Turn ChatGPT into Your Proposal's Toughest Critic

Most proposal teams waste their review cycles wordsmithing sentences when they should be thinking like the evaluator holding the scoring sheet. That disconnect costs points, and points cost contracts.

Here's the shift: use ChatGPT to simulate the donor's technical evaluator during Stage 3 review and quality control. This approach mirrors what Shipley, OST Global, and Bid Solutions have preached for years, but now you can operationalize it at speed.

Think Like the Person with the Red Pen

Start by putting ChatGPT in the evaluator's chair. Ask it to "act as the donor's technical evaluator and score this section against the criteria, noting any weaknesses or missing proof." What you get back is a compliance audit that surfaces gaps before the real reviewer does. Every RFP requirement and scoring criterion gets verified. No points left on the table.

Replace Claims with Evidence

Generic capability statements lose to specific proof. Instead of writing "we supported local governments," prompt ChatGPT to "strengthen this by adding measurable evidence from past projects" and feed it your actual achievements. The result: "Trained 240 officials and achieved 30% efficiency improvement." That's the feature, benefit, and proof structure Shipley built its reputation on, now delivered in seconds.

Make Your Advantage Obvious

Evaluators compare proposals. If yours doesn't explicitly show how you improve on typical competitor methods, you're asking them to guess. Prompt ChatGPT to "rephrase to show how our approach improves on generic training versus tailored capacity-building." This surfaces your unique selling proposition in language tied directly to donor priorities.

Run the Color Review Cycle

Pink Team? Use the evaluator simulation to catch missing criteria. Red Team? Apply proof-point and competitor-contrast prompts to sharpen persuasion. Gold Team? Ask for a final coherence and consistency check across all sections. Each color review gets a matching AI workflow, turning subjective feedback into structured quality control.

Make It Operational

Pair every RFP section with its evaluation criteria in a compliance matrix. Run the AI prompts iteratively at each review stage. Log every change in a version tracker. What used to be art becomes process, and process becomes evidence of quality assurance.

The Reality Check

ChatGPT won't replace your seasoned reviewers, but it can standardize evaluator-level thinking across your entire proposal. Every criterion gets covered. Every claim gets proven. Every advantage gets stated explicitly.

That discipline is what separates winning proposals from the pile that scores just below the cutoff. The tools have changed, but the principle hasn't: write for the evaluator, not for yourself.

Ready to Stop Guessing and Start Winning?

If this approach to proposal review resonates, imagine what else you're leaving on the table. Most people dabble with ChatGPT. Few know how to make it produce donor-ready work consistently.

Join me for a 2-hour interactive workshop: AI for Fundraising — From Someone Who's Done Both

This isn't theory from a tech guru. It's field-tested strategy from someone who's written winning proposals, closed funding deals, and now uses AI to do both faster and better.

You'll walk away with prompts, workflows, and frameworks you can use the next day on real proposals, concept notes, and donor pitches.

When: November 415:00 CET | 10:00 AM EST | 14:00 GMT | 17:00 EAT

Who should join: Fundraisers, business development professionals, and proposal writers who've tested AI tools but haven't cracked the code on consistent, high-quality output.

Reserve your spot now:Sign up here

Seats are limited. If you're serious about turning AI into a competitive advantage, this is where you start.