How long does it take to go from “we just signed up” to “we have a real application draft in front of us”? In Great Grants, the honest answer is: about one working session.

Step 1: Create your account

Go to app.greatgrants.ai/create-account and sign up with either Google (one click, no password to manage) or email and password.

If you sign up with email and password, Great Grants sends a verification message to your inbox. Verify promptly — unverified accounts become restricted after the allowed window. If you don’t see the email, check spam.

Everything in Great Grants happens inside an organization — that’s what keeps your grants, profile, and applications together and separate from everyone else’s. During sign-up you’ll either create your organization (the first person in becomes its administrator) or accept an invitation a teammate sent you. Either way, you land in your organization’s workspace, ready to build.

Step 2: Complete your Organization Profile

Before you search for anything, give the platform something to work with. Your Organization Profile — six tabs covering legal info, organization details, focus areas, key contacts, financial readiness, and programs & policies — powers both grant matching and application drafting.

You don’t need 100% completion to get started, but prioritize three fields immediately: your mission statement, focus areas, and headquarters location. These have the biggest impact on how relevant your search results will be. (Full walkthrough: How to Complete the Organization Profile Properly.)

Step 3: Set up at least one program

A program is a reusable record of a specific initiative you run — and it’s the fuel for high-quality drafts. The AI draws on program detail to answer application questions, and you need at least one complete program to draft applications with medium-to-high quality.

Click My Programs → Create New Program, and fill in the title, a detailed summary (need, activities, who’s served, outcomes), past documents, future planning documents, people served, and location. Attach your best material — past applications and reports are gold. (Full guide: How to Build a Great Program Record.)

This is the step new users are most tempted to skip. Don’t. Ten minutes here is the difference between a first draft that sounds like your organization and one that sounds like anyone’s.

Step 4: Search for grants

Click Search and describe what you’re looking for in plain language — “youth mentoring grants under $50k,” “food security programs for seniors.” No special keywords needed. Results are tailored using your profile, and each carries an AI relevance indication to help you prioritize.

From the results you can open any grant to see its full details — eligibility, deadline, funding amount, funder, description — save it for later, or start an application right away. Saved grants live on the Saved Grants page along with your recently viewed grants, shared with your teammates.

Before applying, sanity-check three things on the grant detail page: you’re eligible, the deadline is workable, and the award justifies the effort.

Step 5: Start the application and let the AI draft

From the grant’s detail page (or from a saved grant), click Start / Apply. Here’s what happens next: Great Grants reads the grant’s official documents, breaks the application into its actual sections and questions, and pre-fills what it can using your Organization Profile and the program you select.

Generating the first draft happens in the background and can take a moment — you can leave the page and come back. Your application will be waiting in the Applications list (app.greatgrants.ai/applications), which shows every application with its status (active/in progress, submitted, or archived), the grant name, due date, funding amount, and when it was last updated.

Step 6: Review, edit, and make it yours

Open the application and work through it field by field. For each one you can:

1. Review the AI draft. Drafted fields are clearly marked. Read the suggestion before anything else.
2. Accept the draft (the ✓ action) when it’s good as-is — this marks the field as your own, no longer a draft.
3. Edit it or write your own to refine wording or add specifics.
4. Upload supporting documents where the application calls for attachments.
5. Link a program so the draft reflects the right initiative’s detail.

Your work auto-saves as you go (there’s also a manual Save button if you like certainty).

One principle to carry through this step: the AI gives you a strong first draft, but you are always the author. Review every field. Add the specifics only your organization knows. Verify every number and claim before it goes to a funder. Reviewers score what’s on the page — make sure the page is accurate and unmistakably yours.

If the draft feels thin or generic, that’s a signal your program record needs more detail — enrich the program summary and documents, then start the application again.

Step 7: Export, submit, or both

When the application is complete, you have options:

• Export to PDF or Word at any time. This is useful for internal review, board sign-off, or — importantly — for funders that require submission through their own portal. Many do; in that case, Great Grants is where you build the application, and the funder’s portal is where you deliver it.
• Submit in the platform when you’re done. Submitting marks the application as submitted and freezes the form so it can’t be changed accidentally. (If you need to change a submitted application, contact support.)
• Archive applications you’re no longer pursuing to keep your list tidy.

One caution from the world of federal grants that applies everywhere: never wait until deadline day. Technical issues, missing attachments, and last-minute questions are all survivable — 48 hours early. Aim to finish with time to spare.

First-session mistakes to avoid

• Skipping straight to search. Without a profile, results are generic and the session feels discouraging. Profile first, always.
• Creating a program with a two-sentence summary. A placeholder program produces placeholder drafts. If time is short, do one program well rather than three thinly.
• Accepting AI drafts without reading them. The ✓ action means “this is mine now.” Make sure it’s true before you click it.
• Submitting in-platform when the funder requires their own portal. Check the grant’s submission instructions; when a funder mandates their portal, export to PDF or Word and deliver it there.

The complete journey, recapped

1. Create your account and verify your email.
2. Set up your organization (or join by invitation).
3. Complete your profile — mission, focus areas, and location first.
4. Create one complete program with a rich summary and documents.
5. Search in plain language and vet the results.
6. Start an application and let the AI generate the first draft.
7. Review every field, accept or edit, attach documents.
8. Export or submit — ahead of the deadline.

The first pass through these steps takes a single focused session, and most of it (profile, programs) is one-time setup. From your second application on, the path shortens to: search, start, review, submit. That’s the point of the platform — the blank page is gone, and your time goes into making a good draft great instead of starting from nothing.

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