're all overworked.
So if we can deal with this, it will be very widely adopted because it's just something we all need. It's not a nice to have, it's a need to have basically.
Alicia Teagle (19:44.866)
Awesome. Who is the team who you're building this with?
Jim Cranshaw (19:50.168)
So my colleague, Francis Hill from the consultancy, Flourish Nonprofits that I worked for, it's in my, one of my other hats. And a guy called Stuart, who is like a finance specialist for nonprofits. And you actually connected us with a full stack developer to Devante who's just advised us and just been absolutely incredible and had a transformative effect within one week, I would say, of connecting to him. And then we have a front end UX designer called Olly. So that's it basically. There's just the five of us at the moment building it together. Frances in particular is really not techie and she you know, it's the voice of the non -technical person on the team to say, everything should just be incredibly simple. Don't assume that people even know what Chat GPT is or whatever. Keep it really, really simple. So that's what we're trying to achieve.
Alicia Teagle (20:58.658)
Going off topic, what's like the average age within the charities that you know at all? Because that is one thing and probably an assumption and most people that I've spoken to in terms of volunteers or people who actually have started these charities or run these charities are people who are retired and maybe of the older generation. And obviously they, I think I'm a 1990 baby. I think I was the last generation to grow up without a phone. And so, everyone sort of after me has grown up with technology and say a lot of people within the charity sector haven't some of them might not even have an iPhone or have ever even used one. But you know the average age I'm just curious whether you know.
Jim Cranshaw (21:45.134)
I don't know a number, but I totally take your point. On boards, there's probably a lot of older people. That's a fact. And then within grants fundraising, I think the age is likely to be higher than other professions within the charity. Yeah, I get that impression, but that's a bit speculative. Yeah.
Alicia Teagle (22:14.626)
Yeah, no, it's just curious. How is Grant's day? I like getting funding.
Jim Cranshaw (22:20.6)
Well, so far we have just bootstrapped it entirely ourselves. And so basically we all sort of split the costs of getting a development agency to build it for us. And they've been absolutely fantastic and they built this beta stage app. And by that, I mean, it's not, we know it's a work in progress and we want to get people's impressions and find out whether it works for them, whether it fits into their workflow, whether it needs to be amended or improved or refined. And so we're totally aware that an app is always a work in progress. And so that's kind of how we've got to this point. And then at the next point, I think we're not particularly attracted by getting in a large amount of investment because I think that that really changed the dynamic and we are very motivated by making it cheaply available to small charities, which is the vast majority of charities. So you'll find that like the price that we're planning to charge is considerably less than what people are paying for funding databases, even though our app also has that funding database as just one of the many things that it does within it. And so we're trying to keep it cheap for small charities.
Jim Cranshaw (23:45.614)
If we get a large amount of investment in, that person might want to drive up the prices or whatever. So we're trying to keep it close to the ground and keep it fair and keep it a fair exchange. You can't make it free because it actually costs money every time you use AI. You know this, but your listeners might not all know that every single time you talk to ChapGPT, it has a cost.
But we do need some more investment to get us to the next stage, I think. So we're kind of looking for some angel investors so that we can market it, get it out there, and make the feature enhancements that the beta testers want us to make.
Alicia Teagle (24:27.362)
I'll put this in the notes, but how can angel investors get in touch with you, Jim?
Jim Cranshaw (24:35.142)
My email address is Jim@grantsai.co.uk. I would love to start conversations with people that's at exactly that point where I just have my head down in the building for so long and now I'm really quite excited about the product but it still has a little way to go and also we've pretty much spent all the money in our own pockets. So we're getting in touch with me there.
Alicia Teagle (25:01.474)
Cool, awesome, we'll definitely share that. Because I think what I love what you say in is about sticking true to your values and your ethics as a business. I think, like you said, if you went down maybe the VC route or in terms of investment, like you said, they're in it to make money and make a profit and then so you want and I'm not saying that every VC is bad. By the way, we're speaking to some incredible ones on the podcast this season who are really passionate about Tech for Good and what that means.
But like you said, if you're creating something and then making it completely inaccessible to because of costs, it's yeah, you've got to weigh that up. So I love that you're being really strict with that. And I think there's yeah, going down the angel route is awesome. And I'm sure you're going to get some really cool people. I will make sure that. Shared far and wide.
Jim Cranshaw (25:53.742)
Oh, thank you, Felicia. Yeah, thanks. That's very much appreciated.
Alicia Teagle (25:58.028)
Awesome. So in terms of what's next for you, I mean, what does tech for good mean to you, Gemma? I think we've probably answered it in this because you can just tell that it's so true, like you're so honest with it and transparent and you know that it's very genuine. There's a lot of greenwashing that goes on in this world and I can just tell that this is your passion. But what does it really mean to you?
Jim Cranshaw (26:28.59)
Yeah, I think I would say that a similar thing that operates at multiple levels. Charities can gain access to tech volunteers if they want to. Tech for Good Southwest is not even the only provider of that. You know, there are many and charities should do that because these people will come in and take work off your plate. That is a no -brainer. And...
then, yeah, and in fact, I was listening to a podcast with a consultant that does AI consultancy for charities. And she goes in and she says, start making a list of all the annoying things you don't like about your job. And let's try and figure out how to automate them. That's an attractive proposition, isn't it? And that's the kind of thing that techies can do for charities. And so,
Alicia Teagle (27:19.202)
Okay.
