AI Is Being Learned
One Person at a Time.
An associate finds a faster way to screen. A partner drafts differently. Neither method is written down and neither stays with the fund when that person leaves. The fund pays to learn the same thing twice, and it has no answer when a limited partner asks what it does with AI.
The first cohort of the Circle put numbers on the gap. Eight participants across five funds scored their own practice before the program began. Confidence with everyday AI tools came out highest of the four measures at 3.63 out of 5, and a documented AI use policy lowest at 2.25, with two of the five funds rating it 1 (Accendo Associates AI readiness survey, July 2026). Confidence is running ahead of method.
No standard has settled yet. Of roughly 35 impact fund managers reviewed across Africa, Asia and Latin America, two say anything in public about how AI is used in their own investment process (Accendo Associates desk research, September 2026). The funds that write their method down first will set the reference the rest are measured against.
Moving from individual use to a fund process means choosing which stages of the investment lifecycle to change, who owns the output, and how a claim is checked before it reaches an investment committee paper. Five hours will not finish that work. It will tell you where your fund would start, and it will give you one stage proved on your own material rather than a demonstration on somebody else’s.
Each Block Ends With You
Working on Your Own Material.
Both days run the same shape. Roughly eighty-five minutes taught, a ten-minute break, then fifty-five minutes in which you work on your own fund rather than watch. You finish each day with something you built.
Taught at the Workflow Level,
Demonstrated in One Tool.
The method is platform-neutral. What changes between assistants is where a function sits and what it is called, not whether the workflow can be run. The teaching is therefore done at the workflow level, and the demonstration is run in Claude so that it stays concrete rather than abstract.
The registration form asks which assistant you use. Every attendee receives an annex naming the ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot equivalent of every function shown. The worked halves of both days run on whatever your organization has already approved, so you are not asked to install anything or to work around an administrator setting during the session.
Set Your Baseline comes before the Intensive. It is a free one-hour session, held Mondays and Fridays at 07:00 New York, that sorts out tool access and the interface basics. If you have never set up a project or a skill, take that hour first so the Intensive starts with the setup already done.
The Impact Investors AI Circle comes after it. The Circle is a cohort program that takes a fund through the same eleven stages over seven working sessions, on the fund’s own documents, with up to four seats per fund. Five funds completed the first cohort between July and September 2026: SPE Capital, the Accion Digital Transformation Fund, elea, LocFund Next and Shell Foundation.
Up to two Intensive fees credit in full against an AI Circle place taken by your fund within ninety days of the session. The Intensive is the shortest way to find out whether the Circle is right for you, and nothing is lost if the answer is yes.
Ten Seats a Session,
07:00 to 09:30 New York.
Three dates are open. Thursday 1 and Friday 2 October 2026, Monday 9 and Tuesday 10 November 2026, and Wednesday 9 and Friday 11 December 2026. All run 07:00 to 09:30 New York on each of the two mornings, which is 12:00 London, 14:00 Nairobi, 16:30 Mumbai and 19:00 Singapore. The December pair leaves a day between the two mornings, which gives you time to put day one against your own lifecycle before day two. Seats are capped at ten so there is room to work on your own material rather than watch someone else work on theirs.
Registration and payment happen together on this form. Your seat is confirmed when the payment goes through, and the calendar invitation, the joining link and the platform annex for whichever assistant you use follow within one business day. If none of the dates work, choose that option and the payment step disappears, so you can still tell us to keep you posted.
A seat is for one named person. If you cannot make the dates you booked, tell us before the session starts and we will move you to any later Intensive within ninety days. Fees are not refunded in cash. Up to two Intensive fees credit in full against an AI Circle place taken by your fund within ninety days of the session.
Buying two or more seats for one organization? Write to [email protected] and we will invoice you by bank transfer instead.
Common Questions, Answered Directly.
Five hours in total. Two and a half hours on each of two mornings in the same week, 07:00 to 09:30 New York. The October and November pairs run on consecutive days and the December pair leaves a day between them. There is no pre-read beyond a twenty-minute written primer sent with the calendar invitation, and no homework between the two mornings.
Yes. The teaching is done at the workflow level and the demonstration is run in Claude so it stays concrete. Every attendee receives an annex naming the ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot equivalent of every function shown, prepared from the answer you give on the registration form. The worked halves run on whatever your organization has already approved.
Tell us before the session starts and we will move you to any later Intensive within ninety days. A seat is for one named person and fees are not refunded in cash.
Yes, and for two or more seats we invoice the organization by bank transfer rather than taking four separate card payments. Write to [email protected] with the names and we will send the invoice.
The Intensive is the end-to-end walkthrough on its own, open to individuals, with no invitation required. The Circle takes a fund through the same eleven stages over seven working sessions, on the fund’s own documents, with up to four seats per fund. Up to two Intensive fees credit in full against a Circle place taken by your fund within ninety days.
You need an account you can sign into and the ability to upload a file. If either of those is uncertain, take Set Your Baseline first. It is free, runs for one hour on Mondays and Fridays at 07:00 New York, and exists to get exactly that sorted. You can register here.