The OpenCall grant writer
Drafts the grant. In your voice. From your materials.
Every open call has its own application questions. OpenCall's grant writer drafts the answers in the way you actually write - from your statement, your past applications, and your artwork library. You review, edit, copy into the funder's form, and submit. We never do any of that for you.
Free to start · no card up front · OpenCall Pro is $10/mo or $89/yr
What it drafts
Five kinds of questions the writer handles.
Every kind below is something a real grant or open call asks. Each is drafted from your saved statement, your past applications, and your artwork - then trimmed to the size the call sets.
Artist statement
Tell us about your work and what drives it.
Drafted from the statement variants you have saved to your Artist Kit, trimmed to fit the length the call sets. Tone matches your exemplars.
Project narrative
Describe the project this grant would fund.
Stitches your saved project notes to the call's own theme text, drawing on real work from your library so the prose names things you actually make.
Impact statement
What would change for you, your community, or your practice?
Frames the project through the lens your application materials already use - exhibitions, residencies, press, audience - rather than generic AI filler.
Work samples
Provide URLs or descriptions for representative work.
Pulls titles, media, dimensions, and prices verbatim from your Artwork library. Numbers are copied, never generated, so nothing here is invented - and you still review it.
Open-ended prompt
Anything else we should know?
Drafts in your voice with only the materials on file. Refuses to invent - cites what it used, flags what it could not.
A draft, as it lands
Real shape. None of the drywall.
Below is an illustration, written by hand to show what the exchange looks like: the kind of question a call asks, the voice sample the draft leans on, and an answer at the length the call allows. It is not a real artist's application. Whatever the writer drafts for you, you review every line before it goes anywhere.
The question
Tell us about your most recent body of work and where it is going.
Call context
An unrestricted open call inviting mid-career visual artists with a recent body of work to submit for a group exhibition opening in late spring.
Drafted answer
The most recent body came together over eighteen months in the studio, and the work I am sending is the half that stopped asking to be made. Three pieces went into a small group show last fall; the rest I am still living with, sorting what is finished from what is just done. The trajectory, for me, is away from declarative pieces and toward quieter ones - slower objects that need a particular room. This open call fits because the timing is the timing: I have these new pieces, they want to be looked at, and a group show is the right size for the kinds of questions they raise.
What went into this draft
Voice sample used: “I think of my work as a slow accumulation, pieces that sit in the studio long enough to forget what I meant when I started them. The recent series comes out of that patience. Some went into a small show last fall; others still haven't found a wall yet.”
Call context grounded on: the call's own theme text and stated length limit.
No numbers invented: dates, dimensions, prices and venue names come from the artist's saved library, never from the writer.
Why it sounds like you
Voice comes from your writing. Nothing else.
The writer drafts by retrieving chunks of your Artist Kit and exemplars. If we don't have a sample of your writing yet, the draft button stops and asks for one instead of returning confident-sounding generic prose. We will never produce a draft that sounds like a stranger - that is the failure mode this whole feature exists to prevent.
Grounded in your statement
Read from your Artist Kit, never from the open call's marketing copy.
Citations on every answer
Every drafted answer shows the source - a chunk of your statement, your bio, a past application - so you can verify the writer's work before submitting.
Stops when it should
If your kit is empty, the writer asks for a sample of your voice first. We won't draft against an ungrounded prompt.
What it refuses to do - on purpose
Three things we will never make up. The honesty is the feature.
Every refusal has a reason: an invented budget would be read as a lie the artist told a funder, and that is the single most damaging thing this product could do. The writer scaffolds these with an honest “this one is yours to fill in” instead.
- Budget narratives. Invented figures a funder would read as a lie the artist told. The format makes this tempting, the stakes make it unforgivable.
- Project timelines. Real dates you have not committed to. We will not sketch a schedule you haven't agreed to.
- ID and registration numbers. TPT, EIN, business license #s. When OpenCall fills a form for you, these fields are left for you - they are never answerable from your materials.
What it costs
Free is real. Pro is more of the same thing.
The grant writer is on the free plan: 5 drafts to try, enough to find out whether it sounds like you. Pro raises the ceiling to 30 a month for artists applying at volume. Every other allowance below is monthly on both tiers.
Free
$0
- 5 drafts to try
- 5 checks a month
- 3 website imports a month
- Discovery, fit scores, save, reminders, the Artist Kit
OpenCall Pro
$10 / mo
or $89/yr, which saves $31 - about 3 months free.
- 30 drafts a month
- 25 checks a month
- 10 website imports a month
- Headroom on every metered action. Same product otherwise.
The full breakdown lives on the pricing page.
Questions
What does the grant writer actually do?
When a grant or open call has its application questions extracted, the writer drafts prose answers in your voice from your Artist Kit - the statement, bio, and past application material you have saved, plus your artwork library. Every answer cites what it used to write. You review every line in OpenCall, edit anything that needs editing, and copy it into the funder's form yourself. We never submit anything.
Is it free?
Drafting is on every tier, so you can try it before you pay for it. The free plan includes 5 drafts in total - not 5 a month - which is enough to see whether the writer sounds like you. OpenCall Pro is 30 drafts a month, which is a ceiling rather than an unlimited plan: drafting costs us real money per run, and a cap we can honour beats a promise we can't. Same metering as opportunity checks and website imports.
Will it sound like me, or like AI?
It drafts from your saved statement and one or two exemplars (your strongest past applications). If we don't have a sample of your writing yet, the writer stops and asks for one instead of returning confident-sounding generic prose. The text matches the tone of your exemplars, in first person, no AI filler, ever. Drafts where RAG grounding found nothing are flagged as less-traceable so you can double-check them.
Will it invent facts about me?
No. Numbers - dimensions, prices, years, counts - only ever come from your Artwork library, injected verbatim. The writer is forbidden from quoting numbers from anywhere else, including the question text. Anything the artist has not actually exhibited, sold, or made is left out, not invented. A bio that says "My work has been shown at the Whitney" because RAG retrieved the sentence from somewhere is not the product we want to ship.
What does it refuse to draft?
Budgets and timelines. Those are made of facts only you hold, so the writer marks them "yours to fill in" instead of attempting prose - it does not try and then hedge. Separately, when OpenCall fills a funder's form for you, ID and registration numbers (TPT, EIN, business licenses) are always left blank for you.
Find a grant. Draft it in your voice. Submit what you wrote.
Browse the feed, pick a call with questions, and draft straight from the detail page. Or paste your statement once and the next grant you open is half-done before you read its guidelines.
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