Yeah, definitely.
Jim Cranshaw (27:26.99)
Yeah, doing it in a voluntary capacity is a bit of a no -brainer, really. Yeah, but also I just feel that, yeah, tech is quite an oligarchic industry with some extremely big players. Just for example, I understand that stability AI may now be bought by Microsoft, so that's one less major tech giant. How many are there going to be at the end of...
all of this change, two or three tech companies that do AI for the whole world. That's a lot of power. And that's a real concern. And what they do needs to be subject to democratic scrutiny and engagement. And the voices of nonprofits need to be really risen up and they need to engage in that because it is literally pertinent to every single thing they do. So I think on the biggest scale, nonprofits need to consider technological development and where that's going and engage in those conversations. And then, yeah, I guess I'll skip to that. But like I said before, the middle scale is get strategic about it. Start experimenting with AI in your organisation now.
For example, if you're a medium sized charity, maybe you have a turnover of 500 ,000 pounds or something like that, you have enough money to get a few advanced chat GBT monthly subscriptions, let's say, at $20 a pop. And then you have to pay per use as well on top of that. I'm a heavy user and I can spend up to $50 a month.
But so much of my work is done for me by doing that. For me, I would never want to go back. So I think charities should basically open things up to their staff and say, here's the technology, we've got a subscription. Why don't you just play with it, get to know it, see what it can do for you and see where it can fit into your workflows and then we'll institutionalize it over time. They obviously need to consider things like data security, which is a really big concern with chat GPT and things like that. But there's answers to all these things and there's complexities to all these things. But generally, they should start experimenting with it if they want to get agrip on this stress epidemic, overwork epidemic, I think.
Alicia Teagle (30:25.474)
What an answer, Jim. That was epic. And I think one thing that I want to do, and I am going to plug Technology Volunteers here because tech volunteers helped Jim and grants AI with their advisor, tech advisor. And I think we did it in like a couple of days, honestly. There was so much interest in what Jim's building. But one thing that I really want to do with technology volunteers is get some AI advisors to help these charities with that journey.
So if you're listening and that's something of interest, whether you're a charity, then get in touch. Equally, if you're someone with a ton of AI experience and want to help the non -for -profit third sector space with some advice when it comes to AI, then yeah, keep an eye out because it's something that I'm working on. Jim, in terms of, yeah, final question.
What change would you like to see the most? And again, I think we've definitely covered it. But you've said so much good stuff, but what's the, yeah, what's that one thing that you really want to change?
Jim Cranshaw (31:33.262)
Well, I mean, yeah, I've got so many different hats and, you know, I'm a grassroots organizer and I'm also now doing this grants AI startup and then I'm a consultant. And I think the different hats kind of want different things at different levels for the world. The grassroots organizing I'm doing is to try and get a higher minimum wage in this country, for example. But with regards to trusts and foundations as a system, as an ecology,
The change I would like to see is I would like to see that system cost almost nothing for charities to access it and to seek grants. And I want it to be reliable and transparent and accountable to charities. And, you know, specifically, every trust should have a website in this day and age. It doesn't cost any money, really. What, 10 pounds a month? It just will help charities not waste their time applying to your trust. And every trust should have an auto -reply acknowledgement to every charity that seeks funding from them, telling them the process. That doesn't cost anything. That is just basic minimum professional standards in this day and age. And also forms should be proportional to the benefit to charities. So don't have a 70 -page form for a 500 -pound grant because the charity is going to spend more money applying for it than they get. So all of these things, kind of, trusts could do these things. And as a group, they could standardise their processes more. But I don't think they will because they haven't. And they've been told this for very many years and even decades now. So our app is an attempt to do that from the charity's side.
It's kind of to get rid of that busy work by doing a bit of that standardization and data processing for charities, because the trusts are not likely to come up with that for themselves. So, for example, we want to get every single application form in the country within our database. And then we want our database to be able to know when you've already filled out that question somewhere else so that you don't have to do it again.
Jim Cranshaw (33:54.666)
So they just really attack that with technology and attack that inefficiency. And I honestly think we can drive down the costs of seeking grants by at least 50 % through intelligent use of technology. So I'm really excited by that prospect because that's 50 % that goes into social programs.
So it's not just Uber rocking in and just profiting somebody. That 50 % goes into charitable work. So it benefits the whole of society.
Alicia Teagle (34:32.674)
A round of applause for all the good stuff. I just love speaking to someone who's so passionate and just knows so much and I know is gonna make like real impact and genuine change by all of the work that you're doing. So I said, yeah, Grants AI is gonna be incredible. Any investors, please get in touch with Jim.
This episode is being recorded, so just before the Easter bank holiday weekend, but is unlikely to be live until May time because, yeah, Grants AI isn't going live and we need to keep it a little top secret for now. But when it is live, yeah, please get in touch with Jim to, yeah, whether you're a charity or equally, if you want to help out, I'm sure Jim's open to anyone who wants to lend their hands to help in support building and scale it even further. Jim, before I go, is there anything else that you want to say or you want to add?
Jim Cranshaw (35:34.126)
No, that was great. Thank you so much, Alicia. It's been a great conversation. I've really enjoyed it. I think it's my first podcast interview. So yeah, thanks for making it really easy and enjoyable.
Alicia Teagle (35:45.634)
No, of course. Thanks everyone for listening and we'll be back very soon.