AI Workshops to Action: How Business Mentoring Shaped a Community Cook School CIC

Background

When this experienced community fundraiser approached Beyond Touch through an AI workshop programme delivered by a regional business support network, she had already spent more than 14 years writing successful grant applications for a children’s charity in Southern England. The organisation had secured major funding, including six-figure lottery grants, and she knew how to build a compelling case for support. What she did not yet know was how AI could make that work faster without stripping out the human judgement and credibility funders expect.

The timing of the engagement mattered. Alongside her ongoing fundraising role, she had entered into a new business partnership with a highly experienced executive chef to create a private cook school with a strong community mission. The chef brought more than 40 years in high-end hospitality, including experience in some of London’s best-known hotels and with a major international hotel group. Together, they had identified a model that combined premium private cookery experiences with a charitable arm delivering food education to lower-income communities.

The plan was to establish a Community Interest Company alongside the chef’s existing limited company. Two entities, one kitchen, and a structure where evening classes for private clients would help subsidise free or low-cost daytime workshops for community beneficiaries. The client had already attended two Beyond Touch AI workshops and wanted one-to-one support to apply those ideas directly to the real challenge in front of her: CIC formation and AI-supported grant writing.

The Challenge

Fundraising Fatigue and the Blank Page Problem

Writing grant applications year after year takes a toll. The client had been doing it for well over a decade and knew how repetitive and demanding the work could be. Each new application meant revisiting previous bids, searching for the right phrasing, the right supporting evidence, and the right tone. Tight word counts made the task even harder. One current application required four separate answers capped at just 100 words each, forcing complex community impact into a very narrow space.

She needed help reducing the effort without losing the quality.

AI Scepticism from the Funding Side

The client was also aware that funders were beginning to spot AI-generated content. A financial strategy adviser she worked with had recently reviewed ten grant applications and could immediately identify several that had clearly been written by AI. The client did not want to risk credibility by submitting anything that sounded generic or machine-produced. The challenge was to use AI for speed and structure without letting it dominate the final voice.

CIC Formation Without Legal Confidence or Spare Budget

Although setting up a CIC can look simple on paper, the reality is more involved. Articles of Association, the CIC36 community interest statement, Companies House incorporation, identity verification, wet signatures from all five directors, and the asset lock partner all needed to be handled in the correct order. Everyone the client had spoken to gave the same advice: do not try to draft the Articles yourself without help.

She had already found a specialist consultant who quoted roughly £700 to £800 for the Articles and formation support, which seemed reasonable but still felt significant for an unfunded startup.

Two Entities, Shared Infrastructure, Governance Risk

The new CIC would sit alongside the chef’s private limited company, with both using the same kitchen and involving the same lead chef. That created a governance challenge. Without clear boundaries, the commercial entity could easily end up taking the more profitable work while the CIC absorbed more of the overhead burden. The founder needed a governance structure that protected the community mission, handled conflicts of interest properly, and avoided any one side holding too much influence.

How Beyond Touch Helped

Perplexity Spaces as a Practical Filing System

One of the most useful shifts came through Beyond Touch’s demonstration of Perplexity Spaces. Until that point, the client had experimented with AI, but all of her research and prompting had lived inside broad, mixed conversations. Charity work, CIC setup, and general questions were all blending together.

Beyond Touch showed how Spaces could be used as ring-fenced project environments. A dedicated CIC Space could hold the relevant Companies House guidance, CIC36 drafts, regulator links, and custom instructions about the organisation’s mission and tone. That immediately gave the client a clearer way to separate one body of work from another.

The concept clicked quickly. Instead of re-explaining the context every time, she could work inside an environment that already understood the organisation and the documents that mattered most.

NotebookLM for Grant Application Control

Following the earlier workshops, the client had already become interested in Google NotebookLM. During the Power Hour, Beyond Touch showed how it could support grant application work more selectively. Rather than letting AI draw on everything at once, NotebookLM made it possible to upload multiple source documents and choose exactly which ones should be active for a given response.

That level of control mattered. If the client was answering a question about impact, she could focus the tool only on relevant case studies and grant criteria. If she was working on a different section, she could remove unrelated material and keep the drafting cleaner and more focused.

The Dictation Breakthrough

Beyond Touch also introduced the dictation feature in Perplexity. For someone used to holding detailed frontline stories, community impact examples, and charity case studies in notebooks or meeting notes, this created a much faster route into drafting. Instead of typing every thought in sequence, the client could simply speak naturally, let the tool transcribe it, and then ask AI to structure the content afterwards.

That was especially useful for case studies and real-world impact stories, where the raw material is often rich but difficult to capture neatly in the first draft.

CIC Governance Guidance Grounded in Experience

The session also moved well beyond AI tools. Because Grae at Beyond Touch runs a CIC himself, the conversation around governance was practical rather than abstract. The mentoring covered board structure, the value of keeping five directors to avoid deadlock, the role of the asset lock partner, the filing sequence for incorporation, and the reality of annual reporting.

