Creating a grant can be time consuming and meticulous, taking 25 hours or more for nonprofits to complete.
Developed by Oregon students through their company ChangeFinder, GrantMachine is a new product aimed at saving nonprofits time and money.
Ian Winbrock, Co-Founder and CEO of ChangeFinder, Flex MBA ’24 Candidate, and Innovation and Entrepreneurship Specialist, is a software service that reduces the time nonprofits spend creating grants. recognized the need for
It works like this: Using machine learning technology (the same one used in the popular tool Chat GPT), ChangeFinder customers import their grant questions into GrantMachine. , write the answer. GrantMachine compares customer-entered questions and answers against data-driven models to provide immediate recommendations to improve grant success.
“Basically, we’re Grammarly, but we subsidize it,” Winbrock said of the popular online grammar-checking tool.
According to Winbrock, ChangeFinder started with the Ducks Disrupt Silver Linings pitchbook and ended up in second place.
Oregon MBA students Winbrock, Steven Paasch (MBA ’23), and Madeline Tomka (MBA ’22) won the 2022 Rio de Janeiro Regional Halt Award for this concept, along with Oregon State University’s Harry Herzberg.
The Eugene Chamber of Commerce also acknowledged including Winblock on its list of 20 people under the age of 40.
What’s next for the team: ChangeFinder wins the TiE Oregon Regional Global Pitch Competition and advances to the semifinals May 3-5 in Santa Clara, CA.
—AnneMarie Knepper-Sjoblom ’05, Lundquist College Communications
