2025 Survey results: trends and takeaways from Funding Centre members

Success rates are up

One of the most encouraging findings from the 2025 survey was the rise in application success rates:

• 2024 success rate: 35%
• 2025 success rate: 46%

That increase of 11 percentage points suggests that Funding Centre members are becoming more strategic and effective in their grantseeking efforts.

While larger organisations continue to apply for more grants on average, success rates are strong across organisation sizes, demonstrating that grant success is not limited to the biggest players, which is consistent with our 2024 findings.

Not-for-profits remain at the heart of the Funding Centre

Not-for-profits continue to make up the overwhelming majority of Funding Centre members. In 2025, 83.7% of survey respondents were not-for-profits. This consistency reinforces the Funding Centre’s position as a core resource for the NFP sector, particularly small to medium organisations.

The largest proportion of respondents fell into the $250,001–$1 million turnover bracket (40.9%), followed by organisations turning over $1 million–$10 million (19.4%). Smaller organisations (under $250,000 turnover) also remain strongly represented.

Community development leads the way

Our survey drew respondents from every sector, but community development organisations were the best represented (18.5% of respondents). This sector was followed by children and families (13%), then education and health (both 6.5%). The Funding Centre has opened 2026 with over 1200 grants in the community development category, and 2200 open across all categories.

Time remains the biggest challenge

While success rates are improving, the pressures facing grantseekers remain familiar.

The top three challenges nominated by survey respondents in 2025 were:

1. Time (30%)
2. Finding the right grant (25%)
3. Being under-resourced (8%)

These results echo 2024 findings. As organisations juggle service delivery, compliance and fundraising, grant writing remains resource-intensive and time consuming for many.

Drafter: high impact, low uptake

One of the most compelling insights from the 2025 survey relates to Drafter, the Funding Centre’s AI grant writing tool. 90% of respondents were yet to try Drafter, but the majority of those who had used it reported significant time savings. Early reviews indicate Drafter can reduce grant writing time by up to 60%.

Users described Drafter as:

• “A step forward from other AI tools when it comes to Australian grant writing”
• Easy to use and accessible for less experienced grant writers
• Producing drafts that were “90% of the way there”

Given that time remains the sector’s biggest constraint, this presents a major opportunity. Increased adoption of Drafter could directly address the most pressing challenge identified in both 2024 and 2025.

What members love most

Survey respondents highlighted what they liked about the Funding Centre in 2025:

• The ability to access so many grant opportunities in one place
• The affordability for not-for-profits
• The convenience of centralised grant listings combined with AI support

When asked about challenges using the Funding Centre itself, the most common response for the second year running was:

• “Nothing” (57%)

Search filters (8%) and grant coverage (6%) were the areas most often flagged as needing improvement, and these insights will inform future product planning.

What the 2025 results tell us: three major themes

1. Grantseekers are getting more savvy: the jump from a 35% to 46% grant application success rate is not accidental. It reflects improved strategy, more experience and better tools.
2. Capacity constraints persist: time and resources remain the biggest barriers to grantseekers, especially for smaller organisations.
3. There’s untapped potential in AI: with 90% of survey respondents yet to try Drafter, there is clearly scope to increase efficiency across the sector.

The 2025 survey results show a resilient and improving grantseeking community. Success rates are rising. Sector diversity remains strong. And members continue to value the Funding Centre as a central, affordable resource.

The opportunity for 2026 is clear: if more organisations take up tools like Drafter to reduce time pressures, we could see even stronger outcomes next year.