Application Deadline: August 16, 2025
Location: Global
About the Funding
The Public Benefit Innovation Fund (PBIF) is awarding $5 million in non-dilutive investment to advance AI-enabled solutions that assist governments in responding to recent federal policy changes and budget restrictions in safety net programs. Awards will be two-year grants ranging from $500,000 to $2 million, supporting 5-10 initiatives that will be piloted or deployed with production data within 12 months.
This Open Call invites solutions for AI-enabled technology that directly supports state, local, and tribal administered public benefit programs—including Medicaid and SNAP—by decreasing administrative burden, increasing system performance, and ensuring eligible families receive the assistance they require.
Priority Areas
Programs where:
- There is a meaningful participation gap
- That gap is driven by administrative burdens
- There is robust evidence that accessing those benefits leads to improved economic mobility outcomes.
Solutions that focus on:
- Income and employment verification to streamline eligibility, ensure compliance and reduce manual review burdens
- SNAP error rate reduction, including tools that reduce improper denials or overpayments
- Clear and accessible beneficiary communication, helping users understand requirements, complete applications, and navigate changes confidently
- Application, verification, and appeal backlog reduction, improving both client experience and staff capacity
What Are the Funds For:
Over the next two years, PBIF plans to support projects that leverage AI and other emerging technologies to:
- Streamline benefits applications and renewals, including auto-filled forms, eligibility recommendations, agentic navigation, document collection, and data integration
- Reduce backlogs and administrative burden through human-in-the-loop automation or workflow optimization.
- Improve personalization and accessibility across languages, reading levels, and digital literacy
- Build high-quality, open datasets or benchmarking tools that improve testing, evaluation, and transparency in AI deployments
- Improve benefits access by enabling bold, unconventional applications of AI
Benefits
- PBIF will award approximately $5 million in non-dilutive funding to 5–10 grantees through this Open Call.
- Grant sizes will range from $500,000 to $2,000,000.
- Finalists will be notified by September 30, 2025, with funds distributed no later than November 15th, 2025.
Who Can Apply
- Early-stage teams, established orgs, non-profit, for-profit, and government agencies that are able to build and deploy/pilot an AI solution in the 12 month time frame.
strong proposals will demonstrate:
- A deep understanding of the problem space, grounded in staff and beneficiary experience and supported by qualitative and/or quantitative data
- A clear implementation path:
- For government-focused solutions: at least one identified government partner (e.g., letter of support or similar commitment) and a strategy for making the solution accessible for other governments
- For beneficiary-facing tools: a viable plan for outreach, adoption, and trust-building
- Technical feasibility, including:
- A functional proof of concept and mapped infrastructure
- Data use agreements (executed or in progress), or a clear plan and timeline for securing them
- A documented evaluation strategy with meaningful success benchmarks
- Milestones that can be reached by July 2026
- A credible path to financial sustainability and long-term scale
- A technically ambitious but realistic approach
Submissions do not need to:
- Be in production with real data (but goal would be to be in production by July 2026)
- Have revenue
This grant is exclusively for social impact brands—organizations with a clear, measurable social or environmental mission at their core.
Evaluation Criteria
Proposals will be evaluated on the following:
- Impact: Does the project address a clearly defined and evidence-based barrier to accessing safety net programs—such as a service gap, operational challenge, or user experience issue? If successful:
- Will the solution deliver meaningful and measurable improvement for beneficiaries and the staff who serve them?
- Is there a clear plan to track, measure, and report on impact?
- Responsible AI: Does the solution prioritize data privacy, transparency, and fairness in its design and implementation? Are potential risks—such as bias, misuse, or unintended consequences—identified and appropriately mitigated?
- Technical & Practical Feasibility:
- Is the proposed solution technically sound and achievable within the project timeline, budget and plan? Can the solution integrate with existing government systems?
- Does the team have the necessary expertise, capacity, and partnerships to implement the project effectively, and drive adoption?
- Are government partners and/or beneficiaries engaged in the solution development and design?
- Strategic Alignment: Does the opportunity represent an area or thesis that, without catalytic funding or space to take risk, would either not manifest, or take much longer to do so?
- Shared Learning and Scale: Does the project include a clear and intentional plan for sharing findings, lessons learned, and—where appropriate—tools, data, or code with the broader public benefits community and other relevant stakeholders? Is there a reasonable path to scalability, if the solution is successful?
The Review Process
Applications will be reviewed in three rounds:
Round 1 – Eligibility and Completeness
The PBIF team will screen applications for completeness and alignment with eligibility criteria.
Round 2 – Comprehensive Review
Selected proposals will be evaluated by a panel of reviewers with expertise in product, policy , engineering, operations, and public benefits systems. Each proposal will be reviewed by 3 evaluators, scored across the five criteria above, and assessed for strategic fit with PBIF’s portfolio.
Round 3 – Technical Deep Dive
Finalists will meet with reviewers to answer clarifying questions, share technical details, and provide additional documentation (e.g., system architecture, partnership commitments). Based on these reviews and conversations, a final slate of 5–10 grantees will be awarded funding.
How to Apply
Complete the online application:
https://www.tfaforms.com/5186997
For more information, please visit PBIF official webpage:
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