Hi, I’m Ben.
I’m a former ED, finance director, and grant writer. Let me guess — you need more funding, but don’t want to hire more. You’re competitive and trying to keep up with technology, while juggling transitions in your funding and team.
I started GrantLoop to solve my own grants problems, and somehow rallied some of the most brilliant minds in AI today to build the system behind it.
Today we run grants programs for nonprofits: AI does the research and drafting, and an experienced grants lead makes the calls. Grant-specific AI plus seasoned fundraisers turns out to be a pretty good combination. Our clients raise about 3x more from foundations than nonprofits their size.
I started out as one person with a laptop with a couple of my brilliant best friends. Now, we’ve found millions of grant opportunities for nonprofits and are pushing the frontier of AI.
Can we be the best grants partner you’ve ever had? Honestly, that’s for you to judge.
Core Team
Benjamin Yao
Founder + CEO
Former ED, nonprofit consultant, and grant writer. Dork about cooking and avid about the outdoors.
Siddharth Parambi
Data Science Advisor
Ex-Harvard, software engineer & data scientist. Passionate about education. Loves rock climbing.
Erik Zhang
Software Advisor
Ex-UPenn M&T, software engineer. Lover of technology and AI systems.
Elena Grajales
Design Advisor
Ex-UPenn. Life-long vinyl enthusiast and proud member of the Film Society.
Srikar Pamidimukkala
Data Science Advisor
Ex-Georgia Tech. Loves a good game of D&D. Practitioner of loving-kindness meditation.
Jason Zhang
Algorithms Advisor
Stanford machine learning researcher. Nonprofit-founder. Loves a good game of tennis.
Build the future with us:
apply todayTenets
Radical honesty wins
We're taking a gamble on honesty—the radical belief that business can be done differently. We say what we'll do, then we do it.
We refuse to hold clients hostage with annual contracts. Every engagement is month to month. Not because we're nice, but because we're confident. Our clients are smart enough to recognize value without the high-pressure tactics.
Think about it: if a company won't let you walk away, they're probably afraid you will.
Results talk
Sales pitches are short-lived; trusted relationships endure. We build momentum through consistent results, not persistent pitches. When nonprofits secure doubled funding and immediately tell their networks, that's our marketing department in action. When organizations succeed beyond their expectations and stake their reputation on referrals, that's true momentum.
Building trust isn't just ethical—it's efficient. To hell with sales and marketing. Customer love is our growth strategy.
Less is more
More applications isn't a strategy. The hardest part of running a grants program isn't writing more; it's knowing which funders to leave out. We pursue the ones worth your time and skip the rest.
AI handles the hours of research and drafting, so our attention goes to the judgment calls that actually win grants.
Defend your data like our own
We're probably more paranoid about privacy than our clients are. By rejecting outside investment and its demands for growth at all costs, we've kept our independence to choose the right path over the most profitable one. We don't sell information or use it to target ads.
We see privacy as an obsession, not an obligation.
Build something people love
We give nonprofits what they actually need: more grants won, with less of their time. Not because AI is the next big thing, but because we've been in their shoes.
We're former EDs and development directors, and keep our part-time roles as grant writers and board members to stay close to our roots.