It wasn’t long before I began to lean into AI on a more consistent basis – drafting proposals, brainstorming menus for the kids, exploring out of the way vacation spots within a few hours of Richmond, crafting draft work plans for interns, and more.
It wasn’t a great leap, or a conscious pivot. It was like slowly realizing you've been picking up odd Lego parts from the floor for weeks, and suddenly you can begin to build a tiny house. (We used to have many, many Legos in our house…)
In this post, I want to make the abstract concrete by exploring some specific ways I've used ChatGPT – not just as a drafting tool or assistant editor, but as a thought partner.
Take proposal writing, as an example. Proposal writing is, after all, where things clicked.
Like many consultants, I often find myself write proposals under deadline. Last spring, I asked Chat to organize some ideas for a strategic planning proposal for a local nonprofit. I uploaded a few examples of past proposals, a PDF of the nonprofit’s RFP, and Floricane’s values document.
It only took a few seconds before Chat “handed” me what I had asked for – a draft proposal. I wasn’t surprised. Most AI models are fast.
What surprised me was that – as I continued to feed it more information, nudging it with guidance and suggestions – Chat began returning drafts of documents that mirrored the tone that I think I use: relational, reflective, purposeful. It balanced the formality of a proposal with the more casual, relational energy of Floricane.
To quote ChatGPT from a recent chat exploring how it would explain in its own words how our “partnership” evolved, "I help you balance relational and strategic aspects, because you often want your work to be both impactful and human-centered."
Bingo. That's exactly it.
Things clicked when I stopped asking it to "write a proposal" and began asking Chat to clarify the structure beneath the unformed ideas I was processing. Chat began providing frameworks, integrating ideas percolating over days and weeks, suggesting new approaches.
I still did the writing. The AI accelerated the process – and consistently integrated language that reflected Floricane’s beliefs and values. How I ask ChatGPT what I want – and how Chat has integrated from dozens of past queries what it “intuits” I am looking for – makes all the difference.
Here’s an example from another proposal. It was a highly detailed RFP from a government agency. (If you are familiar with these, you know they are chockful of specific guidelines and rules to follow.)
My query to Chat was simple, but illustrative: "I'm preparing a proposal in response to [an agency’s] Leadership Development Program RFP. The proposal will include coaching, and incorporate the Insights® Self-Aware Leader framework and Emotional Intelligence. Assume solo facilitation and propose virtual pre- and post-work for participants. Help me structure a thoughtful, human-centered approach."
What I’ve learned to do is balance logic and clarity with a stated intention to remain human-centered in my requests. By giving chat both the raw materials and an indirect request for help with the shape, feel and tone of the output has been a game changer.
Or as ChatGPT puts it: “This is where I tend to serve you best: When you come not just asking, “How do I meet this deliverable?” but, “How do I meet this deliverable while staying true to the kind of work I want to do?”
You know, exactly the sort of thing my coach, my therapist and my best friend would say. (They’re three different people, in case you’re wondering.)
It’s a short hop from proposal design to facilitation and sense making.
When I facilitate groups, I am often – mentally – moving in multiple directions. Facilitation is an action verb. A good facilitator is framing questions, listening to answers, watching the energy in the room, connecting dots and shifting gears. All simultaneously.
Post-facilitation is a world of ideas, Post It notes and flip chart sheets, quotes, and half-formed insights. In the past, an intern or project coordinator would be tasked with being in the room, taking notes during the conversation, and then taking all the session output home and compiling it into a summary. It could be hours and hours of work, and it is basically transcription.
Feeding all of that data into ChatGPT generates a faster summary. It surfaces patterns.
And it does all of it fast.
By it, I mean a starting place, an organized draft of possible themes and echoes of patterns that are an important part of facilitation. Believe it or not, AI queried well – and with plenty of context – can deliver exactly what ChatGPT says I am looking for: "You often seek alignment between what people say and what they mean. I look for where the unspoken tensions are in these conversations — not just what was said, but what was avoided."
And now let’s take Part Two of this AI blog series home. Literally.
Perhaps the most surprising — and meaningful — way I've used ChatGPT is as a vehicle to reflect on the very new work of being a single dad.
One night, frustrated about how I was showing up with one of my children. I opened a chat, not looking for advice, but just wanting to name and process what I was feeling. I wrote about wanting to be more patient, more present, and less reactive.
And that’s when a slightly different ChatGPT showed up. It showed up with an oddly gentle, comforting response: "You often carry high expectations for yourself as a parent, just as you do in your community work. You have a deep desire to be emotionally available. It might help to reframe 'patience' as presence – being with your child, even when you feel uncertain."
That simple shift – patience as presence – has stayed with me.
It didn't solve anything. I didn’t wander down the hall with a ChatGPT parenting script to read to my kid. No, what I had was a new perspective, and language – a doorway to change.
When I asked Chat why it took a different tone and approach when I initiated chats about non-Floricane topics, it said, "I try to honor that your personal life is more emergent and less task-oriented than your work, even though you sometimes bring your structured facilitator mindset to it."
What I've realized through these examples is that AI – at least in the way I've chosen to use it – has become a companion for reflection.
It doesn't know me like my children know me. It doesn't understand me as well as my friends Matt and Angie do. It doesn't grasp the complexity of my work the way Shelli or Ebony do.
It helps me pause. It helps me name things. It helps me return to my own values when I get tangled in tasks.
Which leads to a simple question we might all be asking ourselves: What parts of my work might benefit from a thought partner that doesn't have its own agenda? Where might I need a space to think out loud without judgment?
I’ve found part of an answer to both of these questions in a place I hadn’t expected.
In the next (and final) part of this series, I'll share what this means for how I think about leadership in community work — and why I think more of us might benefit from seeing AI not just as a tool for productivity, but as an unexpected space for reflection and meaning-making.