Funding and Needs Assessment Desk
The weekly funding watch costs $9,500 to build, then $300 a month, or you can start with $5,500 of help applying for one funding round. Each week it finds federal, state and foundation funding notices, scores how well each fits your organization using your own facts, puts every deadline on one calendar and drafts application text from a library of your figures. Your staff decide what to apply for, edit the drafts and sign the applications.
Prefer to skip the call? Get a written proposal
Built for
- Rural hospitals with no grant writer, applying for state rural health fund money
- Health centers with a needs assessment or a Service Area Competition application coming
- Nonprofit hospitals whose three-year community health needs assessment (CHNA) is due within a year
- Hospital and primary care associations that apply for funding with their members
Why it's worth it
Today
Funding notices are spread across federal, state and foundation sites, so your team may not hear about a funding round until a week before it closes. Each application then starts with someone looking up the same community figures again.
After
Each week you get a short list of the rounds you qualify for, ranked by fit, with every deadline on one calendar. Drafts start from your own figures and their sources, so your staff spend their hours editing and deciding.
Why it matters
$10 billion a year
A new federal rural health fund sends states $10 billion a year from 2026 to 2030, and its permitted uses include AI for clinical and administrative work.
Source: KFF, A Closer Look at the $50 Billion Rural Health Transformation Program (opens in a new tab), updated September 2026
$25 million
In spring 2026, states opened their first rounds for hospitals and other rural organizations to apply for rural health fund money. Pennsylvania offered $25 million with awards up to $1 million, and Arkansas opened applications for $209 million.
How it works
A person on your team approves every result
The tool runs these steps on a schedule. Nothing moves past the approval step until someone on your team signs off.
- InputNotices and your factsGrants.gov, state rural health fund, HRSA, USDA and foundation notices, public health data, and your past applications from SharePoint or Google Drive.
- AI modelScore, explain and draftEach notice is scored on how well it fits your organization, using your own facts, with a labeled AI insight on why. Drafts are written from your library of facts and figures, where the funder allows AI drafting.
- A person approvesStaff decideYour staff choose what to pursue, then edit and sign. Your board adopts any assessment.
- OutputIn your inbox and calendarA weekly email of ranked rounds, deadlines in Outlook or Google Calendar, and drafts in your own template.
What you get
Every week
Funding watch and fit score
Federal, state rural health fund, HRSA, USDA and foundation notices, scored for how well each matches your eligibility and priorities. A short AI insight, labeled as AI, says why a round fits and what the application will need.
Drafting
Written from your facts
Letters of intent, need statements and application sections drafted from your facts library, for funders that allow AI-assisted drafting. They arrive as Word or Google Docs files in your own template. NIH research applications are out of scope.
Facts library
Figures with their sources
Census and county health data, shortage-area designations, your service-area visit counts and past applications, each figure stored with its source and refreshed every year.
Every three years
CHNA or needs assessment
The hospital CHNA or HRSA needs assessment drafted from the same library, in your format and ready for your board. Your team gathers the community input, and your board adopts the report.
What done means
The facts library holds every figure with its source, and the watch has sent four weekly lists with fit scores and deadlines.
For an assessment, every required section is drafted, every number links to its source, and your committee has priority options to choose from.
Choose your version
Each version is fixed-price, and only the weekly funding watch adds a monthly fee.
What the monthly fee covers
The $300 a month keeps the desk running. We watch every weekly run, fix the watch when a funder changes its site, refresh your facts library each year, help with drafts, keep it working as AI models change, and reply by the next business day. It's month to month with 30 days' notice. The part that watches public funding notices runs on our servers, with hosting and AI usage included. Your facts library and drafting run in your own Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, so you pay that hosting and AI usage directly, and your proposal estimates that bill in writing before you sign. We set the accounts up with you during the build, and their bills come to you. If you stop, that part keeps running, and you get every list and draft as files. The Needs assessment and Network versions have no monthly fee.
Weekly funding watch
For hospitals and health centers
Build price: $9,500
+ $300 a month
About 2 weeks of build work
The weekly watch with fit scores, the deadline calendar, and drafts from your facts library.
What's included in Weekly funding watch
- Facts library built, then refreshed each year
- A weekly email of ranked rounds, each with its AI insight
- Deadline and reporting calendar
- Year one stays under the $15,000 federal micro-purchase limit, so a buyer paying from a federal grant can skip competing quotes if it documents that the price is reasonable and its own purchasing rules allow it
Year one, build plus 12 months of our fee$13,100
Plus hosting and AI usage in your own accounts, estimated in your proposal before you sign.
Needs assessment
For a CHNA or needs assessment
Build price: from$10,500
$10,500 with the desk in place, $14,500 on its own.
No monthly fee
About 2–3 weeks of build work
The assessment you owe every three years, with every required section drafted and your community's comments sorted into themes.
