Can small charities benefit from AI?

In recent weeks there have been many articles, reports and speeches urging charities to make the most of AI, be wary of the risks of AI, work together to harness AI and much more. Most are important, thoughtful contributions to a significant debate but often the focus is on larger charities with the capacity and resources to engage in policy and regulatory debates and grasp opportunities for technological innovation.

What about smaller charities? What could AI mean for them?

In the first instance, it’s unlikely that there is going to be an AI-driven revolution in local, human-scale service delivery. At the margins, for those who have the wherewithal and time, there could be some marginal improvements in efficiency in back office systems through automated data analysis (but beware of the data protection and security implications of using AI for this).

In the medium term, there will inevitably be some AI-inspired procedural changes at national and local authority levels that will require even the smallest charities to work differently, perhaps in areas such as sharing safeguarding information. It’s almost inevitable that, at some point, AI will be used for meta analysis of regulatory and other data about the sector that may lead to more proactive regulation of charities, hopefully still based on the principals of proportionality and being risk-led.

Does this mean that smaller charities should simply ignore Ai for now?

Well… no!

There are some immediate risks that need to be managed. For example ensuring that data protection and privacy policies evolve in response to AI. At the most basic level, this might be as simple as ensuring AI is not used by staff and volunteers to analyse beneficiary/supporter data without appropriate procedural and security safeguards (such as an anonymisation). At the first approximation, AI should not be used to process raw personal data. It isn’t secure and so poses significant risks to data subjects (particularly if sensitive data is held) as well as regulatory risks.

It could also, potentially, be a helpful tool for fundraising, particularly bid writing. AI tools are often (but not always) good at producing first drafts of responses to questions on application forms when bidding for grants and contracts, providing they are fed the right raw materials in the first instance. But only for first drafts.

AIs cannot produce authentic responses that adopt your charity’s voice. Nor will they pick up the coded questions within questions asked by grantmakers. They certainly won’t have your instincts for what the funder is likely to find attractive/compelling as a funding proposition. You also need to be careful when providing commercially sensitive information to an AI, because that data will generally not be secure. Therefore, while AI could be a good way to avoid the panic that a “blank piece of paper” can often provoke, it can’t replace your fundraisers quite yet (if ever).

Another risk to be aware of when using AI is that all have inbuilt biases as a result off the material used to train them, including in sensitive areas such as race, environment, disability and so on. AI generated material could also increase the risk of perpetuating misinformation if it has picked up on deep-fake or other convincing AI-generated but inaccurate information/propaganda. There is also the risk that an AI might incorporate material in a draft that is protected by someone else’s copyright, leading to inadvertent plagiarism.

In conclusion, therefore, our advice is that, while your charity may wish to dip its toes in the AI ocean if you feel confident to do so, smaller charities should be wary of getting in too deep too quickly. It may be prudent to let the bigger organisations navigate these issues and then pick up on their learning when the time is right for you.

Almond Tree Strategic Consulting Limited aims to lighten the load by helping smaller charities develop and improve including though effective strategies, good governance, positive collaborations and successful fundraising. To find out more please contact us at julian@almondtreeconsulting.co.uk to arrange free initial telephone discussion.