MEMO 01
I asked for the next board meeting’s agenda twice, with the same eight words. The first answer came back as a blank template: bracketed blanks for the organization name, stock consent and discussion block. No indication that it knew Ambervale*. The second put December 17 on the page, pulled names from the roster, and flagged that the file’s next full-board date and a strict reading of “next month” do not line up. The only difference between the two runs was a file I attached the second time.
The same request, without the router file and then with it.
ASSEMBLY
An agenda is assembly work. Every fact it needs should already exist somewhere in the organization. Once those facts sit in one file, the draft does not ask you to dig them up again.
The setup
A router file is one document, linked to every session, that answers what a new hire would ask in week one. To have your AI load it without being asked, attach it to a Project in Claude or ChatGPT, so every conversation in that Project has it. With any other AI, paste it at the top of the session. Eight headings.
ORG
What you do, for whom, at what size. One paragraph, in numbers where you have them.
FISCAL YEAR
The dates, so “next quarter” means the same thing to both of you.
PROGRAMS AND NUMBERS
Each program, its share of the budget, the one metric you watch.
BOARD AND COMMITTEES
Who sits where, when each meets, and what each is allowed to decide.
RECURRING DELIVERABLES
Everything with a due date that repeats, funder reports included, with the funder named.
WHO DECIDES WHAT
Decision rights, by role. Where nobody has decided, the file says so.
READERS
One clause per audience on who they are to you. For Ambervale, the board is nine volunteers who read on the train.
STANDING RULES
Where output lands, what has failed before, what your AI may never read, and the rules learned the hard way, dated.
The test for a finished router: attach it, ask for something routine, and see whether the answer comes back with a question you already answered in the file. If it does, that heading is thin.
HUMAN LOCK
WHO DECIDES WHAT decides what an agenda can hold. The file knows Ambervale’s operating reserve sits at 2 months against a 3-month policy, and it will put the reserve on the December agenda. Whether the board sees it as a decision or as a report is yours to call, and the file waits until you’ve made it.
The close
The minutes that used to go to re-explaining my own organization at the top of every session now go to the one item on that agenda that needs an argument. On Ambervale’s desk that’s the reserve conversation, which the file can put on the agenda and can’t settle. The draft runs without you. The hour it hands back gets spent on a call.
Once this file attaches every time, the next leverage is what the machine can read without you attaching anything: email, calendar, Drive.
What’s the one fact about your org you’ve typed into a chat window more than 3 times this month?
* Ambervale is a fictional nonprofit I use in these memos so I can show real workflows without showing anyone’s real board.