Creating and Managing a Funding Project

A Funding Project represents the specific technology, innovation, or research initiative for which your organization is actively seeking non-dilutive capital. While your Contracting Profile represents your overall corporate identity, a Funding Project allows you to isolate a single effort and align it directly with targeted capital matching, AI-driven pursuit roadmaps, market insights, and proposal generation.

This guide will walk you through setting up a Funding Project step-by-step to activate the full predictive power of the Raise platform.

Part 1: The Initial Project Setup

To launch a new project, navigate to Funding Projects on your left-hand workspace sidebar and click the + New project button in the top right corner.

Step 1: Core Parameters

• Funding Project Name: Give your project a clear, distinct title (e.g., “Tactical UAV Heavy-Fuel Engine Advancement”).

• Primary Contracting Profile: Select the central organization profile this project belongs to from your account list. This establishes the corporate baseline (such as your SAM UEID and base NAICS codes) that anchors your eligibility parameters.

Part 2: Completing Project Details & Pursuit Targeting

From your project workspace sub-sidebar, click on Details to finalize your technical profile and positioning.

1. Technology Profile

Instead of a single project description field, your core innovation is now categorized into three precise blocks:

• Technical description (Required for matching): Detail what your technology is, how it works, and its specific operational relevance. Focus on concrete technical metrics rather than marketing language.

• Problems being solved (Recommended): Describe the structural or engineering limitations your system solves to map directly to agency needs.

• Competitive differentiator (Optional): Detail what makes your approach distinct or seemingly distinct from existing or competing solutions.

2. Keywords

• Targeted Keywords (Required for matching): Add up to a maximum of 50 keywords to fine-tune your semantic matching criteria.

• You can type out a specific technical term and press Enter, or click the Generate with AI button to automatically analyze your text and generate highly relevant industry terms.

3. Pursuit Targeting

Refine your operational boundaries so Raise knows exactly what types of awards to prioritize:

1. Development Stage (Required for matching): Select the maturity level that best reflects your asset:

   1. Early stage research: Proving a mechanism, exploring feasibility.

   2. Demonstrated results: Have a working prototype/environment; seeking development funding.

   3. Advanced development: Working scale or transition funding.

   4. Deployed locally: Finish-ready solutions; seeking procurement or commercialization.

2. Target Agencies: Check the boxes indicating the types of funders you want to monitor (Federal, State, Local, or Private).

3. Target Sectors: Check all industrial domains that apply to your innovation (e.g., Defense & National Security, Autonomous Systems, Space Technology, Cybersecurity, Energy, etc.).

4. Funding Mechanisms: Select the vehicle types matching your capital strategy (e.g., All, SBIR/STTR, Contracts, Research grants, OTA, BAA, or Grants).

5. Award Range: Set your financial floor and ceiling limits by inputting your Min ($) and Max ($) dollar targets.

Part 3: Managing Contracting Information & Documents

Use the left sub-sidebar to manage your organization's compliance criteria, central capabilities, and core files:

1. Contracting Information

This portal divides your corporate baseline into four high-impact tabs to verify solicitation alignment:

• Contracting profiles: Displays your linked profile's base codes, active capabilities, and SAM registration status.

• Products & services (Required for matching): Displays a list of items previously logged in your profile. Check the relevant boxes to link specific capabilities to this project effort.

• Key personnel (Required for matching): Displays your verified team members.

⚠️ Security Clearance Gate: Clearance levels act as hard gates for opportunity matching. Opportunities requiring SECRET or TS/SCI clearances will only appear as matches if at least one key person attached to the project holds an active clearance of that level or higher.

• Award History (Recommended): Import your past performance records manually or directly from SAM.gov history to give the matching engine historical context.

• When setting up your Contracting Profile you will be asked to provide your UEI which will automatically pull in all SAM.gov award history.

2. Project Documents

Navigate to the Documents tab to manage your data library. Click + Add Document to link files directly from your central account library. Populating this folder allows the automated proposal tool to seamlessly mirror your organization's internal technical literature and preferred writing tone.

💡 There are two ways you can add documents to your account.

1. Adding documents to your contracting profile: On the left navigation click Contracting Profile. Click into the specific Contracting Profile you want to add the documents to and then click Capabilities on the left navigation. When adding a Capability to your Contracting Profile you will be able to add documents upon creation that you can pull into your Funding Project.

2. Adding documents to the central account library: On the left navigation click Documents to add documents to your central account library. Once added there you will be able to pull them into specific Funding Projects. 

Part 4: Managing Teams and Roles

Navigate to the Team tab to grant teammates access to the project's matches, strategy, and proposals. Click Invite in the top right corner to add personnel.

The platform relies on a strict role permission hierarchy to coordinate collaborative edits:

Part 5: Activating Post-Setup Intelligence

Once your data is mapped and your Project Readiness score is green, utilize the specialized execution modules located in your left-hand workspace sidebar. You can think of your navigation being broken into three functional categories:

• Project: Details, Contracting information, Documents

• Execution Suite: Living Strategy, Matched, Bookmarked, Private, Proposals, Intelligence

• Management: Team

1. Living Strategy (A Unified Predictive Intelligence Workspace)

Clicking Living Strategy activates a comprehensive, timeline-driven tracking environment that maps out your funding opportunities over a rolling 6-month horizon. The workspace is divided into three distinct operational areas:

• The Living Summary (Left Sidebar Panel):

  • Readiness Tiers: Displays the real-time volume of opportunities categorized into Ready (highest match viability), Near miss, and Stretch buckets.

  • Match Recurrence: Displays the automated schedule for pipeline updates

  • Proposal Coverage: Tracks active token and exposure boundaries.

