ICTworks

Many nonprofit organizations still lack the resources or support to shape artificial intelligence for public good. OpenAI’s People-First AI Fund aims to change that. This opportunity offers a large scale investment in organizations that are building AI literacy, fostering innovation from the ground up, and creating inclusive economic opportunities.

Sign Up Now for more funding leads.

OpenAI has committed $50 million to support mission-focused and nonprofit organizations working where innovation intersects with public welfare. Yet that is only .01% of OpenAI’s current $500 billion valuation.

The grants are unrestricted and organizations will have flexibility in how to use the funding. However, grant size is limited to 10% of your operating budget.

The Fund welcomes proposals from nonprofits at all stages of AI engagement: whether you’re just exploring possibilities, piloting projects, or actively deploying AI tools in your work. You need to be working in one of these three core areas:

• AI literacy & public understanding — empowering people and communities with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to engage with AI.
• Community innovation — supporting participatory initiatives where communities lead in designing and using AI in areas like health, connectivity, trust, wellbeing.
• Economic opportunity — enabling fair, inclusive approaches leveraging AI, especially for youth, caregivers, and local businesses.

To be eligible, applicants must be US based nonprofits operating wholly within the US, with budgets between $500,000 and $10 million annually.

Apply Now! Deadline: October 8, 2025

This is an exceptional chance for nonprofits to help steer how AI is shaped in society. Putting people first, grounding innovation in community needs, and expanding opportunity in meaningful ways. If your organization works in one of these areas, don’t miss this chance.

Use ChatGPT to Write a Winning Proposal

The actual grant application form that you can find after you register for the proposal, asks for key questions:

1. Please give an overview of your organization including your mission statement. (Max 250 words)
2. What is the urgent community need that your organization seeks to address? How are you meeting that need? How will this new funding be used to support your work? (Max 300 words)
3. What has been the impact of your work over the past 12 months? Please include either (a) how many people you directly served and one measurable change (with its source), or (b) one concrete story that illustrates a change. (Max 300 words)
4. How is your organization currently thinking about AI in relation to your mission and community impact? (Max 300 words)

Do not write this yourself. Use Generative AI to co-write it with you.

Please use ChatGPT to accelerate your proposal writing and increase your chance of success. Here is my proposal created with ChatGPT’s research mode and the following prompt. You can start here, but please use your own organizations’ experience, staffing, and approach as needed.

Use This GenAI Prompt

1. Research the philanthropic goals of OpenAI.
2. Research the Technology Salon organization
3. Use both as guidance to create a winning proposal to OpenAI to promote AI Literacy & Public Understanding
4. Your proposal must answer these required questions. Write responses that have the greatest potential to win funding based on your research of OpenAI. Be sure to note that Technology Salon is already discussing and using AI. We are constantly learning how to improve our work with AI – even writing proposals like this using ChatGPT.
   1. Please give an overview of your organization including your mission statement. (Max 250 words)
   2. What is the urgent community need that your organization seeks to address? How are you meeting that need? How will this new funding be used to support your work? (Max 300 words)
   3. What has been the impact of your work over the past 12 months? Please include either (a) how many people you directly served and one measurable change (with its source), or (b) one concrete story that illustrates a change. (Max 300 words)
   4. How is your organization currently thinking about AI in relation to your mission and community impact? (Max 300 words)
   5. Optional Supplement: Write a 4 page compelling and persuasive agreement that funding Technology Salon would have great impact on the global development community’s understanding of AGI and it’s impacts. Be creative in your response about how Technology Salon can expand and grow to meet the global need for awareness and understanding.

What is Your Role with AI Proposals?

I love using Generative AI tools to create comprehensive proposals quickly and efficiently. Yet, these powerful tools “hallucinate” (a diplomatic way of saying they lie fluently and convincingly) and can quickly go off topic or veer into irrelevant territory.

Sign Up Now for more proposal help.

Your critical role, as the human in control, is to give the AI all the right foundational data to start with: the correct company information, detailed personnel CVs, reliable data sources, and relevant background materials.

Then you need to craft the precise prompt that will result in high-quality output. Finally, you need to meticulously review every single line of the proposal to ensure it accurately represents your organization’s values and capabilities.

You are going to be submitting the final proposal, not the AI. You need to make absolutely sure the proposal is completely correct, regardless of how you created it initially.

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