Write your organization brief in five minutes.
The single most useful thing an executive director can do before using AI on anything. One page, written once, pasted into every real conversation so the tool never starts from zero.
The problem with starting from zero
The model forgets you between conversations. Retyping who you are, what your programs do, and how you sound is the reason most people give up after a week. The fix is a single document, written once and refined over a month, that you paste at the top of any real work: a thank-you letter, a grant report, a board memo, a volunteer email.
What goes in it
Keep it to one page. Plain text. Seven headings.
Mission. One sentence, the way you say it out loud, not the way it reads in the bylaws.
Programs and who we serve. Each program in a sentence: what it does, for whom, roughly how many people a year. No individual names or details about anyone you serve.
How we sound. Three or four adjectives, then two short real samples of your writing: a paragraph from a newsletter, a thank-you you were proud of. “Warm, plain, specific. We say ‘you’ a lot. We never say ‘impactful.’”
How we work. The things a new staff member learns in week one: hours, how intake works in general terms, who signs what, how you handle donations, your volunteer basics.
People and roles. First names and roles of staff and board officers who might be mentioned. “Dana runs programs. Marcus is board chair.”
Funders and restrictions. In general terms only: the kinds of funders you have, which programs are grant-restricted, reporting cadence. No dollar figures that will go stale, no grant numbers.
Never. Things the tool must never do or say on your behalf: promise a service to a specific person, quote an outcome you have not measured, name a person served, make a political statement, use exclamation points.
Get a first draft in five minutes
Open Claude or ChatGPT, paste this, and answer the questions honestly and briefly. Then edit the result by hand. The first version is 80 percent right; a month of use gets it to 95.
How to use it
Save it somewhere the whole staff can copy from in two seconds. Then, any time you ask an AI tool for something real (a thank-you, a grant section, a board update, a volunteer schedule note), start the message with “Here is our organization brief:” and paste. Notice how different the answers get.
Do it today
- Run the prompt. Answer every question in a sentence or two.
- Edit the draft until every line is true. Cut anything you would not say out loud.
- Paste it into your next three real requests and compare the results to before.
- Share it with staff. Put a reminder on the calendar to revise it in 30 days.
What this is a piece of
This is lesson two of fifty-three in the Adept Library, the written version of the Working Session: a half day with your staff on your real inbox, grants, donors, and books. If you want to see what the rest looks like, book a 30-minute call. No pitch, no prep.