  • Sector Pulse: Displays an automated strategic focus summary clarifying how the engine is prioritizing high-match signals to prevent inefficient "chasing to capture" pursuit strategies.

• The Strategic Timeline (Main Board View):

  • Opportunities are mapped horizontally across a 6-month timeline calendar 

  • Opportunities are separated vertically into clear swimlanes reflecting their pursuit status: Ready to pursue, Near miss, and Stretch.

• The AI Assistant & Meta Analysis (Right Sidebar Panel):

  • AI Report: Timestamps the latest strategic assessment.

  • Immediate Deadlines: Flags critical upcoming task alerts with exact target dates (e.g., "Form proposal for the Spatially Grid Renewal Initiative - Deadline: Jun 19").

  • This Month Actions: Provides a curated checklist of immediate tactical steps, such as identifying next-horizon opportunities, finding specialized university co-PIs, or engaging regional cooperative networks.

  • AI Meta Analysis: Evaluates your overarching 6-month cycle performance, notes macro shifts in agency alignments, and delivers text-based recommendations for addressing latent capability or history gaps.

2. Matched Opportunities (Auto-Matching Pipeline)

Navigating to Matched surfaces your dynamically updated auto-matching pipeline.

• Pipeline Filters: Rapidly sort through your matching landscape using five targeted upper sub-tabs: All, Ready, Near Miss, Stretch and Bookmarked. The total number of discoveries is indicated alongside the tab label.

• AI Matching Scores Banner: A persistent tracking alert reminds users that match profiles and specific percentage indices update automatically whenever core parameters or technical descriptions are adjusted.

• Opportunity Cards: Each match is presented via a comprehensive data card that details:

  • A prominent, color-coded numerical Match Score indicating alignment strength.

  • The formal solicitation name, issuing federal or state funding entity, and a dense text-based technical abstract.

  • Semantic tags highlighting matching operational categories.

  • Clear tracking indicators and deadlines displayed along the right margin.

• Private & Bookmarked Repositories: Isolate pinned pursuits using the Bookmarked tab, or transition to the Private sidebar view to manually upload internal or non-public solicitations.

3. Market Intelligence

Selecting Intelligence opens a dedicated dashboard tracking macroeconomic trends, regulatory forces, and institutional shifts.

• Intelligence Navigation (Left Sub-Tabs): Seamlessly pivot between four specialized market diagnostic feeds:

  • Who now: Active legislative and investment forces driving near-term agency capital.

  • Upcoming: Forecast Opportunities in your space.

  • Competitive: Direct competitor traction and footprint tracking.

  • Sector Trends: Domain-specific technical breakthroughs and agency updates.

  • Agency Intel: Target funding track records and agency deployment preferences.

• Strategic Intelligence Accordions: Four comprehensive expandable drop-downs sit at the base of the dashboard to unpack targeted technical market data:

  • Upcoming Solicitations: Forecasts forthcoming and pipeline opportunities emerging in your technical space.

  • Competitive Landscape: Identifies adjacent actors and organizations actively entering your specific domain.

  • Sponsor Trends: Traces shifting technology and capital parameters favored by federal programs.

  • Agency Intelligence: Aggregates operational track records and historic funding behavior across target branches.

4. Proposals (AI-Guided Writing)

When you are ready to pursue an opportunity, navigate to the Proposals tab and click + New Proposal or select Start a Proposal from a match.

• Tracking Statuses: Monitor concurrent drafts using status filters: All, Draft, In progress, Submitted, and Closed.

• Co-Writing Workspace: Raise pulls in all linked historical, technical, and document data to spin up a compliant first draft within 24 hours for your team to edit collaboratively.

• ⚠️ Proposal Guardrail: To protect your account proposal limit, Raise requires an opportunity to have a verified Match Score of 70 or higher to unlock the proposal generator. If an opportunity scores below 70, the system will prompt you to run opportunity matching first or adjust parameters via your Details tab to close eligibility gaps.

5 Best Practices for Maximizing Your Project’s Success

To get the absolute highest return on your token budget and ensure your project yields winning results, keep these strategic tips in mind:

• Keep Descriptions Objective and Detailed: When writing your funding project goal, focus on concrete technical metrics and real-world applications rather than marketing language. The Raise AI uses semantic analysis to read the engineering capabilities of your project, so technical clarity leads directly to more accurate matches.

• Audit and Expand Your Keywords Regularly: Don't just set your keywords once and forget them. As your project evolves or as you review the initial 50 automated matches, add new specific terms or leverage the AI keyword generator to discover adjacent technical vocabularies that agencies might be using in their RFPs.

• Update Your TRL as Your Technology Matures: If your product advances from a prototype to a field-tested asset, make sure to update its Technology Readiness Level (TRL) in your profile. This instantly shifts Raise's auto-matching algorithm to prioritize larger, late-stage deployment funds and transition contracts over early-stage research grants.

• Collaborate Locally Before Generating Proposals: Invite your team members and assign section contributors directly within the project workspace early on. Having your subject matter experts aligned on their technical contributions ensures that when you do generate a proposal draft, everyone is ready to refine the output immediately.

• Actively Review “Gap Analysis” in Your Strategy Tab: If you aren't seeing matches with a score above 70, don't panic. Check your Strategy tab to see the exact adjustments Raise recommends. Often, adding a single missing classification, inheriting an additional NAICS code, or linking a secondary service will instantly unlock higher match scores across the platform.

Need Additional Strategic Support?

Remember, Raise is designed to serve as a powerful grant strategist in your pocket, making your team faster, smarter, and highly efficient. If you need a secondary set of eyes on a complex solicitation or want to leverage our compliance review features, reach out to your dedicated Raise SME team. For any additional questions don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team at support@theraiseapp.com.

Let's stop chasing individual opportunities and start owning your funding roadmap!