The problem
Small charities live on grants, and finding the right funders takes hours: who funds this kind of work in this area, what they fund, how much and when they close. If a part-time fundraiser spends 6 hours a month searching funder websites and lists, some of it on funds that have already closed, that's most of a working day gone before any application is written.
What the AI does
Perplexity Pro's Deep Research ($17, about $17£13€15A$25C$24 a month billed annually) produces a longer report with inline citations. The fundraiser describes the work, the people it helps and the area, and asks for trusts and funders that match, with each one's priorities, typical grant size and deadline, linking to the funder's own pages. The fundraiser opens each funder's site, checks eligibility and dates, and looks at past grants in the funder's published accounts on the Charity Commission register before adding good matches to the funding tracker. The application itself is written and checked in the usual way.
A worked example
A small youth charity in Hull has a fundraiser working 3 days a week. Each month the fundraiser runs a Perplexity Pro research question for the next quarter's projects and checks every funder before adding it to the tracker.
Before
About 6 hours a month finding and checking funders
After
About 2.5 hours, including checking each funder's own site
What it's worth
About $84£63€75A$121C$118 a month in fundraiser time saved, against about $17£13€15A$25C$24 for Perplexity Pro. 3.5 hours saved a month, at an assumed $24£18€21A$35C$34 an hour.
How to set it up
- Sign up for Perplexity Pro, $17 (about $17£13€15A$25C$24) a month billed annually.
- Describe the work, the people it helps, the area and the amount needed, and ask for funders with their priorities, grant sizes and deadlines, linked to their own pages.
- Open each funder's site and check eligibility, whether the fund is open and the closing date.
- Look at the funder's past grants in its published accounts on the Charity Commission register before applying.
- Add the good matches and their deadlines to the charity's funding tracker.
What goes wrong
- Funds close, change priorities or move to invitation only. An answer can cite last year's page; the funder's current page decides.
- Perplexity only sees public pages, so subscription funding databases aren't included.
- Keep beneficiaries' details and confidential plans out of a personal plan; a description of the work is enough.
- The free plan gives cited answers but limited Deep Research, so a full monthly report needs Pro.