FundCore — the AI grants desk for UK charities
FundCore learns your charity, finds the right trusts, writes your applications, and keeps track of everything after you hit send. Built entirely around grants — not a fundraising platform with a grants feature bolted on. A trusts fundraiser costs £28,000–35,000 a year; this is £500 a month.
Built for UK charities with roughly £500k–£5m in annual income and no dedicated trusts fundraiser — where the CEO or Director is often writing applications themselves, late at night.
The four things it does
Four steps, following the way great grants work. Each step builds on the last — and every application makes the next one better. Theo, Iris and Nell are the officers credited for the work inside each stage.
- 1. Your organisation context. Give FundCore your website and it builds an initial picture of your charity — what you do, who you help and where you work — for you to review and correct. Upload the documents that know your organisation best: pitch decks, impact reports, strategies and past applications. Anything you correct becomes the source of truth for future work. FundCore uses the web to understand what you do — but never to invent how much you do. Every figure comes from your own records. Theo, Case & Evidence Officer.
- 2. Your case for support. Build your case for support once, then reuse it across applications. FundCore structures it around the ten questions funders ask most often, with a case for each project. FundCore drafts an answer to every question, so you are refining a starting point rather than staring at a blank box. If a figure is missing, FundCore asks the person most likely to know — usually the programme lead — and follows up once. A consultant charges £2,000–5,000 for this work; it is included. Theo.
- 3. Find the right trusts and apply.
One action: find four trusts for this month. Matching runs on what you do, who you help and where you work — geography being the filter that rules out most of a national list, since most UK trusts fund one area only. Your own watchlist and lapsed funders come first, then 360Giving and the Charity Commission register.
Each trust comes with the reasoning behind the match and any eligibility concerns flagged. Your four recommendations stay with you for the month, and FundCore never repeats trusts from previous months.
When you're ready to apply, paste in the funder's form — from their portal or Word document — and FundCore builds the application around their questions, wording and word limits. Every figure includes a source, and the attachment checklist is built in. UK trusts don't use a standard application system, so FundCore works with the forms they actually use — portals, Word documents and PDFs.
You don't need to connect your CRM before you start. Live CRM data can simply be added to your applications when you need it. Iris, Grants Officer.
- 4. Tracking submissions. The work doesn't stop when you hit “send”. FundCore tracks everything that happens afterwards: chasing acknowledgements, recording decisions, scheduling thank-yous and reports, and asking for feedback when an application is declined. Review everything in one weekly approval queue. Nell, Submissions Officer.
Every application makes FundCore better. Wins, declines, funder feedback and what your programme actually delivered all feed back into your evidence library. Over time, FundCore builds a richer picture of what works — so your third round of applications is better informed than your first. Tools that write from a blank page every time cannot do that.
One source of truth. Every application tailored to the funder.
FundCore builds your core grant materials in one place: your case for support, evidence library, budget and essential charity information — charity number, trustees, filed accounts, safeguarding and financial policies.
When you apply to a specific funder, FundCore adapts that material to their questions, word limits, eligibility requirements and attachment list.
You build your case once. FundCore reshapes it for every funder.
Your applications sound like you
FundCore doesn't write from generic charity language. It learns from the material your organisation has already created. First, your own documents — the pitch deck, the impact report, the strategy. A deck's speaker notes are often the most useful thing in it, because that is where the argument lives rather than the headline. Second, your past applications: they show FundCore how your organisation actually writes when it asks for money. Successful applications can be prioritised as examples of your voice and approach — never as a source for outdated figures. You can mark which ones won at any time, not just when you upload them, because nobody knows the outcome on the day they file a bid. Third, your funder watchlist: the trusts you already know, including the ones that funded you before your CRM existed. Those are checked before anything found automatically.
You stay in control
- Nothing is sent without human approval. Research, drafting and summarising happen automatically, while emails, CRM updates and reports wait for you to approve them. Deleting anything can never be automated.
- Every claim shows its working. Every figure includes a source, including figures provided directly by your team. If FundCore doesn't know something, it says so — it never fills the gap with a guess.
- We never send from your mailbox. The Gmail and Microsoft 365 connections are read-only. Approved emails leave from your own verified domain, with your signature and your reply-to.
- No external wealth screening. Ever. FundCore only works with the data you provide and approved public sources. CRM updates are limited to an approved set of activities and always require approval. Your data is never used to train AI models or sold.
Pricing
One product. One price. No tiers. No per-seat pricing. No charges for how much you write. No setup fee. 12-month minimum term, or annual in advance. The only limit is four new applications per month, with unused applications rolling over up to 48 per year. Reworking an application you've already started is unlimited.
- FundCore — £500/month, or £5,500/year with one month free.
- Everything included: organisation context and document upload, your case for support, four matched trusts a month, application drafting, submission tracking to the thank-you, Salesforce, NPSP or Beacon data (or CSV from anything else), the approval queue with source citations, overnight runs, and an outcome ledger of what was applied for and what was won.
- What you keep: any application's answers download as a file with their sources attached, and the whole tracker downloads as a spreadsheet — including on a cancelled account.
- One £10,000 grant can cover almost two years of FundCore.
- Founding partners: three months free in exchange for weekly feedback, a case study and permission to display your logo. The standard price remains £500/month.
At £500/month, FundCore starts with a conversation rather than a card form.
Frequently asked questions
- Does it actually submit the application?
- Not directly. UK trusts use a mix of portals, Word documents, PDFs and email rather than one standard application system. You give FundCore the funder's form, and it fills it in using their questions, wording and word limits. You then submit it yourself. From there, FundCore takes over the follow-up: acknowledgements, decisions, thank-yous, reports and feedback.
- What if we don't have a case for support?
- That's normal. FundCore first learns about your charity from your website and existing documents, then builds your case for support from what you can actually evidence.
- How does FundCore learn about our charity?
- Start by giving it your website. FundCore reads your site and relevant public information, then creates a profile for you to review. You can then upload the documents that know your organisation best.
- How does it find trusts?
- One action: find four trusts for this month, matched on what you do, who you help and where you work. Your own watchlist and lapsed funders first, then 360Giving and the Charity Commission register. Reasoning shown on each, previous months never repeated.
- Will it send anything without me?
- No. Everything outward-facing waits in your approval queue with its sources attached.
- How does email sending work?
- From your own verified sending domain, added with a few DNS records at onboarding. The mailbox connection itself stays read-only.
- Which systems do you connect to?
- Salesforce including NPSP, and Beacon, plus CSV and Excel import from any other CRM. Read-only Gmail and Microsoft 365, Google Drive and SharePoint. Direct file upload for PDF, PowerPoint, Word and text. And 360Giving and the Charity Commission register for discovery.
- Is our data secure?
- Encrypted in transit and at rest, never sold, never used to train AI models. Larger organisations can bring their own model provider key.
Ready to see what FundCore could find?
Book a 30-minute call. We'll look at what you're raising for, which trusts you're already approaching, and whether FundCore is a good fit for your charity. If it isn't, we'll tell you.
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