Go to chatgpt.com and create a free account. You can sign up with a Google account to make it quicker.
Once you are in, you will see a text box where you can type a message. This is called a prompt. The quality of what ChatGPT gives you back depends almost entirely on how well you write your prompt.
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The RTDF framework: The best prompts follow a simple structure: Role (tell ChatGPT who to be), Task (what you want it to do), Detail (the specific information it needs), Format (how you want the response). You will learn this properly in the Prompt Engineering course in the Skills Lab.
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Your first fundraising prompts
Here are three prompts to try right now. Copy them into ChatGPT and see what you get:
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Prompt 1 — Brainstorm: "I am a 16-year-old in the UK raising £4,000 for a World Challenge expedition to Borneo in 2028. Give me 10 creative fundraising ideas that would work for someone my age. Include a mix of events, online ideas, and passive income ideas."
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Prompt 2 — Social caption: "Write an Instagram caption for a teen fundraiser who has just hit £500 towards their £4,000 expedition target. Make it genuine, grateful, and include a call to action to donate. Keep it under 150 words."
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Prompt 3 — Event plan: "Create a simple checklist for organising a bake sale at school to raise money for an expedition. Include preparation, on-the-day tasks, and follow-up actions. Format it as a numbered list."
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What makes a great prompt
The difference between a mediocre AI response and a brilliant one is almost always the quality of the prompt. Here are the key things to include:
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Context: Tell ChatGPT who you are and what your situation is
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Specifics: The more specific you are, the better the response
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Format: Tell it how you want the response — a list, a paragraph, a table
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Tone: Tell it who the audience is — e.g. 'for a local business owner' or 'for my Instagram followers'
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Always edit: Read through everything ChatGPT produces. Remove anything that does not sound like you, fix any errors, and add your personal details.
✏️ Try all three prompts now
Open ChatGPT and try all three prompts above. Spend a few minutes editing the responses to make them sound like you. Notice how much time this saves compared to writing everything from scratch.
Excellent! You have just used AI to do in minutes what might have taken you an hour. In Lesson 3, you will use ChatGPT to write a professional sponsorship letter.