💚 Using AI to Build Partnerships

Hey ,

I hope your May is off to a great start. With the recent news on OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o release, I thought discussing AI and how it can support our capacity-building efforts as founders and leaders needed a few minutes. The Neuron does an excellent breakdown of all things AI below, if you’re interested in having a read!

But before we dive into that…

I need your input!

Before we dive in, I have a quick ask for you! I’m thinking about creating a live course at the end of the summer and would like to get a better understanding of what people would like to see in the syllabus.

If you are interested in this and wouldn’t mind filling out a short survey below, I would greatly appreciate it!

Here’s what you can expect in this issue:

• DHL UK Foundation x TeachFirst - An example of a nine-year corporate partnership that connected youth to one of the largest logistics companies in the world.

• How to use AI in your corporate partnership journey - As someone who was an AI sceptic until fairly recently, I wanted to share some of the ways I’ve been utilising AI in my own organisation and how you can do the same, especially if you are a solo-founder or a very small team.

• Why fundraising and making ‘The Ask’ feels icky and how to get rid of it - Sales… fundraising… no matter what term you prefer - people within the impact or for purpose space usually associate the word ‘sales’ with something icky. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Let’s get started ⬇️

Let’s break down an example of a successful corporate partnership!

Today, we’re looking into DHL Foundation and Teach First. Now, I suspect all of us would have heard of DHL and had their package delivered at some point; they are huge with a global footprint. Teach First, however, you may not know unless you’re from the UK. Teach First is an educational social enterprise started in the UK in 2003 that trains teachers to teach in challenging schools.

Since their partnership began in 2015, DHL UK Foundation have developed a flagship education and employability programme, GoTeach UK which Teach First is heavily involved in and DHL UK Foundation has donated an incredible £2 million to Teach First.

Why does this work?

⚡A Strong Purpose & Aligned Goals: DHL UK Foundation had a core mission of putting an end to youth unemployment, which is no easy feat. They carefully sought out and selected charities that also aligned with their goals of ending educational inequality and boosting young people’s access to the workplace.

⚡Everyone Wins: For DHL UK Foundation to achieve its mission in the long term, strong partnerships with schools are required. This means they can reach young people and intervene as early as possible and get them involved in their employability programmes, work placements and other activities. What better charity to partner with than Teach First who have access to over 700 secondary schools across the country?

Before, whenever the term ‘AI’ would get mentioned, I’d roll my eyes into oblivion. I’d like to say now, after toying around, attending some events and speaking to AI enthusiasts, I’ve gone from an AI-skeptic to AI-curious.

A win is a win!

Using Generative AI in my day-to-day processes has made me a lot more productive. It’s almost like having another member of staff on your team to support you if you play it properly. Based on the prompt above, here’s what ChatGPT was able to create.

I don’t think I’m at the stage where I’m comfortable letting AI do all of the work, however, I believe it’s a great tool to have in your arsenal to steer you in the right direction and enable you to start from 1 instead of 0.

• Always tell it who it is and be specific. It’s a robot and doesn’t know otherwise! In my above example, I gave it a lot of context and background.

• Be clear about your audience. In the above example, I’ve mentioned an FTSE 100 company - ensuring that it knows who the key audience is or who you are is important.

• Longer prompts are a good thing! If you’re worried about your prompt being a bit too long, don’t fret! The more context you have the better, this is how it learns and evolves. In real life, we have a lot of context to what we do and where we work - whichever platform you use, will need that too.

• Compare notes. If one AI doesn’t quite cut it for you, consider using others and copying/pasting in the same prompt. Sometimes you’ll be surprised with just how different the outcomes are.

• Feedback and iteration… Treat it like someone on your team! If it doesn’t quite get something right, keep adding more context and instructions until you get your ideal outcome. It learns from this experience and you also learn to prompt better in the long run!

Here are some other alternatives that you can try:

• Pi (a favourite of mine, which is more human-centred and personable than ChatGPT and Gemini).

• Typetone (usually what I use as an aid when creating content, they have loads of templates and formats for social media and marketing which come in handy).

Asking for money can always be a little bit awkward for people.

We can go on and on about impact and how we want to change things, but when it gets to the ‘ask’ it always feels like the icky part of the conversation. The part that we want to rush or get out of the way. But actually, I think it’s time to think about how we can do this more authentically and make this process more fun!

It takes quite a bit of mindset work to get comfortable with making your ask and talking about money; especially if previously this has been met with hostility or rejection. I know that I’ve had to consciously remind myself that it’s not the pitching or the ask I hate, it’s the potential fear of rejection or objections to something so personal to me. Once I figured that out, it became easier for me to build a little system where I felt safer.

Bigger picture thinking would be the common thread to help you cultivate a genuine, personal, educated and mutually productive relationship! Keep that in mind, rather than the immediate ask in front of you. So here’s a four-step framework to make those all-important meetings less ‘icky’:

➡️ Step One: ‘The Welcome Desk’: Open, friendly and inviting. In this initial step during the conversation, you would focus on building trust and connection through your founding story, core mission and why they are aligned - to give your potential partner a nice welcome. If you picture the amount of reception or welcome desks you’ve been to throughout your life, which ones do you remember? What kinds of vibes did you get? What kind of first impression would you like to make?

➡️ Step Two: ‘The Hot Seat’: Narrowing down details and leading with curiosity. In this part of the conversation, you’re starting to dig a little bit deeper into why this person took your call or meeting and the wider aims of their business when it comes to potentially partnering with you. What keeps this person engaged? What are the key issues they are facing at their business and how are you best positioned to help them? This is an excellent opportunity to mention any successful case studies or metrics along with what you have planned within the next 1-3 months for them to see or get involved in potentially, such as an event. Potential partners love to see things like this and now that they have the background information, it makes the task a lot easier to make.

➡️ Step Three: ‘The Ask’: This is where you shoot for the moon! Based on your learnings during the conversation, it’s time to make your clear ask and how you picture working with their business. Stay open-ended and curious and remember to use your silence and wait for a response. Here’s an example of what you could say: Based on what you’ve highlighted as your key areas of focus, the range for our corporate partnerships is between £10,000 and £15,000 per year - does that sound in the realm of possibility for [company name] at the moment?

➡️ Step Four: ‘The Wrap-Up’: The last step but probably the most neglected. This is where you properly establish the next form of communication and what you can expect from each other in the meantime. If it’s easier for you both, you may even want to pencil in a follow-up meeting before you leave. Thank them for their time [regardless of the outcome] and be sure to send through any mentioned materials such as impact reports.

🎧 The Potential Impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence on the Nonprofit Sector - The NonProfit Voice: The NonProfit Voice Tech Series, Kopp and France Hoang, co-CEO at boodleAI, discuss how — unlike foundational AI, such as large language models (LLMs) and generative pre-training transformers (GPTs) — mid-layer AI can solve issues specific to the nonprofit sector.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it on to others who are Impact Champs too! Also, I’d love to learn more about you and what your organisation is doing; so please respond with a line or two about what you do!

If you have any questions about what’s mentioned in this issue, drop me an email!💚

Speak soon!