AI in action: How we transformed grant tracking with GenAI
At ICF, we don’t just talk about innovation—we make it happen. Fast.
For example: resilience funding. State and local governments (SLGs) need speed and precision to secure funding. Unfortunately, funding opportunities are scattered across different platforms, deadlines move quickly, and details change constantly. Staying on top of the process is manual, labor-intensive, and often frustrating.
To address this challenge, we built a smart, streamlined, and scalable AI solution that grant funding experts and non-technical users can run themselves.
The Situation: Too much information, not enough time
Resilience funding is out there, but finding and tracking it is no small feat for SLGs. Opportunities are spread across countless online sources, updates happen frequently, and missing a single change could mean losing out on critical support.
The Subject: Gen AI-powered grant tracking
The Expert: Nick Lange, Director of Innovation Strategy & AI Services
Our clients needed a better way to track new and changing funding opportunities in real time, filter relevant opportunities based on client needs, and notify the right teams quickly and effectively.
The GenAI Solution: Revolutionary tracking, faster decisions
We innovated quickly with a targeted series of experiments. Using our proprietary AI scaling platform, we produced a solution that:
- Scans relevant funding sources for updates
- Extracts key information
- Notifies the right teams based on their preferences
- Continuously refines results to improve accuracy over time
No complicated chatbots. No unnecessary complexity. Just a smart, streamlined Gen AI system built for real-world needs. In time, it will revolutionize the way ICF supports SLGs’ efforts to map specific project criteria with funding opportunities, so sources match organizational needs and priorities. [Editor’s note: For state and local governments who seek a robust grants management solution that streamlines financial disbursement and beneficiary/subrecipient application tracking, grantTRAX is an ideal option.]
We moved at the speed of innovation, and ended up with a groundbreaking new approach, all powered by GenAI.
What this proves: GenAI can work for you
1. Speed wins: We didn’t have months to build this—we had weeks. And we delivered.
2. GenAI is much more than chatbots: This was a real, practical use case for using GenAI to do the “heavy lifting” that helped teams work smarter—not just faster.
3. Simple can be powerful: We built a small, flexible, and scalable solution that subject-matter experts (SMEs) and non-technical users can run themselves—proving that AI doesn’t have to be a big, expensive tech project to be effective.
4. It just keeps getting better: Matching specific project criteria to funding opportunities using GenAI is just the beginning of helping agencies get the resources they need to meet their goals.
At ICF, we’re looking at AI in different ways, and pioneering GenAI solutions that work now – helping teams cut through the noise and get straight to what matters.
Want to see how GenAI can work for you? Let’s build the future, together.