What is Northstar Toolkit?
Northstar Toolkit is a comprehensive nonprofit fundraising platform that combines funder and nonprofit research data, grant opportunity discovery, sector news and events, AI-assisted grant writing tools, and professional services. It's designed to help nonprofits research potential funders, find grant opportunities, and create compelling applications.
What data is available in the Funders & Nonprofits library?
Our data library includes profiles on thousands of funders and nonprofit organizations. Funder profiles include giving history, focus areas, geographic priorities, and contact information sourced from 990 filings and other public data. Nonprofit profiles help you understand the landscape and identify potential partners or comparable organizations.
How does the Open Grants feed work?
The Open Grants feed aggregates grant opportunities from hundreds of sources and updates daily. You can filter opportunities by focus area, geographic region, funding amount, and deadline to find grants that match your organization's mission. Each listing includes key details and links to the original application.
How does Northstar Toolkit help with grant writing?
Northstar Toolkit streamlines the grant writing process through a structured four-stage workflow that combines AI assistance with your organization's knowledge. It helps you gather requirements, plan your approach, select relevant evidence, and create compelling drafts - all while building an organizational knowledge base that makes future applications faster and more effective.
How does the AI content generation work?
Our AI analyzes your organization profile, uploaded grant requirements, and your responses to planning questions to generate tailored content. The AI focuses on creating evidence-based drafts that incorporate your organization's specific achievements and impact metrics. You always maintain full editorial control over the final content, with the AI serving as an assistant rather than replacing human expertise.
What are Professional Services?
Beyond the platform tools, our team offers hands-on support including expert grant writing services and MEL (Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning) platform infrastructure. Our grant writers work with your organization to craft submission-ready proposals, while our MEL platform provides systematic data collection, outcome tracking, and funder-ready reporting.
Is my organization's data secure?
Yes, we take data security very seriously. All your organization's information is stored securely with encryption. We share data only as outlined in our Privacy Policy, and you maintain full ownership of all content. Please see our Privacy Policy for the most up-to-date information on how we handle and protect your data.
How long does it take to set up and start using the platform?
Most organizations can be up and running with Northstar Toolkit in just a few hours. The initial account setup takes minutes, and you can start exploring funders, grants, and news immediately. For best results with the grant writing features, we recommend spending some time populating your organization profile with basic information.