Charity AI Ready Campaign
Opportunities and Risks. Done well, adopting AI will enable charities to not only deliver greater impact, reduce workload and increase fundraising, but also significantly increase accessibility. However, it brings with it substantial and very real risks and our Charity AI Benchmarking Survey in June 2024 showed just how desperately unprepared the sector is.
Charity Excellence. We launched our first AI system in 2022 and, since then, we've launched several more, as well as a whole range of AI policies, guides and toolkits, and trained 1000s. Our aim was and remains to catalyse the rapid, safe and effective adoption of AI by charities. However, our very limited resources massively constrained our ability to do so. We have responded in 3 ways.
- Reach. We continue to grow rapidly (to 50,000 members) and we have now built new engagement systems to improve on that.
- Technology Expertise and Capacity. We are partnering with technology providers to bring the expertise and capacity needed.
- Sector Knowledge. We now have significant experience in designing, deploying and the use of charity AI.
Charity AI Ready Programme. Enabling charities to respond to the threats and opportunities that AI is creating. It has 2 workstreams.
- Systems. Promoting the deployment of charity AI systems.
- Processes and Resources. Our 8 stage programme, resources and training for charities.
Charity AI Ready - Systems
We will focus on what we see as the critical areas in moving to an AI enabled future. Inevitably, some solutions will have to be paid for but delivering affordability is an essential requirement we have of our partners.
- Sector Level. We will build out our strategic data systems and make access available to everyone.
- Data Store. We will not only continue to grow but also further build out our Charity Sector Data Store, as well as implementing AI predictive analytics.
- Data Network. Additionally, we don't have the in-depth expertise, capacity and influence to exploit even our existing data, so we'll make it available to those who do by creating a UK charity data network.
- Access will be potentially available to Government, research bodies, large charities, groups of charities and grant makers, with publicly available data for everyone.
- Larger Charities. AI offers huge opportunities, not least in fundraising, through the deployment of custom AI solutions. We will.
- Promote the benefits of AI to larger charities (under £100m pa).
- Provide support in understanding the benefits and risks of AI, and how it can be effectively implemented, and.
- Connect them to reliable and trustworthy technology providers.
- Medium Charities. Custom AI solutions will be too expensive for many and/or they may not have enough data to justify the time and cost.
- We will work with technology partners on the design of a 'cookie cutter' solution and ideas around safe data pooling that will provide a low cost alternative for them.
- All Charities. We have begun migrating our systems to create an AI concierge service. A single gateway to the charity sector for all charities and beneficiaries that will very significantly improve overall sector efficiency. Far too many individuals and charities are excluded because they can't afford paid systems, or they struggle in using technology, or face other accessibility challenges. Often these are the people who most need help and the charities who would be best able to support them. The first step in this is Help Finder AI (launched 25 Dec 24), which is a multi lingual funding and resource database that you can simply chat to.
A Community AI Tester Group has been created to support this work.
Charity AI Ready - Processes and Resources
Charity Excellence is AI Ready.
- As you use our health check system, it now enables you to assess your AI readiness and will display relevant resources you can use to do that.
- Our downloadable policies and resources have been updated to reflect AI and, where needed, we're creating new ones.
- We are now also able to track and report AI readiness through our Charity Sector Data Store.
Charity AI Ready Programme. Eight key steps to become AI ready.
- AI Governance - leadership and oversight.
- Identifying and managing risk
- Policies and procedures.
- Selecting and commissioning/procuring/funding AI systems.
- Keeping your charity and people safe.
- Ensuring people are trained and supported.
- Developing best practice.
- Managing Change.
AI Governance
AI is now far ahead of both the legal and ethical issues it has created. Fixing these will take years and we're likely to be in for a (possibly very) bumpy ride in the meantime.
AI Risk
- Our AI Risk Register identifies and provides information on a wide range of risks relating to AI, including less obvious ones, such as moral outsourcing.
- Download our AI and Data Protection Risk Register toolkit to assess and manage the risks for your own charity, from the risk register questions in the Governance and Risk questionnaires.
- Is AI a Threat To My Charity? - this AI tool explains the key things any charity needs to think about and gives you questions to ask to find out if AI is a threat, or the opportunity it should be.
