Research an organisation
Go into meetings with funders or partners fully prepared.
Steps
1. Describe the task
Before an important meeting or call, it helps to know who you’re talking to, what they care about and what they’ve said publicly. AI can help you do that research quickly: scanning websites, annual reports, strategy documents, and recent news to pull together a useful briefing.
This use case works well for:
- Preparing for a first meeting with a potential funder
- Understanding a partner’s values and approach before a collaboration conversation
- Finding out what a commissioner or local authority has said publicly about a topic relevant to your work
- Refreshing your knowledge before a follow-up meeting with an existing funder or partner
Copy and paste this prompt into the chat box, then send it. The AI will respond by asking you questions. That’s by design: it’s gathering the context it needs before drafting anything. Answer its questions like you’re briefing a colleague. If you’re not sure of an answer, say so as working it out together is part of the point. Then move on to the next step.
Using Worthwhile Chat?
Web Search is deactivated by default so make sure you enable ‘web search’ in your Chat Box.
Act as a researcher with experience supporting UK charities and nonprofits. I have a meeting coming up and I want to be well-prepared. Please search their website and any publicly available sources to put together a briefing for me. I need to understand:
- What they do and who they exist to serve
- Their current priorities, strategy or areas of focus
- Any recent news, announcements or publications relevant to my work
- Their values or stated ways of working, and anything that would help me understand their culture and approach
Keep the briefing concise and practical, organised under clear headings, with the most relevant information first. The briefing is for me personally.
Start by asking me questions about: who I’m meeting with; what kind of meeting it is and what is its purpose; and my own organisation and what we do. Then ask if I have any drafts or notes to upload. Then draft the briefing.
As you draft, watch out for and avoid: presenting anything you’re uncertain about as settled fact, and treating things as certain that I should really check directly with them.
2. Provide context
Once you’ve answered the AI’s questions, you can upload documents or paste in information to help it understand your work more deeply. This is especially useful if you already have some materials about the organisation, or if you want to tailor the output to your specific situation.
Important Context (add as much of this as you can)
- Any documents the organisation has shared with you directly, e.g. a grant guidelines document, a commissioning brief, or a partnership proposal
- Notes from a previous conversation or meeting with them
Additional context to add depth and detail
- A list of topics or questions you want to cover in the meeting, so the briefing can be shaped around those
- Information about your own organisation, if you want the briefing to highlight where your work overlaps with theirs
Before you upload files: check for sensitive data
Review your documents for personal or sensitive information about beneficiaries. Anonymise names and identifying details before uploading. Even though Worthwhile Chat is privacy-first, good data practice starts with you. If you're using other AI tools, check their data settings too: many train on your data by default. How much you share depends on your existing privacy and data policies, and how much control you have over the tools you use.
If you’re unsure, ask yourself: “If this document were seen by someone outside our organisation, could anyone be identified or harmed?” If yes, anonymise first.
I’ve uploaded their grant guidelines and my notes from a previous conversation. Please use these to update the briefing, particularly highlighting anything that’s relevant to the questions I’ve noted.
3. Review the output
The AI will produce a briefing based on its own web search. It may also flag areas where it couldn’t find clear information, or where it’s made an assumption you should check.
Before using the briefing to prepare, ask yourself:
- Does this match what I already know about this organisation?
- Are the priorities described current, or could they be out of date?
- Have any specific figures, quotes or facts been cited? If so, can I verify them?
- Is there anything the AI has interpreted or inferred that I should treat with caution?
- Does this give me enough to have a genuinely informed conversation, or do I need to dig further?
Remember: the AI is pulling together publicly available information, but it can’t attend the meeting for you. The briefing is a starting point, not a substitute for your own judgement and knowledge of your relationship with this organisation.
4. Follow up prompts
A first draft briefing might be more or less detailed than you need, or may not quite hit the right focus. Use follow-up prompts to shape it.
Ask for revisions
Focus and depth
- Can you focus the briefing more on their funding priorities and less on their general background?
- I’m particularly interested in what they’ve said about [topic]. Can you look into that in more detail?
- Are there any recent news stories or announcements about this organisation that I should know about?
Format and length
- Can you turn this into a one-page briefing I can print out and bring to the meeting?
- Shorten this to the five most important things I need to know.
- Can you add a section with suggested questions I could ask based on what you’ve found?”
Preparing specific talking points
- Based on this briefing, can you suggest two or three ways our work might connect with their current priorities?
- What does this organisation seem to value most? And what might they be sceptical about?
5. Tips and good practice
Always verify specific facts
The AI searches the web, but it can misread pages, pick up outdated content or fill gaps with plausible-sounding information that isn’t quite right. Always check statistics, named initiatives, quotes, and key claims against the organisation’s own published materials before relying on them. Make sure you also have a look at their website.
Check the date on what you find
Strategies, priorities and leadership change. A briefing based on a document from two years ago might not reflect where an organisation is today. If your tool searched the web itself, ask it to flag the sources it’s using and how recent they are.
Get a colleague’s take too
If a colleague is joining the meeting, share the briefing with them first. A second pair of eyes often spots anything that reads oddly or doesn’t quite match what they know about the organisation.
Be transparent about AI use if relevant
If you’re using AI to help you prepare for conversations with funders or commissioners, it’s worth being open about that if it comes up. More organisations are doing this, and transparency builds trust.
