An interesting article landed in my inbox this week from CharityJob: “How to Use AI at Work in a Charity: Free Tools to Try.”

It is a useful and practical introduction to the ways charity professionals can start using AI in their everyday work.

And, importantly, it encourages something that we strongly believe in at Digi4Good: Charities should be experimenting with AI not someday

Now because the potential is enormous.

AI could be a game changer for charities

Charities are operating in an increasingly challenging environment.

Costs are rising. Demand for services is increasing. Fundraising is becoming more competitive. Teams are stretched. And there is constant pressure to demonstrate that every pound is being used effectively. Against that backdrop, AI presents a remarkable opportunity. Used well, it can help organisations:

• automate repetitive administrative tasks
• give teams valuable time back
• analyse information and identify insights more quickly
• improve supporter and customer experiences
• develop better and more personalised communications
• identify new fundraising and income opportunities
• accelerate research and innovation
• turn ideas into practical solutions much faster
• help smaller organisations access capabilities that previously required significant investment

That's why we're genuinely excited about AI.

At Digi4Good, our starting point isn't “How do we stop people using AI?”

It's:

“How can we help organisations use it to create more value and greater impact?”

Start experimenting

The CharityJob article makes a good point: you don't need to be a technology specialist to start exploring AI. You can begin with something simple.

• Ask AI to help you structure an email.
• Turn some notes into an action plan.
• Brainstorm fundraising ideas.
• Summarise a long report.
• Help prepare for a meeting.
• Explore a new subject.
• Create a first draft.

The important thing is to experiment. Because organisations won't discover the real value of AI by simply reading about it. They discover it by using it.

And this is particularly important for charities.

Some of the most exciting applications of AI won't come from technology teams. They'll come from fundraisers, finance teams, communications professionals, service delivery teams, HR colleagues and volunteers who understand the problems they are trying to solve.

The people closest to the work often know where the opportunities are.

But experimentation needs to evolve

There is, however, an important next step in the conversation.

The CharityJob article rightly highlights some of the limitations of AI, including the need for human oversight and the importance of not putting sensitive personal, donor, beneficiary or confidential financial information into public AI tools. And this is where I think the conversation needs to go further.

Because there is a difference between: “Here are some great AI tools you can try.” and: “Here is how our organisation is going to adopt AI safely, responsibly and strategically.” Those are two very different stages of the journey.

The person creating the risk might be the person doing exactly what we want

Imagine giving a team access to a range of powerful AI tools and encouraging them to experiment. They start finding brilliant ways to use them.

That's exactly what we want. But someone might also upload a spreadsheet because they want AI to analyse it.

• Someone might paste a donor email into a chatbot to improve the response.
• Someone might copy information about a beneficiary into a prompt.
• Someone might upload a confidential internal document and ask AI to summarise it.

They may not be trying to do anything wrong. They may simply be trying to innovate.

That's why responsible AI adoption isn't about telling people:

“Don't use AI.”

It's about making sure people understand how to use it appropriately.

AI literacy is bigger than prompt engineering

We often talk about AI literacy as the ability to write better prompts. That's useful.

But it is only part of the picture. Real AI literacy also means understanding:

• What information can I safely put into an AI tool?
• Which tools has my organisation approved?
• What information should never be entered into a public service?
• How should personal or confidential information be handled?

1. When should I use an organisational or enterprise environment rather than a public/free tool?
2. How do I verify what AI has produced?

• When must human judgement remain central?
• What should I do if I make a mistake?

These are not questions designed to restrict innovation. They are questions designed to make innovation safer and more sustainable.

Good governance should enable AI — not stop it

This is where we believe AI governance has an important role to play. Governance can sometimes sound like bureaucracy. Another policy. Another approval process. Another committee. Another reason to wait. But good governance should do the opposite. It should give people clarity and confidence. A good AI framework should help an organisation establish:

• which AI tools are approved
• what they can be used for
• what information can be entered
• what information cannot
• how data should be handled
• when human review is required
• how AI-generated content should be checked
• how new AI tools can be assessed
• who is responsible for oversight
• how staff are trained
• what happens when something goes wrong

The objective isn't to create a 50-page AI policy that nobody reads. It's to create an environment where people can say:

“I know what I'm allowed to do, I understand the risks, and I feel confident experimenting.” That's good governance.

From experimentation to adoption

1. Experiment

“Let's see what AI can do.”

Encourage curiosity.

Try things.

Learn.

Share successes.

Find opportunities.

2. Adopt

“Let's start using AI where it genuinely adds value.”

Identify the use cases that save time, improve experiences, increase income or enhance impact.

Build them into everyday workflows.

Measure what changes.

3. Embed

“Let's make AI part of how our organisation works.”

This is where strategy, governance, training, policies, data and technology all come together.

And this is where organisations can start moving beyond isolated AI experiments towards genuine transformation.

The answer isn't less AI. It's better AI adoption. We don't want charities to be frightened of AI.

And we certainly don't want concerns about privacy, security or governance to prevent organisations from exploring what this technology can do.

The opportunity is simply too significant.

We want charities to be experimenting.

We want teams finding new ways of working.

We want fundraisers discovering new opportunities to generate income.

We want communications teams creating better supporter experiences.

We want small organisations gaining capabilities they could never previously afford.

And we want leaders thinking creatively about how AI can help their organisation achieve its mission.

But we also want people to understand the responsibility that comes with using increasingly powerful technology.

Governance shouldn't be the brake on AI adoption. It should be the guardrail that allows organisations to accelerate with confidence.

That's the approach we're taking at Digi4Good. We believe AI has the potential to transform how charities and purpose-led organisations work.

Our role is to help organisations move from curiosity, to experimentation, to confident adoption — and ultimately to embedding AI in a way that is safe, ethical and genuinely valuable.

Because we're only at the beginning. The opportunity is enormous. Let's make sure we're ready to make the most of it.