What's included in Needs assessment
- Every required section drafted, each figure linked to its source
- Survey and listening-session comments sorted into themes
- Priority options for your committee to choose from
- The build weeks cover analysis and drafting; gathering community input happens on your own schedule
- A nonprofit hospital that misses its CHNA owes a $50,000 excise tax for each year it fails
Network
For associations and networks
Build price: from$45,000
Up to $70,000, depending on how many members join, from 5 to 10.
No monthly fee
About 7–9 weeks of build work
One system serves 5 to 10 members, each with its own reports and drafts, plus a calendar of funding rounds they all share.
What's included in Network
- A report for each member, in that member's name
- A shared calendar of state and federal rounds
- Each member's drafts stay its own
Have one round in mind? Start with an application sprint on one funding round for $5,500, one time, credited toward the desk within 90 days.
Payment and terms
- Under $20,000, half at signing and half at delivery. From $20,000, 40% at signing, 30% at a mid-build demo and 30% at acceptance.
- Paying by purchase order? There's no deposit: we invoice half at kickoff and half at acceptance, or from $20,000, 25% at kickoff, 35% at a mid-build demo and 40% at acceptance. Acceptance means the “What done means” criteria are met.
- No award is ever promised. Your staff decide what to pursue, then edit and sign every application.
- The monthly fee is month to month with 30 days' notice, and we reply by the next business day. The part of the tool that runs in your own account is yours on final payment and keeps running if you stop. The funding watch on our servers stops, and you get every list and draft as files.
- The fee for a smaller first step counts toward the full build if you buy it within 90 days.
- Running three or more of our AI tools? Their monthly fees are capped at $1,000 a month in total. Health system, network and multi-site versions are priced on their own.
Year one is the build plus 12 months of the monthly fee. Hosting and AI usage for the part that runs in your own account are billed to you directly by those providers, and your proposal estimates them before you sign. The build times on this page are measured in weeks of full-time work. Start and finish dates are set in writing in your proposal.
Tyler Kent does this work himself. He has 13+ years in data science and analytics, most of it in healthcare. About Tyler
Where this comes from
It follows the same design as two systems Tyler built: Tessera, which writes each finding with its sources attached, and Emblema, which turns findings into publication-ready charts. The TEAM hospital explorer on this site, which shows where each hospital stands in Medicare's TEAM payment program for five surgeries, is an example of that analysis on public federal data.
Read the case studiesQuestions
Why do state rural funds matter now?
The federal rural health fund sends states $10 billion a year from 2026 to 2030, and in spring 2026 states opened their first rounds for hospitals and other rural organizations to apply for that money. Pennsylvania's first round offered $25 million, with awards up to $1 million.
How does the fit score work, and can we trust it?
The score measures each notice against your eligibility and priorities. The AI insight next to the score is labeled as AI and names the lines in the notice and the facts it relied on. Your staff make every call.
Which funders allow AI drafting?
Rules differ, so the desk checks each funder's policy before drafting. NIH won't treat applications substantially developed by AI as the applicants' original ideas, so NIH research applications are out of scope.
Can we just buy a grant database?
If all you need is a way to find grants, yes. The desk adds state rural health fund rounds, a fit score against your own facts, and drafts written from them.
What happens if a hospital misses its assessment?
A nonprofit hospital facility that misses the requirement owes a $50,000 excise tax for each year it fails, charged separately for each facility.
What does our team still do for a CHNA?
The tax rules list five steps for a CHNA, and three of them stay with the hospital. It must take input from at least one public health department and from people who represent the community. An authorized body of the hospital adopts the report: the board, or a committee or other party the board has authorized. Then the hospital makes the report widely available to the public. The desk drafts the report and sorts the community input your team gathers into themes.
How an engagement worksQuestions about prices, payment and patient data
Sources
- KFF, A Closer Look at the $50 Billion Rural Health Transformation Program (opens in a new tab), updated September 2026
- State Health and Value Strategies, May 2026: State Implementation of the Rural Health Transformation Program Ramps Up (opens in a new tab)
- KFF, Community Health Center Patients, Financing, and Services (opens in a new tab), published October 5, 2026, with 2025 data (the figure shown for health centers)
- 26 U.S.C. 4959 (opens in a new tab) and 26 CFR 53.4959-1 (opens in a new tab), statute since 2010 (the figure shown for health systems)
- 26 CFR 1.501(r)-3 (opens in a new tab) and 1.501(r)-1 (opens in a new tab) (eCFR, as of October 7, 2026)
- HRSA, Health Center Program Compliance Manual, Chapter 3: Needs Assessment (opens in a new tab), fetched October 14, 2026
- NIH notice NOT-OD-25-132, Supporting Fairness and Originality in NIH Research Applications (opens in a new tab), released July 17, 2025
- 48 CFR 2.101 (opens in a new tab) and 2 CFR 200.320 (opens in a new tab) (eCFR, as of October 7, 2026)
Book a 20-minute call
Tell us which funding round is next for you and when your next CHNA or needs assessment is due. If we can help, you'll get a fixed-price proposal within 48 hours.
Prefer to skip the call? Get a written proposal
Or email tyler@kentapplied.com, or connect on LinkedIn.