Charity AI Ready
We've identified 3 key risks for the charity sector in 2025:
- Battered by the crises and already desperately short of funding, our latest near and medium term fundraising outlook is very poor.
- The risk of digital moats that we've been warning about since 2021 is now much greater as the large charities begin to roll out of very powerful AI fundraising systems in 2025.
- And, more widely, AI poses a growing risk to the trust in charities that is so critical to our work.
And 1 major opportunity - AI. We think 2025 is the year that AI use will become very widespread, as it is increasingly built in to almost everything we use. Done well, adopting AI will not only enable charities to manage the AI risks but also deliver greater impact, reduce workload and increase fundraising, and also significantly increase accessibility. How well we respond to that in 2025 will set our course for the future and it could be either very good, or very bad.
Our AI Ready campaign is our response to this opportunity and these risks. Join us for the launch of Charity AI Ready, at a webinar, hosted by Get Grants, on Tuesday 1 1 Feb from 1pm to 2pm, and be the first to meet the first of our next generation AI. A free multi-lingual, funding finding AI bunny you can just chat to.
Charity AI - Why Trust is so Critical
As charities, we need people to trust us to feel confident enough to come forward and use our services and for our donors and the public to trust us in order to continue to donate to fund those services.
- Significant and Growing AI Risk. We think that growing AI risks, such as slop, misinformation and scams pose a significant and increasing threat to the trust with our beneficiaries, donors and the public that is so critical to our work.
- Charities Very Unprepared. However, our AI Benchmarking Survey in Jun 24 found charities reporting that we are collectively woefully unprepared in each of the 9 areas we assessed.
Charity AI Ready Campaign
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 Campaign. 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, 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. As part of our strategic thinking on charity AI, in 2024 we published Charity AI Sector Best Practice and Regulation, which has been built on to create our 6 key steps to become AI ready.
- AI Governance - leadership and oversight.
- Identifying and managing AI risk
- Charity AI Best Practice
- Updating Existing Policies.
- New Policies.
- Keeping People Safe
- AI Training Hub - Ensuring people are trained and supported.
- Managing Change.
- Selecting and commissioning/procuring/funding AI systems.
The Charity AI Ready Programme
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.
Charity AI Best Practice - Updating Existing Policies
- 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.
Charity AI Best Practice - New Procedures
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.
So far we have created 2 Charity AI Best Practice Guides.
- Imagery Ethics - AI has raised new ethical issues but the manipulation and faking of imagery has existed at least since the advent of photography. This guide gives you an ethics checklist that you can use to quickly and simply create a policy for your charity.
- AI Slop - what it is, why it matters to charities and how to minimise the risk to your charity.
AI remains a very new technology and is continuing to change rapidly. We very much welcome constructive criticism to improve our work. Contact us at ian@charityexcellence.co.uk.
Charity AI Best Practice - Keeping 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 - Misinformation. Free simple to use fact checking toolkit for misinformation and AI deepfakes, including procedures, checklists and resources.
- AI Deepfakes. 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.
AI Training Hub
We've been delivering our hugely popular, free charity AI webinar programme since early 2023. We've now launched our AI Training Hub, which makes available a huge range of free AI webinars, on-demand videos and e learning for everyone.
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.
Selecting and Commissioning AI
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.
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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.
