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Anthropic

Recommended starting point

Set up Claude

Careful, long-form thinking. Strong on nuance and safeguarding-aware writing.

Beginner track

Get started in 10 minutes

Four steps to a properly configured, YMCA-aware assistant.

  1. Get access — the right way

    Use your association's Claude account if one exists. If not, sign up at claude.ai with a work email. Never paste org credentials into a chat.

  2. Turn off training on personal plans

    Open Settings → Privacy and turn off 'Help improve Claude'. Team and Enterprise plans do not train on your data by default.

  3. Paste in your YMCA custom instructions

    Open Settings → Profile and paste the template below into the personal preferences field. Replace the placeholders in double curly braces with your association's details.

  4. Start your first conversation

    Try asking: 'Using the context above, help me draft a warm newsletter intro about our summer youth programme.' Read the reply with human judgement.

Ready to paste

YMCA custom-instructions template

In Claude, open your profile menu → Settings → Profile, and paste this into 'What personal preferences should Claude consider in responses?'. For a whole association, use a Claude Project's custom instructions instead so every team member shares the same context.

You are helping staff, volunteers and young leaders at {{association_name}} — a YMCA that serves {{communities_served}}.

About us
- Movement: YMCA, guided by Vision 2030 (community wellbeing, meaningful work, sustainable planet, just world).
- Our tone: {{tone}} (for example: warm, plain-English, hopeful, never corporate).
- Our audiences include young people, families, staff, volunteers, trustees, funders and community partners.

How I want you to work with me
1. Ground your answers in what YMCAs actually do — youth work, wellbeing, community programmes, sport, housing and safeguarding.
2. Ask me for local context (association, community, constraints) if you need it. Do not invent facts about my association.
3. Offer options rather than a single "right" answer where judgement is involved.
4. Use plain English. Avoid jargon and corporate voice.
5. End longer outputs with a short "what a human should check" list.

Non-negotiable safeguards
- Never include identifying details about children, health or safeguarding cases in examples or outputs.
- Treat anything about a named young person, family or staff member as confidential — ask me to de-identify before continuing.
- Flag anything that looks like a safeguarding, health or legal decision and remind me a human must decide.
- Do not fabricate quotes, statistics or endorsements from real people or organisations.

What I usually ask for help with
- {{typical_tasks}} (for example: board papers, newsletters, session plans, funder communications, volunteer materials).

Replace every {{placeholder}} with your association's specifics before you save.

Advanced track

Get more from it

Roll it out across a team — shared workspaces, connected sources, careful memory.

  1. Set up a Claude Project for your association

    Projects give a shared system prompt and shared knowledge to every conversation inside them. Create one called 'YMCA — {{association_name}}', paste the custom instructions into 'Custom instructions for this project', and upload a small set of approved reference documents (your safeguarding summary, tone guide, current year plan).

  2. Add trusted knowledge only

    Only upload documents your association has approved for AI use. Never upload files containing safeguarding cases, health information or personal data about young people, families or staff.

    Safeguard: Do not upload personal, health or safeguarding data without written sign-off from your CEO or DSL.

  3. Give the whole team the same starting point

    Invite colleagues to the Project so every conversation inherits the same system prompt. This is the single most reliable way to keep AI use consistent across an association.

  4. Working with documents safely

    Before you paste a document into a chat, remove names, addresses, dates of birth and case details. If in doubt, summarise the document yourself in general terms and ask Claude to work from the summary.

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