#46 CYB: New AI Custom GPTs for nonprofit leaders, Spring Salads, and Please Take This Poll
Briones in May, another wonderful hike
Cover Your Bases started as a pandemic personal newsletter, sharing my interests out with friends. Now, four years later, it's a mash-up of personal interests, such as reading and hiking, and work interests, like using generative AI for nonprofit management and fundraising. I feel like it might be too free-ranging, and I wonder what you think? Please take the poll and help me figure it out.
In this issue, we'll explore the joys of spring salads, discover custom GPTs for nonprofit leaders, and take a peek into what's currently on my mind. Get ready for a mix of personal anecdotes and practical AI.
It's spring in Northern California, with all the promise of the season. Wildflowers are out, roses are starting to bloom, the days are longer, warmer and drier, and the light lingers later into the evening. It's not yet uncomfortably hot, so the warmer weather still feels good.
I've been planting Persian cucumbers and several types of tomatoes in my raised beds, picking the last of the winter lettuces and greens, and enjoying the spring asparagus and strawberries.
Part of this week’s CYB is all about food–salads in particular–and the rest is about my other obsession, Generative Ai, custom GPTs in particular. This week, I want to share two custom GPTs that I built for my own use that could benefit others as well (If you’re not using AI yet, I strongly urge you to give it a try, it can be an amazing and helpful tool.)  Let’s go!
Spring Salads For The Win
We’ve been making salads almost every night, usually tender greens with sliced cherry tomatoes, Persian cucumbers, fresh farm box carrots, red onion or garlic shoots. Every so often, instead, I make an asparagus salad, or a radish/cucumber/red onion/herb mix.  Two recent web resources for salad-makers caught my eye:
Emily Nunn, The Department of Salad’s massive salad index, filled with enough great recipes to keep you making salads all year
Julia Turshen’s  Mix and Match Salad Charts, one for greens and one for other kinds of base ingredients, like potatoes. Â
If you need reliable recipes, or inspiration, I’d highly recommend both of these writers.
New: Custom fundraising GPTs for nonprofit leaders
Discover two custom GPTs (Generative Pre-trained Transformers) that I built for my own use but am now sharing with you. Custom GPTs are AI models tailored to specific tasks or industries, providing more targeted and relevant outputs.
Nonprofit AI Navigator This custom GPT is designed to help nonprofits use AI for various tasks. When you ask a question, it will give you an answer and execute your prompt. Examples of tasks and prompts include:
Grant Proposal Drafting: "Can you help me draft a grant proposal for our upcoming initiative? I need to include a problem statement, the objectives of the project, the expected outcomes, and a detailed budget."
Donor Engagement Newsletter: "Could you create a monthly newsletter template that highlights recent achievements, upcoming events, and features a donor spotlight section? I want it to be engaging and visually appealing to keep our supporters updated and involved."
Impact Report Creation: "I need to prepare an annual impact report for our program. Can you assist in drafting content that outlines our key achievements, includes data-driven results, and testimonies from beneficiaries?"
Donor Match GPT. Donor Match is a multi-step bot that assesses an individual donor or family foundation's giving profile based on an uploaded CSV file. It analyzes the type of gifts, size, and sectors the donor's giving supports. The GPT then looks at your nonprofit's mission statement and a PDF upload of a recent impact report or annual report, analyzing the match (high/medium/low) between the donor and your nonprofit. Finally, Donor Match suggests outreach messages to get you started.
This was the first multi-step custom GPT I built, and I've found it effective. Give it a try and let me know your thoughts.
Note: As you know, custom GPTs require a paid subscription to OpenAI's ChatGPT-4 for $20 a month.
What else is in my brain right now?
Weightlifting: This form of exercise has become so fun for me. I’m kind of obsessed with front and back squats, deadlifts, overhead press and more. I felt self-conscious when I started back in January 2023, but it’s become a great source of both physical fitness and mental health. And squats–and other complex lifts–work the whole body at one time, which is so efficient! ( If you share this obsession, I would love to hear more.)
Writing an ebook: The first draft of my ebook about using AI for nonprofit work is done, and now the massive rewriting needs to start. Advice needed: what could help me to format a nonfiction book with lots of worksheets, etc?Â
Media: Baby Reindeer and The English Game are taking up space, along with Hacks (returning May 2nd!!!) and Palm Royale.
Thank you for joining me on this journey! I hope CYB#46 has sparked your curiosity and provided some useful insights. If anything in this issue resonates with you or you have suggestions for future topics, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to reply to this email and share your experiences, questions, or ideas.
If you know someone who might enjoy this mix of personal anecdotes and practical AI insights, please consider forwarding this newsletter to them. As always, I'm grateful for your readership and engagement. Your input helps shape the direction of this newsletter and keeps me motivated to share my knowledge and experiences. Looking forward to our continued conversation!
Warmly, Susan