Consensus for Nonprofits

Ask questions like "Does early childhood education improve long-term outcomes?" and get a visual representation showing whether research supports, contradicts, or is mixed on the claim. Perfect for grant proposals and board presentations when you need to quickly show evidence for your approach.

Consensus uses GPT-4 to analyze the top 10 most relevant papers and generate one-sentence summaries of key findings—all grounded in real, peer-reviewed research with proper citations. No hallucinations, just evidence-based insights you can trust and cite in your work.

Searches across Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, PubMed, Crossref, and ORCID databases—covering virtually every published study in health, education, social services, environmental science, and more. Unlike Google Scholar, Consensus is ad-free and specifically designed for evidence-based research.

Premium users can generate detailed reports that review 50+ papers, select the most relevant studies, and create cited summaries with visuals, consensus analysis, citation graphs, and key author insights. Perfect for grant proposals, program evaluations, or board reports requiring thorough literature reviews.

Filter by sample size, study type (human vs. animal studies, randomized controlled trials), publication date, and journal prestige. Essential for health-related nonprofits or when you need to justify decisions with gold-standard research. The top 1,500 papers are automatically re-ranked based on research quality signals.

Export paper details in CSV or RIS formats for seamless integration with popular reference managers. Save relevant papers to custom lists, organize by project, and export citations in APA, MLA, Chicago, and other standard formats—streamlining your grant writing and reporting workflows.

Visit consensus.app and try a search immediately—no signup required. Start with a yes/no question like "Does mindfulness improve employee wellbeing?" or "Does affordable housing reduce homelessness?" to see the Consensus Meter in action.

Pro tip: Frame questions as yes/no to activate the Consensus Meter visualization. Open-ended questions work but don't show the visual consensus indicator.

Sign up to unlock 10 GPT-4 powered Pro Analyses and 25 Pro Searches per month. Use your work email to keep research organized. If you have a .edu or .ac email, sign up with that to automatically get 40% off Premium if you upgrade later.

Search for something relevant to your actual work—a program intervention you're considering, a claim you need to verify, or a best practice you want to validate. Use the advanced filters to narrow by study type (human studies, RCTs), sample size, and publication date.

Pro tip: Click on individual paper cards to see GPT-4 summaries, then click through to read the original abstract. Export interesting papers to your reference manager using the RIS format option.

Bookmark relevant papers to a custom list (e.g., "Q2 Grant Proposal" or "Youth Mentoring Research"). Export the list as CSV or RIS to import into Zotero/Mendeley, or generate a Deep Research Report (Premium feature) for an automated literature review with visuals.

Pro tip: Free users get 10 bookmarks and 1 custom list. If you need more, consider upgrading to Premium for unlimited bookmarks and lists.

Consensus offers a free tier with unlimited basic searches across 200+ million papers, 10 GPT-4 powered Pro Analyses per month, 25 Pro Searches per month, and 3 Deep Searches per month. This works well for small nonprofits with occasional research needs. Consensus does not currently offer nonprofit-specific discounts, though students can get 40% off Premium with a verified .edu or .ac email address. Premium costs $8.99/month or $108/year and provides unlimited access to all features.

The Consensus Meter is a visual tool that analyzes research papers to show the level of agreement or disagreement on yes/no questions. It creates a graphic representation based on AI-powered summaries of multiple sources, helping you quickly understand whether the scientific consensus supports or contradicts a claim. This is particularly useful for evidence-based decision making when you need to quickly assess what research says about a specific question.

Consensus primarily works with publicly available abstracts and conclusions from research papers. For many papers, especially those behind paywalls, the AI may not have access to the entire PDF. This can limit the depth of analysis for some queries. However, Consensus searches across 200+ million papers from sources including Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, PubMed, and Crossref, providing comprehensive coverage of available research.

Yes. Consensus integrates with Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, and Paperpile reference managers. You can export paper details from search results and saved lists in CSV or RIS file formats. RIS format enables direct import into popular reference managers, streamlining your citation workflow and ensuring references are accurately formatted according to various citation styles like APA, MLA, and Chicago.

Consensus focuses on answering yes/no questions and showing scientific consensus through its Consensus Meter, making it excellent for evidence-based decision making and policy questions. Elicit specializes in systematic literature reviews with its literature matrix feature, allowing custom data extraction across multiple papers. Consensus is better for quick consensus checks and exploring what research says on a topic; Elicit is better for comprehensive literature reviews requiring detailed data extraction. Both search Semantic Scholar's 200+ million paper database.

Consensus uses GPT-4 to generate summaries from the top research papers, grounding all responses in real, peer-reviewed research rather than speculative AI-generated content. However, like all AI tools, Consensus has limitations including incompleteness (filtered results with some randomness) and irreproducibility (results may vary between searches). Always verify important findings by reading the original papers, especially for critical decisions. Consensus is best used as a powerful research accelerator, not a replacement for thorough research.