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Welcome to your…
Stewardship
Shortcuts Onboarding Toolkit
At the bottom is a button to start your Onboarding, but first…
⚠️ Before You Start
(Please Read This First!)
The setup of your Shortcuts have a lot of small steps that depend on each other.
If you rush or skip something, the shortcuts won’t work the way they should.
As you go through onboarding:
Take it slow
Follow each step in order
Allow/confirm anything your phone asks
A few extra minutes now will save you a lot of troubleshooting later. You’ve got this.
Why Stewardship Shortcuts?
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You’re pulled in a thousand directions.
Your best ideas and donor moments rarely happen when you’re at your desk.
A great story pops into your head…
A donor says something wonderful at an event…
You remember you still need to follow up……and then ✨poof✨ it disappears into the chaos of your day.
These Shortcuts are the solution!
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Stewardship Shortcuts are a set of three guided tools that live right inside the Shortcuts app on your iPhone.
You tap a button → it walks you through a quick task → it saves your work in a dedicated Notes folder.
Think of them as tiny assistants in your pocket that help you stay consistent with stewardship — without needing extra time, effort or brainpower.
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With just a few taps, you’ll be able to:
Capture great stories the moment they happen
Turn rough ideas into ready-to-use donor messages
Knock out small but meaningful stewardship tasks in minutes
Stay consistent even on your busiest days
It saves time.
It reduces mental load.
And it makes it easier for you to keep donors feeling seen, appreciated and connected. -
These tools were designed for fundraisers, nonprofit leaders and teams who want to improve donor communication — but don’t have the time, structure, or headspace to do it perfectly.
If you’ve ever thought:
“I meant to follow up, but the day got away from me…”
“That donor story was so good — what was it again?”
“I want to stay connected, but I don’t have capacity…”
…then these were built for you.
An Overview of your Shortcuts
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Shortcut #1
Stewardship Side Quest Generator
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Tell it how much time you have (5, 15, or 30 minutes), and it gives you one meaningful stewardship task you can complete immediately.
Plus a few instructions to get you started.
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You never waste those tiny pockets of time again.
You stay consistent even on your busiest days.
And it reduces the mental load by telling you exactly what to do next.
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This shortcut:
Uses Apple Notes app + your phone’s Timer.
It also requires three helper shortcuts — the 5 min, 15 min, and 30 min “Quest” Dictionary tools.
All 4 Shortcuts must be downloaded for the generator to work.
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Shortcut #2
Capture Your Story
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Whenever something happens — a donor says something great, a story idea hits, a moment moves you — tap this.
It asks a few questions and saves everything into a dedicated Notes folder -
You’ll finally have a library of real, usable stories ready for emails, appeals, and social content.
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This shortcut:
Uses Apple Notes app to capture stories.
No other shortcuts required.
It can work independently as a library for all your stories.
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Shortcut #3
Story in Your Pocket
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Choose a story from your captured notes → this shortcut turns it into:
a donor email
talking points
a short narrative
a thank-you message
or whatever format you choose
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You go from “scrappy idea” → “ready-to-send content” in minutes.
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This shortcut:
Uses the Notes app and ChatGPT to shape your story.
It pulls in the raw notes you’ve captured using Capture Your Story
It uses a note we’ll create called Your Org Story Prompt to get your messaging perfect
You’ll need both Shortcuts to be installed for everything to work properly.
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A Few Basics
+ Frequently Asked Questions
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A shortcut is just a simple, automated button on your iPhone that walks you through a task.
You tap it → it gives you prompts → your phone does the behind-the-scenes stuff for you.
No coding.
No settings to understand.
Just guided steps.
Most people don’t even know that this is a function they have on their phone! -
All three shortcuts save your work to a specific folder in your Notes app.
That’s where your story ideas, messages, and Side Quest notes will live.
You’ll set these folders up during onboarding. (More on that later.)
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During setup, your phone will ask for access to Notes, notifications, and other tools.
You must tap Allow each time or Allow Always once or the shortcuts won’t run correctly.
(You don’t need to know why — just say yes.)
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A simple visual explanation:
Capture Your Story → saves raw ideas
Story in Your Pocket → turns those ideas into usable drafts
Side Quest Generator → gives you quick donor tasks using what you’ve already captured
In other words, they’re tiny assistants that feed each other.
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For Side Quests, you’ll download 3 tiny “helper” shortcuts (5 min / 15 min / 30 min).
These power the generator.
They don’t do anything on their own — they just sit quietly in the background.
They are called Quest Dictionaries when you see them in your Shortcuts app.
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You’ll create a short description of your organization’s writing voice.
The shortcuts use this to make your drafts sound like you (and not a robot).
Here are the questions you’ll be asked:
What’s your organization’s name
What does your organization do, in one or two sentences?
Who do you serve?
What is the impact you create?
What are your main communication messages?
What are your primary fundraising messages?
What is the approx. number of people served annually?
What tone should your messages sound like?
Are there any words or phrases to never use?
Are there any words or phrases you want to avoid?
What are 1–3 key messages or ideas you repeat often?
Anything else you’d like to don’t want to add?
If you don’t have all these answers, that’s ok!
Keep moving through the onboarding and you can always go back an update it later in your Notes app.
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The setup takes 30–40 minutes.
Once done, using the shortcuts takes under a minute each time.
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No stress at all — the easiest fix is a full reset.
Just delete the folders, remove the shortcuts, and start fresh.
The system is designed to rebuild cleanly, and starting over takes far less time than trying to troubleshoot a tangled setup.
An Overview of Your Onboarding Process
In your onboarding, we’re going to cover:
Setting up your Notes folders
Creating your organization’s voice prompt
Grabbing all the shortcuts you need
Making sure everything is connected and ready to run
The set up process can be a little bit technical, so make sure to watch the tutorial video before you begin!
IMPORTANT!!
Before moving forward, the following must be true…
✔️ You have an iPhone
✔️ You’re using the latest iOS
✔️ You have chatGPT on your phone
The setup takes 30–40 minutes.
Closer to 30 if you watch the videos on 1.5x speed. 😉
Once done, using the shortcuts takes under a minute each time.
***In order for you Shortcuts to work properly, make sure to Allow, Always Allow and Accept all notifications and permissions that pop up during this process.