There’s no sugarcoating it: charities across Canada are being stretched to the breaking point.

Demand is rising. Resources are shrinking. Staff are burning out. Services are thinning. And the social fabric that nonprofits hold together? It’s starting to tear.

We don’t need another study to prove this. Just talk to your local nonprofit.

The result?

• Charities are closing their doors.
• Fundraisers are leaving the sector.
• Trust in the nonprofit world is low.

Donors are not the villains in this story

As the pressure builds for charities, donors—especially major and institutional ones—are feeling the squeeze too. They’re overwhelmed, outpaced, and increasingly hidden behind intermediaries like Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) just to survive the onslaught of requests. Many have stopped accepting applications altogether.

The old model of philanthropy, based on the hedonic treadmill of fundraising, is burning out everyone it touches.

And, AI is about to make it worse.

Welcome to the AI grantpocalypse

Right now, Canadian charities spend up to $70 billion annually chasing major gifts and institutional funding and DAF fundraising is among the most expensive, inefficient parts of the game.

Here’s one stat that says it all: 74% of questions in grant applications are identical.

Rewriting “Describe your Mission” sixty different ways isn’t just tedious—it’s systemic waste. And yes, generative AI can now handle this in minutes. But that’s not a solution. It’s gasoline on the fire. As Peter Drucker said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

Within 12–18 months, most charities will be using AI to generate highly polished, hyper-personalized grant content at scale. These tools will scrape funder data from everywhere, tailor language to individual preferences, and send out emails, DMs, texts, phone calls, and LinkedIn messages, all automatically at all hours of the day.

No inbox will be safe.

And when every funder is flooded with more “perfect” applications than ever before, donor fatigue will spike even higher. We’re already seeing major donors drop out at a rate of 20%— and you can only expect that to rise.

This isn’t innovation. It’s a fundraising arms race.

The equity disaster no one’s prepared for

The organizations most at risk? The ones already hanging on by a thread.

Larger, well-resourced charities will deploy AI with teams who know how to optimize it. Smaller, grassroots, and equity-seeking organizations (often led by those closest to the problems) will be left behind.

The result: the existing gap widens.

Today, only 5% of foundation dollars reach minority-led organizations. Without intervention, that number shrinks.

Philanthropy becomes louder, not fairer.

We don’t need to fix the form. We need to replace it

Other sectors solved this decades ago. Realtor.ca standardized real estate listings. LinkedIn standardized resumes. Bloomberg standardized financial data.

None of these killed relationships or customization. They just eliminated repetitive, low-value work, and made the system function better.

Philanthropy needs the same.

A shared infrastructure wouldn’t reduce funder choice; it would enhance it. Just as LinkedIn has empowered both applicants and employers, we can build a common system that raises the floor for everyone.

Imagine a platform that integrates:

• Government filings and CRA data
• Core impact metrics and funding needs
• Leadership bios, governance, and financials
• Standardized due diligence tools

And yes, funders could still ask the custom questions that matter most to them.

But 70–80% of what’s needed? Done once. Reusable. Searchable. Comparable.

That’s not dumbing it down. That’s finally giving high-performing, under-resourced charities a fair shot at visibility.

What we’d actually save

If we standardize just half the grant application process, the savings are massive:

• $35 billion in sector-wide efficiency gains
• 35,000 new program staff (at $100K total compensation)
• 350,000 more people served (assuming a 100:1 client-to-staff ratio)

And that’s just today’s math. Tomorrow’s challenge is even greater.

The future is not inevitable, but it is urgent

We don’t need a more efficient way of doing a bad thing.

We need a fundamentally better approach. One that’s faster, fairer, and more human. One that levels the playing field and lets charities focus on impact—not formatting.

That’s why we’re building WellFunded.io and supporting the development of Canada’s Common Grant Standard. The “AI grantpocalypse” isn’t on the horizon. It’s already here.

And we have a choice: let the sector spiral into an even more inequitable, bloated mess—or build the infrastructure that actually makes giving work for everyone.

The window is closing. But a better future is still on the table.

Let’s not just react. Let’s lead.

Jeff Golby is CEO and Co-Founder of WellFunded, Canada's most complete charity intelligence platform. With deep roots in Canadian philanthropy—including roles at Charitable Impact, where he helped scale it from $3M to $115M—Jeff brings insider expertise to solving the sectors critical infrastructure gaps. A former nonprofit executive who experienced philanthropy's inefficiencies, inequities, and ineffectiveness firsthand, Jeff is building WellFunded.io - a better infrastructure for informed, inspired giving.