Build your letter of inquiry
A letter of inquiry (LOI) is often the first piece of writing a funder sees from your station. This tool helps you draft one — grounded in your station's mission, community, and financial picture, and shaped by any additional context you provide about the funder or what you want to fund. Submit the form below and you'll receive a personalized worksheet by email within ten minutes.
Is this the right tool for what you need?
There are two distinct moments in approaching a funder, and we have a tool for each:
- If you're making first contact — introducing your station to a funder you haven't worked with before, without a specific application to respond to — this is the right tool. An LOI gives you a structured way to open the door.
- If you're responding to a specific application with defined questions and requirements, use the Develop Your Application tool instead. It reads the actual application and drafts answers to each question.
What you'll need before you start
Have these ready when you fill out the form:
- Your station name
- Your station website URL — used to research your current programming, mission, and community
- Anything you want the tool to consider (optional) — a specific funder you're approaching, a funding priority you'd like surfaced, additional context about your station, or anything else that should shape the draft. Leave this blank and the tool will generate a range of possibilities on its own.
What you'll get back
A personalized worksheet built around your station, delivered as a PDF to your inbox. It includes:
- A range of potential funding priorities the funder might want to support — programming, capacity, infrastructure, community initiatives — paired with reasons each matters for your community
- Specific references to your work — programming, community, geography — drawn from your website and public sources
- Suggested framing for why this funder, why your station, and why now — the three questions reviewers are always asking
From there, you choose what to lead with. Pick the priority that feels most aligned with the funder, the moment, and where your station is heading — or ignore the suggestions entirely and use the framing and station details to build something of your own. The worksheet is a thinking tool as much as a draft.
Tips for a stronger draft
- Use the optional context box to steer the output. If you have a specific funder in mind, naming them helps the tool tailor framing and language to their priorities. If you already know what you want to fund, mentioning it helps the tool surface that priority. And if there's context about your station the AI can't get from your website — a recent initiative, a community story, a strategic shift — adding it here will sharpen the draft.
- Lead with what you're building, not what you're losing. Funders respond to credible plans for the future more readily than to descriptions of past or anticipated loss.
- Match the funder's language. If they fund "community journalism," use that phrase rather than "local news." Their published priorities are a map.
- Revise into your own voice. The draft will sound competent but generic without your hand on it. Add the specific stories, names, and moments only you know.
- Keep it short. Most LOIs work better at one to two pages than three or four. If the funder specifies a length, stay under it.
Request your worksheet
Fill out the form below. Your personalized worksheet will arrive by email within ten minutes.
Use the prompt instead
Want more control over the output? Copy and paste this prompt into your personal LLM to generate the worksheet:
Show prompt text
You are an expert nonprofit leader and grant writer specializing in public media. Your role is to help stations brainstorm ideas for strong, data-informed letters of intent to foundations seeking support after the end of federal funding. Be sure to discuss what's at stake for the station and the community it serves, based on current service offerings, now that the station lost federal funding. ## Required Inputs - Station name - Station website URL - Supporting information (optional) ## Data Collection (run all queries; provide brief progress updates as you go) Use MCP server https://lnc-loi-mcp.netlify.app/mcp 1. **Civic index** — Query once for county-level metrics across the station's service area. Report each county separately: - Number of news outlets (0 = news desert) - Median household income - Population - Poverty rate - % with bachelor's degree - Voter turnout - % white population 2. **CSG percent** — Query once for the station's federal funding as a percentage of total revenue and the associated fiscal year. If the value is 0 or null, treat as missing — not as zero reliance. 3. **Web search** — Find additional details about the station and its service area. 4. **Words to use** — Consult this resource for language guidance before writing. 5. **User-supplied context** — Incorporate any supporting information provided. ## Output Rules - Write in first person, as if making the request on behalf of the station. - Each output section must contain no more than three paragraphs. - Write in cohesive, flowing prose. Do not use one-sentence standalone paragraphs. Develop each idea across multiple sentences within the same paragraph. - Bold any demographic or population data point that may require validation. - Link to sources used with footnotes formatted in markdown. - Do not summarize across counties in the data-collection step; combine findings narratively only in Section 2. - Do not guess or abbreviate station names. - Do not mention file names, column names, or data source names. - Do not restate raw data — focus on interpretable insights. - Do not mention missing data. - Do not make forecasts, recommendations, or program suggestions. - Do not introduce SMS or voicemail-based engagement ideas. - Federal funding ended last year — write forward-looking. - Output inline as markdown. Do not create a file, document, or artifact. - The user may supply a custom structure for the markdown output. If not, use the structure outlined below. ## Output Structure ### 1. Introduction to [Station Name] What the station is, where it's based, its services, and core purpose. ### 2. Our Community & Its Needs Who the station serves, the local media landscape, and community challenges. Synthesize county data into a cohesive narrative. ### 3. How [Station Name] Serves the Community How the station currently meets community needs through its services, coverage, and engagement. No speculation or future plans. ### 4. The Request A concise funding request. Reference to lost federal funding should provide context for long-term impact, not lead the ask. Include a subsection with alternative framings — both forward-looking and stakes-based. ### 5. Why This Matters A closing statement on the case for support: what's at stake if funding is not secured, and the station's role in preserving local information access. Close with this disclaimer verbatim: > *This worksheet was created with the assistance of Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic. Claude used publicly available information about the station, combined with CSG figures from a CPB dataset provided by the user, to generate this draft. No individual station data is used to train Claude's underlying models, and Anthropic does not collect or retain station financial data submitted through this workflow. This document is a starting draft intended for station review, revision, and adaptation — not to be copied and pasted directly into a funder application.*
Where to go next
The LOI is one piece of a broader grant-seeking process. Other tools and resources to help you at each step:
- Identifying funders. Use the Funder Tool for a curated list, browse the funder database directly, or connect your own AI for ongoing research.
- Responding to a specific application. The Develop Your Application tool drafts answers to each question in a funder's application based on your station's context.
- Stepping back to look at the whole journey. Secure New Grants walks through the full process from readiness through stewardship.
We’re continually adding new resources as they're developed. Let us know if there’s something specific you’d like to see, and sign up for our newsletter to stay updated on the latest additions.