Grants fund the work that matters.
Across every sector, organizations lose winnable funding to process, not merit—the strength of the work never reaches the funder. AutoGrant exists to change that, built by people who have spent two decades in grants and grant technology.
A team across grants, nonprofit technology, and AI product.
Chris has spent his entire career building technology for the organizations most software overlooks—nonprofits, foundations, and the mission-driven teams that hold communities together.
He has done it as a builder: two companies he helped start early—Collaborative Standards, which he founded, and AngelPoints—were both ultimately acquired by Blackbaud, the technology company at the heart of the nonprofit and foundation world. And he has done it from the inside, as Director of IT at The San Francisco Foundation, where he saw firsthand how funders actually make decisions.
For the last twenty years he has built and led the company he founded to do exactly that— Centered Networks, a Microsoft Solutions Partner trusted by organizations from The Asia Foundation to Children's Hospital Los Angeles. He started AutoGrant for a simple reason: after two decades watching strong organizations lose winnable grants to process and capacity, he knew it could be fixed.
Two ventures, acquired by Blackbaud
Collaborative Standards, which Chris founded, and AngelPoints—both ultimately acquired by Blackbaud, the company at the center of nonprofit technology.
Experience from inside a funder
Director of IT at The San Francisco Foundation—he has seen how grant decisions actually get made, from the funder's side of the table.
Microsoft Solutions Partner
Centered Networks holds five verified designations and serves clients like The Asia Foundation and Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
Twenty years, since 2004
Two decades building technology for nonprofits, foundations, and rural hospitals. AutoGrant is the next chapter, not the first.
Elaine has spent fifteen years building software used by tens of millions—taking products from 0→1 and scaling them across startups, hypergrowth companies, and global enterprises.
She led product at Microsoft and at Atlassian, where she helped scale Confluence through hypergrowth and shipped its ML-based search; incubated new ventures with Fortune 500 leaders at BCG Digital Ventures; and served as Head of Product at Doublefin, building a workforce-planning platform from zero to general availability.
Her work now centers on AI-native and agentic systems—LLMs, multi-step workflows, and tool integrations that put AI to work inside real operations. At AutoGrant she shapes a grant workflow that augments how teams actually work, rather than a black box that replaces their judgment. She holds an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business and a computer science degree from Tsinghua University, and is a Claude Certified Architect.
0→1 to global scale
Products from prototype to production—experiences serving 20M+ users at Microsoft and 100M+ at Snapfish.
Ex-Microsoft, Atlassian, BCG
Scaled Confluence through hypergrowth at Atlassian, led product at Doublefin, and incubated new ventures at BCG Digital Ventures.
AI-native systems
Builds agentic AI products—LLMs, multi-step workflows, and tool integrations. Claude Certified Architect.
Duke MBA, Tsinghua CS
MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business; B.Eng. in Computer Science from Tsinghua University.
Centered Networks exists to make AI safe enough to take to the board—governed, accountable, and human-supervised. AutoGrant is built on the very same belief.
Centered Networks and AutoGrant are separate companies. What connects them is twenty years of earning the trust of organizations that depend on grant funding—and a conviction about how AI should be used in work that carries real stakes.
What we believe
The same principles run through every engagement, whether you write one proposal a year or one a week.
A human owns every decision
The agents draft, organize, and check. People decide. Nothing is submitted without your explicit sign-off—we call it the HC3 trust boundary, and every client gets it.
Your voice, never a template
Funders can spot generic AI instantly. AutoGrant writes in your organization's voice and holds your rigor, because a proposal that doesn't sound like you won't win.
We win when you win
Our standard engagement is a 5% success fee—no subscription floor, no upfront cost. If you don't win, you don't pay. Our incentives are simply yours.
Early, and honest about it
Roughly 30 organizations are working with us through our Early Adopter Program, all on the same 5% success-fee basis. Pipelines are running. People have trusted us with their organizations' data, their strategy, and their next submissions.
There are no completed wins to show yet—grant cycles take months—so we won't manufacture case studies that don't exist. We would rather earn your trust with a track record and straight answers than with a number on a homepage. When there are real outcomes worth sharing, you'll see them here.
Want to talk to a real person?
That's the whole idea. Tell us about your team and the grants you pursue, and we'll be straight with you about whether AutoGrant is the right fit today.
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