The Funding Proposal Secrets Method, built into ProPil
Build funding proposals around the way funders actually decide.
ProPil guides you from the Call to the final review using a six-step proposal method developed from 15 years of writing, coordinating and evaluating funding proposals.
For researchers, NGOs, development professionals, consultants and innovation teams.
AI can write fast. That's not the hard part.
A fluent proposal can still be poorly aligned, weakly evidenced, unrealistic or written for the wrong Call. ProPil doesn't begin by asking AI to write. It begins with three questions:
What does this funder actually want?
What can you credibly offer them?
What evidence do you have to prove it?
Then ProPil helps you build the proposal from there.
One method. Six steps.
The Funding Proposal Secrets Method turns proposal development into a structured process instead of one giant AI prompt.
Understand the Call
Know what you're really competing for.
Extract what matters from the Call and assess your position with the Credibility Ladder.
Build a Knowledge Base
Give AI something worth writing from.
Bring together your experience, project, fit and evidence using your own material, uploaded sources and optional ProPil research.
Build the Proposal Structure
Decide before you draft.
Give every section a purpose, a target length and a clear relationship to what the funder will evaluate.
Write with a Process
Draft one argument at a time.
Work section by section using the Call, your project and your actual evidence rather than asking AI to generate one enormous generic proposal.
Review and Verify
Move to the other side of the table.
Challenge the proposal for coherence, evidence, compliance, fit and evaluator objections—and verify what you are actually prepared to defend.
Build a Repeatable System
Don't start the next proposal from zero.
Turn finished work, evidence and lessons learned into reusable assets for future Calls.
Built by someone who's sat on both sides of the table
I'm Paulius Yamin.
I've spent the last 15 years writing, coordinating and evaluating funding proposals across academia, international development and consulting — work that has taken me through institutions including the University of Pennsylvania and the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, as well as consulting with organizations including the World Bank, UN agencies and other international institutions.
I've also sat on the evaluator side of major research funding decisions: as an evaluator for European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator and Synergy Grants, and as a Member of the Assessment Panel for the Economic and Social Research Council's Large Grants for Ambitious Research in the Social Sciences funding opportunity in the UK.
Working across both sides of funding decisions led me to develop the Funding Proposal Secrets Method: a six-step system designed to make proposal development more structured, less chaotic and more closely aligned with the way funding decisions are actually made. I'm now writing the book Funding Proposal Secrets: Why Getting Funded Is a Matter of Luck, and What You Can Do About It. ProPil is the software implementation of that method.
Funding Proposal Secrets provides the method.
ProPil applies the method.
AI helps execute it at scale.
Not just another AI proposal writer
Build from the Call, not from a blank prompt
ProPil starts with what the funder actually asks for: requirements, evaluation criteria, priorities, deadlines and eligibility—not with a generic request to “write a proposal.”
Know what you can credibly claim
The Funding Proposal Secrets Credibility Ladder helps you understand the strongest position you can honestly defend for this particular opportunity.
- 1Deep conceptual work
- 2Transferable skills
- 3Adjacent work
- 4Comparable track record
- 5Pilot of the exact work
The goal isn't to make everyone look like Step 1. It's to make your strongest real evidence impossible for the evaluator to miss.
See the proposal from the evaluator's side
Reviewer's Corner examines the exact proposal you intend to submit and looks for the objections, unanswered questions and credibility gaps that could make an evaluator hesitate.
It tests goal–method–impact coherence, broader relevance, delivery realism, applicant–Call credibility and Call specificity.
More than drafting
Eligibility & Compliance
Turn the official Call documents into a working checklist you can share.
Evidence-Based Drafting
Draft from your actual material and see exactly where evidence is still missing.
Funder & Opportunity Research
Optionally research official priorities and practical applicant intelligence while keeping them clearly distinguished.
Reviewer's Corner
A five-criterion Red Team review that challenges the proposal from the evaluator's perspective.
Rejection Recovery
Use the submitted proposal and actual evaluator feedback to diagnose what should change next time.
Asset Library & Funding Sources
Reuse verified evidence and past language, and browse a curated directory of official funding portals.
Your proposal should still be yours.
AI assists. You submit.
ProPil can organize information, draft, rewrite, analyze and challenge your proposal. But you decide:
- what the project actually is
- which evidence is trustworthy
- what claims you can defend
- which AI suggestions you accept
- what ultimately gets submitted
The model proposes. You decide.
No AI can promise you the grant.
Competitive funding depends on strong competitors, limited budgets, evaluation criteria, human judgment and factors no proposal-writing system controls. ProPil doesn't promise a 100% success rate. It gives you a repeatable process for producing proposals that are better aligned, better evidenced, easier to evaluate and easier to defend.
Help build the proposal system you wish you had.
ProPil is currently in beta. The core workflow is already working, but we're still refining the experience and learning from real proposals across different funding environments. Use it on a real Call. Tell us what works. Tell us what doesn't. And help shape what comes next.
No AI can guarantee funding. ProPil gives you a better process for competing for it.
Simple, honest pricing.
Start free. Upgrade when ProPil saves you real time. Cancel anytime.
Free
15 credits to try the system
Try the full six-step workflow on a real Call.
- Draft and review real proposal sections
- No card required
- The full six-step workflow, end to end
- See exactly how source-grounded drafting works before you pay
Solo
130 credits per month
For individual researchers and grant writers.
- Unlimited proposals
- Source-grounded drafting that never invents facts or citations
- The Reviewer's Corner: a five-criterion Red Team review that stress-tests every claim against the evidence before you submit
- Rejection Recovery: diagnose evaluator feedback and plan the resubmission
- Eligibility & compliance checklists built from the official Call documents
Pro
350 credits per month
For consultants and teams running several proposals at once.
- Everything in Solo
- Credits for heavy proposal cycles and multiple live applications
- Priority support
- Built for consultants and research teams running several proposals at once
Questions, answered
Your next proposal shouldn't start with a blank page.
Start with the Call.
Build the evidence.
Build the argument.
Then let AI help.
Powered by the Funding Proposal Secrets Method