Policies and Procedures
- Larger Charities. For larger charities and anyone who wishes to, our AI Governance and Ethics Framework can be used as a checklist to create your own charity AI policy.
- Small Charities. Download and tailor our AI Policy to meet your needs.
- Charity Policies Generally. We also have 60 downloadable charity policies within our system. Where appropriate, these have been updated to reflect AI practices.
We are currently working on an AI Safe Use policy that will focus on the safety aspects. This can be used as a stand alone policy or relevant elements extracted and included in your own AI policy.
Selecting and Commissioning
A draft practical set of AI design principles for those funding, designing or commissioning charity AI systems. This is our initial work we created for ourselves but we will be working with our technology partners to create clearer, more robust and more comprehensive guidance.
Keeping Your Charity and People Safe
We are developing new procedures and ways of working that respond to emerging key issues. These range from how to design in safety systems for vulnerable people into AI bots, to steps to mitigate the risk of deepfakes. We have created 3 guides so far and will be working with our partners to develop these further and also make these more accessible for vulnerable beneficiaries.
- Cyber Security for Charities. A simple practical guide - Charity AI: Cyber Security for Charities. The cyber risk is already significant and it's going to get a lot worse, not only for your charity but also your beneficiaries and you. What you need to know and do in simple English.
- Fact Checking Toolkit - Misinformation. Free simple to use fact checking toolkit for misinformation and AI deepfakes, including procedures, checklists and resources.
- AI Deepfake Toolkit. How to safeguard against deepfake video and imagery, including how to identify deepfakes and a whole series of steps you can take to mitigate the risk of your imagery being used as a deepfake.
Training and Support
Our AI webinars have been hugely popular and, with an estimated 400k charities, there is a huge need. We will.
- Focus our AI training webinars, primarily to support small infrastructure bodies and groups of charities, because that has more impact.
- Develop a Train the Trainer programme and create AI Champions.
- Create new webinars to support our AI Ready programme in 2025.
- Launch a searchable AI Knowledge Hub to enable charities to find suitable webinar, on demand and e learning training provided by ourselves and others.
For example, Microsoft offers a range of free courses. These are mainly Azure and cloud computing but include a range of AI courses too, including fundamentals.
Developing Charity AI Best Practice
Trust is fundamental to the work of charities and may well be in very short supply in an AI enabled world. Moreover, AI is fundamentally moving the goal posts of well established best practice in a whole range of areas. We not only don't yet know #WhatGoodLooksLike, but also many don't yet understand that we need to. We are already working on these issues, in areas such as the risk of fundraising bots exploiting vulnerable donors and our draft Imagery Ethics Best Practice.
We will work with our partners to create dialogue around these issues with the aim of identifying what action needs to be taken and either developing #WhatGoodLooksLike or encouraging those better placed than we are, to do so.
Managing Change
We think AI technology will become mainstream in 2025 but that delivering the full benefits may take 2 to 5 years. This is because to achieve these will require us to change long standing ways of working and culture. It is essential that charities engage their people on this journey, respond to concerns and fears and support them in making the transition.
In larger charities, issues such as the risk of the loss of human agency in jobs and also of critical thinking will need to be taken into account. We see this as part of our work to encourage best practice.
Find the Funding and Free Help Your Charity Needs
A registered charity ourselves, the CEF works for any non profit, not just charities.
Plus, 100+downloadable funder lists, 60+ policies, 8 online health checks and the huge resource base.
Quick, simple and very effective.
Find Funding, Free Help & Resources - Everything Is Free.
Charity AI Ready Is Not Professional Advice
Our work and resources for Charity AI are based on our in-depth experience of designing and building AI systems for charities but do not constitute professional legal or financial advice. I'm neither a lawyer, nor an accountant, so not able to provide this, and I cannot write guidance that covers every charity or eventuality. I have include links to relevant regulatory guidance, which you must check to ensure that whatever you create reflects correctly your charity’s needs and your obligations. In using this resource, you accept that we have no responsibility whatsoever from any harm, loss or other detriment that may arise from your use of my work.
If you need professional advice, you must seek this from someone else. To do so, register, then login and use the Help Finder directory to find pro bono support. Everything is free.
