Generative AI solutions are impressive. You can use GenAI to create written documents that are almost indistinguishable from college-level essays. This feature has international development professionals using ChatGPT to write emails, reports, and even to create high quality proposals.
As more fundraisers learn the power of using GenAI tools for grant writing, I am asked a simple question in many complex ways. Everyone wants to know:
- Will generative AI steal my business development job?
This question has many different parts. Humanitarian assistance leaders wonder if business development costs will drop if they replace their BD teams with GenAI. Nonprofit organization fundraisers want to know if they will lose their jobs to ever-improving GenAI. International development firms worry about local civil society organizations outbidding them for bilateral contracts by using GenAI tools to write better proposals.
Can GenAI Replace Business Development Teams?
I love all the aspects of business development, including qualifying opportunities, researching approaches and writing proposals. I win an average of $20 million a year in new programs when I am tasked with resource mobilization, in addition to my skills in global thought leadership and nationwide project implementation.
I’ve studied multiple GenAI proposal writing tools – from specialized solutions like Grant Assistant to general applications like ChatGPT. Each one has amazing benefits for business development teams, and yet I can say with honestly and certainty:
- Generative AI will NOT steal your business development job.
Proposal writing is a very creative endeavor, best practiced by skilled professionals with deep sectoral knowledge and personal familiarity with the operating context. You are persuading the proposal reviewer that you know the challenges they seek to overcome, you have the best solution for them, and you will be compliant with all their rules.
GenAI can do aspects of each of these three requirements, sometimes quite well. It will make your institutional sales process faster and easeir, but it is inherently a computer program that is guessing the best words or phrases to use. It doesn’t “know” international development or how to sell an idea to a donor.
Tools like ChatGPT are an overeager graduate assistant – at best.
How to Use GenAI in Business Development
GenAI may not be able to replace a business development team, yet you really should be using it now. Think of it as your secret sales weapon. You can use it to make your business development efforts better, while your peers cower in fear of artificial intelligence solutions.
1. Use GenAI As a Thought Partner
You can use ChatGPT and similar applications as amazing business development tools.
I recently used ChatGPT to analyze the USAID Business Forecast based on an organization’s stated priorities. While my test was very basic, it shows how GenAI tools can find new grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements to bid on. They can help you analyze the RFP, structure your bid outline, and tie in your prior programs to the RFP’s requirements. All hallmarks of a great thought partner.
You can experiment with ChatGPT writing your proposal text for you, but I would not use the output verbatim. GenAI is great getting you past the “blank page problem” – the initial analysis of the RFP and seed text that consumes countless hours in proposal development meetings.
Yet, like all other GenAI tools, while the text is good, it will not win a contract. It is a basic first draft. You need a skilled proposal writer to bring in sector- and country-specific knowledge that no AI tool will know, and craft a compelling narrative that will win over the technical evaluation committee.
2. Use GenAI for Compliance
I looked at an RFP once that was over 175 pages long, but only 15 pages listed the core issues and expected outcomes. The other 160 pages were contract requirements, certifications, and representations. We had to build a spreadsheet to identify each one – and found several that conflicted. Obvious questions for the donor’s pre-proposal meeting.
I was amazed at how Grant Assistant improved compliance. I wrote a test proposal and it reviewed each section for its relevance to the proposal and pointed out where I was not complaint with the RFP requirements. This feature alone will be a game-changer for local organizations who often have great ideas, but when they miss an RFP requirement, donors must exclude their proposal from consideration.
Grant Assistant will also modify your team’s crazy ideas to make them (more) compliant. For example, I had fun in the test proposal and wrote about using lasers from space to vaporize opponents of the implementation process – a dream I know you’ve had too. Grant Assistant rightly pointed out that my idea would violate the opponents human rights and it would not include my fanciful idea into its generated text.
3. Use GenAI for Cost Reduction
Generative AI may not be able to write a winning proposal, but it can surely reduce your business development costs and probably increase your win rate.
First, as a thought partner, GenAI can analyze RFPs, produce proposal outlines, and write first drafts of many sections. This alone will save you expensive business development team time. Next, use GenAI to improve your RFP compliance – a boring, thankless job that requires a detailed-orientated digital solution. Finally, use GenAI to review your proposal sections and reduce word count – another task that takes hours of time and cost.
Still you must always review every GenAI output.
When you start using GenAI throughout your proposal development process, like when you introduce any new technology or methodology, you will have challenges and your costs may go up as everyone experiments with the new approach. This is a normal aspect of every change management effort.
Once your teams have fully incorporated GenAI into your business development processes, I expect that you’ll see costs decrease as your teams can produce more, better proposals, and those proposals will win more often. However, please don’t be afraid that GenAI will take your business development job. These tools are good bid support systems, but none of them can create a winning narrative alone.
