Free framework
The grant go/no-go decision framework.
A repeatable way to decide whether an opportunity is worth pursuing—before your team spends weeks writing. Six dimensions, five verdicts, and a documented owner. Use it by hand, in a spreadsheet, or as the structure behind an AI-assisted assessment.
Definition
What is a grant go/no-go decision?
A go/no-go decision is a structured judgment about whether to commit capacity to a specific grant application, made before writing begins. It assesses six dimensions—eligibility, mission alignment, capacity fit, competitive position, strategic value, and evidence confidence—and ends in a documented verdict with a named owner.
The purpose is not to predict an award. No framework can do that. The purpose is to make the basis of the decision visible, so it can be challenged, corrected, and revisited when facts change.
Why it matters
Every weak pursuit consumes capacity that could have strengthened a better one.
Teams often begin writing because a deadline is close, a keyword matched, or someone forwarded a notice. The problems—ineligibility, a mismatch with the funder's real priorities, a missing partner or match, a reporting burden beyond capacity—surface later, after the largest investment of time has already been made.
The framework
Six dimensions to score before you write.
Eligibility is a threshold, not a weight. If it fails, stop. The remaining five carry roughly equal weight—adjust to your own funding environment, but decide the weighting before you score, not after.
Eligibility
ThresholdCan the organization legally and practically apply?
Applicant type, geography, registration, size rules, partnership, match, exclusions, deadlines, and other threshold requirements.
Eligibility is not weighted. It is a gate: if a threshold requirement fails, the remaining dimensions do not matter.
Mission alignment
20%Does the opportunity fund the work the organization actually performs?
The relationship between the funder's intent and the organization's actual programs, populations, outcomes, geography, and priorities.
Score the work as it exists today, not the version described in a proposal.
Capacity fit
20%Can the organization deliver and report on the proposed work?
Staffing, partnerships, data, delivery model, financial administration, reporting, timeline, systems, and leadership attention.
Reporting burden is the most commonly underestimated cost of an award.
Competitive position
20%What strengthens or weakens the organization's position?
Differentiators, track record, geography, partnerships, evidence quality, prior awards, incumbents, and visible field conditions.
Assess the likely field, not the ideal applicant described in the notice.
Strategic value
20%Would a win advance strategy enough to justify the obligations and opportunity cost?
Mission advancement, relationship value, evidence-building potential, opportunity cost, restrictions, and long-term funding path.
A grant that pulls the organization off strategy can cost more than it funds.
Evidence confidence
20%How reliable and complete is the information supporting this assessment?
What is known, inferred, missing, stale, or dependent on human confirmation.
A high score built on assumptions is weaker than a moderate score built on verified facts.
The output
Five verdicts, not a score alone.
A number by itself is not a decision. Convert the assessment into one of five verdicts, and record what would have to change for the answer to be different.
Pursue
The evidence supports committing capacity to a full application now.
Pursue with conditions
Worth pursuing once named conditions are resolved and documented.
Hold for readiness
A promising opportunity the organization is not yet positioned to pursue well.
Do not pursue
The capacity is better invested in a stronger opportunity.
Ineligible
A threshold requirement rules it out before writing begins.
The decision record
What to write down when you decide.
The value of the framework is not the score. It is the record—so that six months later the team can see what it believed, what it assumed, and what changed.
CSV. No email required.
- The verdict and the date it was made
- The named person who owns the decision
- Evidence and sources behind each dimension score
- Assumptions the score depends on
- Missing information and who is responsible for closing it
- Risks and disqualifiers considered
- Conditions that must be resolved before pursuit proceeds
If you want the framework run for you
This framework is the structure behind AI Judge.
AutoGrant's AI Judge assesses these same six dimensions and produces the same five verdicts, with the evidence, assumptions, missing information, and conditions shown alongside the result. The framework above works perfectly well on paper. AutoGrant makes it repeatable across a pipeline, and keeps the decision record connected to the work that follows.
FAQ
Common questions about go/no-go decisions.
- What is a grant go/no-go decision?
- A go/no-go decision is a structured judgment about whether an organization should commit capacity to a specific grant application, made before writing begins. It assesses six dimensions — eligibility, mission alignment, capacity fit, competitive position, strategic value, and evidence confidence — and ends in a documented verdict with a named owner. The purpose is not to predict an award. It is to make the basis of the decision visible so it can be challenged, corrected, and revisited.
- How do you decide whether to apply for a grant?
- Check eligibility first as a threshold: if the organization cannot legally and practically apply, the assessment stops. Then score mission alignment, capacity fit, competitive position, strategic value, and evidence confidence, weighting each at roughly 20 percent. Record the evidence, assumptions, missing information, and risks behind each score. Convert the result into one of five verdicts and assign a named human owner to the decision.
- What criteria should a grant go/no-go framework include?
- Six dimensions cover the decision. Eligibility: applicant type, geography, registration, size rules, partnership, match, exclusions, and deadlines. Mission alignment: whether the opportunity funds work the organization actually performs. Capacity fit: staffing, data, delivery model, financial administration, reporting, and timeline. Competitive position: differentiators, track record, evidence quality, and the likely field. Strategic value: mission advancement, opportunity cost, restrictions, and obligations. Evidence confidence: how much of the assessment rests on verified fact rather than assumption.
- Why is a no-go decision valuable?
- Every weak pursuit consumes capacity that could have strengthened a better one. Organizations often begin writing because a deadline is close, a keyword matched, or someone forwarded a notice — and the problems surface later, when the investment is already large. A disciplined no-go protects the capacity that wins the next opportunity.
- Who should own the go/no-go decision?
- A named person. Scoring can be supported by research and structured analysis, but the decision itself, the relationship context, and the acceptance of risk belong to a human owner whose name is recorded alongside the verdict and date.
Apply the framework to a real opportunity.
Bring a public solicitation. We will run the same six dimensions and walk through the evidence, assumptions, risks, and conditions in a 20-minute working session.