Reference Materials

Your Reference Materials is where you store the documents that help LouEllen understand your organization. Any request to write a grant or research funders starts with a search of your Reference Materials for relevant context.

What to Upload

Start with recent, successful grant applications. This is the single most impactful thing you can do. A thorough grant application typically includes everything LouEllen needs:

  • Program descriptions and theory of change
  • Organizational history and mission
  • Impact statistics and outcome data
  • Stories and testimonials
  • Board composition and staff expertise
  • Budget narratives
  • Community context and needs assessments

One comprehensive proposal can give more useful context than a dozen separate documents.

Aim for 100+ pages of content. Two or three recent, successful applications will usually get you there. The more you upload, the better your results.

If you don't have recent applications, or want to add more context:

  • Annual reports with program deep-dives
  • Program evaluation reports
  • 990 forms and audited financials
  • Strategic plans
  • Staff and board bios

How to Upload

  1. Navigate to Reference Materials in the sidebar
  2. Drag and drop files, or click to browse
  3. Files are processed and indexed automatically

Supported formats: most of what a grants office already has on disk.

  • Documents: PDF, Word (.doc, .docx) and rich text (.rtf)
  • Spreadsheets: Excel (.xls, .xlsx) and CSV
  • Slides: PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx)
  • Images: JPG and PNG, so a scanned letter or a photographed page is fine
  • Saved email: .eml messages
  • Plain text: .txt, Markdown, HTML and JSON

How LouEllen Uses Your Reference Materials

When you ask a question or request a draft, LouEllen searches your Reference Materials for relevant content, pulls specific passages, and uses them to write accurate, organization-specific responses. You'll see the "Searching Reference Materials" action appear in chat while that's happening.

Using Integrations Instead

If your documents live in Google Drive or SharePoint, you can connect those services through Integrations instead of uploading manually. Your connected services get searched alongside your Reference Materials.

This can be an easier way to get started — connect your Drive folder and everything in it is available immediately.

Tips

  • Start with your best applications — Quality matters more than quantity, but both help
  • Cover all your programs — Make sure each major program area has detailed documentation
  • Keep it current — Replace outdated materials as new ones become available
  • More is better — Large volumes are handled well, and what's relevant still gets found