One particularly useful recommendation was to use AI as a drafting assistant for the CIC36 community interest statement. By feeding Perplexity the regulator guidance, model wording, and a description of the organisation’s target community, the client could generate a strong first draft and then reshape it in her own words.

The “Knowing What You Know About Me” Prompt Technique

One of the standout lessons from the wider Beyond Touch programme was a prompting approach built around context. Once a Space contained enough information about the organisation, the client could begin with wording such as “knowing what you know about me” and then ask for help refining a specific answer, passage, or application section in a tone that matched her own writing.

That helped reposition AI from something that writes instead of her to something that works with her existing voice and knowledge.

Timeline

AI Workshop 1 with Beyond Touch: First exposure to Perplexity AI, structured prompting, and the value of detailed instructions over short vague prompts. The client began using longer prompts immediately after the session.

AI Workshop 2 with Beyond Touch: Further exposure to NotebookLM and source management. The client began seeing how AI could support fundraising workflows rather than simply generate generic text.

Session 1: Beyond Touch Power Hour (69 minutes): One-to-one mentoring covered Perplexity Spaces, NotebookLM for grant writing, dictation for case study creation, CIC governance and formation planning, and the “knowing what you know about me” prompt technique. Fathom captured the action list from the session.

Immediate Next Steps: Additional mentoring sessions to be booked within the month, CIC incorporation to proceed once the Articles are finalised, and separate AI workspaces to be built for both the CIC and the existing charity work.

Outcomes

AI Capability That Fits Real Workflows

The client left the session with three AI tools that could be used immediately in her day-to-day work: Perplexity Spaces for CIC formation and structured research, NotebookLM for grant application management, and dictation for faster story capture and drafting. These were not abstract recommendations. They were tools demonstrated against her actual tasks.

A Clearer CIC Formation Roadmap

Beyond Touch helped turn an overwhelming incorporation process into a clearer sequence: complete director verification, finalise the Articles with the consultant, use AI to support the CIC36 draft, collect signatures, submit to Companies House, and then move into banking and setup. Crucially, the session prevented a premature filing that could have been rejected because the supporting documents were not yet ready.

Stronger Governance Confidence

The board structure discussion also gave the client more confidence in the governance model. Five directors made sense, not only because it avoided deadlock but because it created a better balance between the commercial and social sides of the wider venture. Practical discussion around director remuneration and asset lock responsibilities helped make the structure feel more manageable.

More Human Output from Better Prompting

The most important change in her AI use was not the software itself, but the prompting style. By moving from short, generic instructions to richer, more context-aware prompts, the client was able to get output that better reflected her tone and organisational voice. That made AI a useful drafting assistant without making the final applications sound artificial.

Client Reflections

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How can Beyond Touch AI workshops help with grant application writing?

A: Beyond Touch AI workshops focus on practical tools that can be used in live funding work. In this case, the client learned how to use Perplexity Spaces and NotebookLM to manage source material, structure responses, and keep AI grounded in real documents rather than generic output.

Q: Can Beyond Touch help with CIC formation and governance?

A: Yes. This session covered board composition, asset lock partners, the CIC36 statement, Companies House filing sequence, and governance questions around multiple entities sharing one operation. The advice was strengthened by direct CIC experience, not just theory.

Q: What AI tools does Beyond Touch recommend for non-technical community organisations?

A: In this case, the main tools were Perplexity AI, Google NotebookLM, and Fathom AI. The emphasis was on free or low-cost tools that could be used immediately without technical training.

Q: How does the Beyond Touch Power Hour work for someone who has already attended AI workshops?

A: The workshops build the foundation, and the Power Hour applies that learning to a real business challenge. In this case, the one-to-one session made it possible to take general AI concepts and use them directly for CIC formation, grant writing, and governance planning.

Q: Will funders reject applications that use AI assistance?

A: Funders are more likely to reject applications that sound obviously machine-written or generic. The Beyond Touch approach is to use AI for research, structure, and drafting support while keeping the final voice human, specific, and authentic.

Q: How quickly can someone set up a CIC after a Beyond Touch mentoring session?

A: The full incorporation process still takes some weeks once documents are ready, but the mentoring can significantly reduce delays by clarifying the sequence, improving the draft documents, and helping avoid common filing mistakes.

Q: Is Beyond Touch business mentoring only for AI-related challenges?

A: No. This session covered governance, board structure, director roles, banking, and entity formation as well as AI tools. The mentoring is designed to address the wider business challenge, not just the software.

Q: What is the difference between Perplexity Spaces and Google NotebookLM?

A: Perplexity Spaces works well as a ring-fenced research and planning environment for a project or organisation. NotebookLM is especially useful when you want tighter source selection for specific questions or application sections. In this case, both tools had different but complementary roles.

Ready to Put AI to Work for Your Organisation?

If you are forming a CIC, writing grant applications, or trying to work out how AI can fit into a community organisation without losing authenticity, a Beyond Touch Power Hour can help bring structure to the process. The focus is on practical tools, clearer governance, and better workflows you can keep using long after the session ends.