8 Minute Read | Case Study

Using AI to Turn Climate Funding Data into Publishable Webpages

In Brief

From Manual Grant Hunting to Intelligent Automation

AI agents can help increase service levels and quality by automating manual tasks, freeing people to do work that requires more human judgement. For FundHubWA, that meant changing how funding opportunities were sourced, processed, and published. FundHubWA’s platform connects Washington residents, businesses, and agencies with climate and green energy funding opportunities, but posting grants and incentives took hours of manual work each week burdening limited staff.

To address this challenge, Resource Data built an AI-powered funding aggregator powered by Azure Persistent Agents. It takes on the heavy lifting of pulling in, structuring, scoring, and drafting the listings for funding opportunities based on FundHubWA’s criteria. This shifted the team’s focus from manual work to decision-making, sped up publishing, and enabled FundHubWA to scale with a growing volume of opportunities.

Key Takeaways

Intelligent Automation That Preserves Time and Workflows

AI-Driven Grant Parsing with Human Approval

An Azure Persistent AI Agent extracts, formats, and scores funding opportunities, while human reviewers retain final publishing authority.
Multi-Source Aggregation Without Custom Parsers

The system ingests JSON files, PDFs, and form submissions without the need for source-specific transformation logic.
From Hours to Minutes: Faster Publishing with Less Manual Work

Automating weekly grant pulls eliminated hours per person of manual aggregation per week.
Future-Ready Architecture Built for Expansion

New funding API sources can be integrated in days, not weeks, enabling rapid expansion across state and federal systems.
Structured, Searchable Data for Better Decision-Making

The AI Agent outputs standardized JSON documents which are automatically loaded into FundHubWA’s WordPress website which saves time, improves consistency and usability.

The Challenge

Manual Grant Posting Delayed Access to Critical Funding

FundHubWA, administered by the Washington State Department of Commerce, connects residents to climate and clean energy funding opportunities posted on their website. However, keeping grant listings up to date required a labor-intensive manual process. Staff had to search multiple sites, review PDFs and web pages, filter opportunities against scoring criterion, summarize content in Excel, and then upload it into WordPress.

This process took hours each week with limited staff, increasing the risk of delayed or missed funding opportunities and making it difficult to scale. Faced with the challenges of limited staffing and the end of a supporting vendor contract, Washington’s Department of Commerce needed a more efficient approach without losing the human oversight required to evaluate and publish funding opportunities.

Our Approach

Human-in-the-Loop and AI Agent Balance Workload Efficiency

To modernize FundHubWA’s process without losing human oversight, our team analyzed the existing manual workflow, reviewed and scoring criteria and translated the requirements into a structured AI instruction framework. Using Azure AI Persistent Agent tool, our team created a globally instructed agent to extract, structure, and score funding opportunities. Rather than replacing human judgment, we designed a solution with human-in-the-loop workflow.

The Solution

AI-Powered Aggregator That Automates and Standardizes Grant Publishing

Resource Data built an AI-powered funding aggregator to automate how funding opportunities are collected, structured, and prepared for review before publishing. At the solution’s core is a custom C# orchestrator that pulls data from multiple sources, including APIs and PDFs, and sends it to the AI agent.

The AI agent performs two key functions. It uses natural language processing to extract key details and structure them into a standardized JSON schema. Each opportunity is scored against defined climate and Washington-specific criteria, producing a relevance score and explanation. It is then loaded into WordPress as a draft for human review, improving speed, consistency, and scalability while maintaining oversight.

Features

Intelligent Automation Speeds Website Publishing

Azure Persistent AI Agent removes manual data processing work

The AI agent automatically reads PDFs and API data, extracts relevant information, and structures it into the required format, reducing the need for staff to manually review and transcribe funding opportunities.
Automated multi-source API ingestion for rapid expansion

Detailed scripts supported unit, functional testing, user acceptance, and regression testing scenarios across customer and agent interactions.
PDF and Document Parsing for unstructured content conversion in WordPress

State agencies can upload funding documents directly, and the AI auto-fills the web forms for funding opportunities.
AI Scoring with Justifications support faster and informed decisions

A structured workflow allowed teams to log, prioritize, resolve, and retest issues as system configuration progressed.
Schema-Driven JSON Output for Clean Content Management System (CMS) Integration

Structured outputs align precisely with WordPress data requirements, eliminating manual reformatting.

FundHub was an excellent application of agentic AI as it significantly aids the humans involved rather than replacing them. The FundHub AI Agent is supporting a great cause; connecting tribes, residents, and businesses in Washington to climate and clean energy funding opportunities to make Washington cleaner, healthier and more resilient.

- Dustin Schmidt, Technical Lead, Resource Data

Results

Faster Processing, Smarter Outputs, and Scalable Architecture

The AI-powered aggregator replaced hours of manual weekly work and eliminated Excel-based grant tracking. Funding opportunities are now automatically retrieved, structured, and drafted for review directly on their website, reducing delays and significantly improving efficiency from hours to minutes.

State agencies can now submit funding documents directly, increasing engagement and expand the portal’s reach. FundHubWA is now positioned as a scalable, multi-source funding intelligence platform rather than a manually curated website.

What's Next

Expanding Intelligent Automation Across State Agencies

With the architecture in place, FundHubWA is positioned to integrate additional state and federal funding APIs quickly. Future enhancements may include deeper criteria modeling, personalized funding recommendations, and expanded agency self-service submission tools.

Resource Data continues to support the Department of Commerce as it evolves FundHubWA’s services into a comprehensive, AI-assisted funding discovery platform that balances automation and human review.