Admin and reporting
Funder reports, meeting minutes, and case notes drafted in minutes, so a small team's scarcest resource goes to the front line instead of the back office.
Sector programmes · Charities and non-profits
AI for charities,
more mission per hour.
Independent, plain-spoken support for charities and non-profits putting AI to work: grounded in trustee duties, data protection law, and the trust of donors and beneficiaries, free of vendor incentives.
— State of play —
The sector adopted faster
than almost anyone.
Charity AI use has grown faster than almost any sector, with a majority of UK charities now using it in their day-to-day work, most often to draft, summarise, and stretch thin teams further. That is no surprise: when demand rises and funding does not, a tool that gives hours back to the mission gets adopted whether or not there is a policy for it.
Usually there is not. Most charities using AI have no written guidance, trustees are often unsighted, and the data involved can belong to the most vulnerable people the organisation exists to serve. Funders are starting to ask how AI is governed, and donors notice tone-deaf automation quickly. Closing the gap between enthusiastic use and governed use is where most charities need help, and it is a smaller job than it looks.
3 in 5
UK charities now use AI in their day-to-day work
~2x
growth in charity AI adoption in a single year
<1 in 10
have an AI policy or guidelines in place
— Use cases —
Where AI gives time
back to the mission.
The strongest charity use cases turn hours of admin into minutes and leave the human work, the actual mission, to humans.
Bids and grants
Funding applications researched, drafted, and tailored to each funder's priorities, then human-checked, multiplying what a stretched fundraising team can submit.
Fundraising and communications
Appeals, newsletters, and supporter journeys produced consistently in the charity's own voice, without a marketing department.
Service delivery
Triage and signposting support for helplines and advice services that gets people to the right help sooner, inside boundaries the charity sets.
Supporter insight
Segmentation, retention, and Gift Aid housekeeping that treat donor data with the care that keeps donors giving.
Governance and policy
A short, workable AI policy and trustee briefing, so the board can answer the question funders are starting to ask.
— How the Institute helps —
One institute,
three kinds of help.
Advice, engineering, and professional standards from a single independent body, with no software to sell. Our AI for All programme also offers free support for charities.
Consultancy
Advice sized for charity budgets
Fixed-scope, plain-English advisory for chief executives and trustees: what to adopt, what to avoid, and how to govern it, priced for the sector.
- Tool selection with no vendor commission
- An AI policy trustees can actually adopt
- A practical roadmap with costs attached
Solution design
Working systems, handed over
When off-the-shelf is not enough, the Institute's engineering practice builds what is missing around the systems you already run, then hands it over.
- Automation built on your existing tools
- No lock-in to platforms you cannot leave
- Knowledge transfer to your own people
Professional body
Standards, training, and research
As the UK's professional body for AI, the Institute trains and accredits staff, publishes research, and maintains the UK AI Readiness Charter.
- Staff and volunteer training pathways
- The UK AI Readiness Charter, free to sign
- Free support through AI for All
— Sector considerations —
What we watch
most closely.
01
Trust
Donor trust is the balance sheet
A charity's licence to operate is public trust, and supporters react badly to discovering automation by accident. Being open about where AI helps, in fundraising and beyond, costs nothing and protects everything.
100%
transparent about where AI is used
02
Beneficiaries
Vulnerable data needs the highest bar
Case notes and helpline records can describe the hardest moments of someone's life. That data never goes into tools that have not been vetted for where it travels and what it trains.
0
beneficiary data into unvetted tools
03
Trustees
Governance sits with the board
Trustee duties of care and prudence extend to AI just as they do to finance and safeguarding. The board does not need to be technical; it needs to have asked the right questions and minuted the answers.
1
board conversation to have this quarter
04
Capacity
Tools must lighten the load
Stretched teams cannot absorb technology that creates work. Skills come before tools, training is short and practical, and anything that adds burden rather than removing it goes.
2x
adoption after structured training
05
Funding
Every pound is answerable
Charity money carries obligations commercial budgets do not. Free and low-cost routes come first, subscriptions earn their keep or get cancelled, and signing the UK AI Readiness Charter costs nothing at all.
£0
to sign the UK AI Readiness Charter
Set your charity's
AI position.
A short call with the charities team. Plain answers, a clear next step, and no software to sell.
— Go deeper
— Consultancy
Independent advice
Standards-led advisory for boards and leaders, with no software to sell.
— Solutions
Need it built?
Working AI systems designed and built by the Institute's engineering practice.
— Sectors
Explore other sectors
The full directory of IoAI sector programmes, grounded in UK regulation.