Are you an AI optimist, pragmatist or pessimist?
This is one of the first questions we asked our latest cohort of charities exploring AI at their organisations. We started this unique collaboration last year with 10 charities looking into the potential of AI (which you can read about in this previous post) and have relished continuing this work with more leading UK charities keen to understand how AI can specifically benefit their work.
This year’s programme has been shaped by our learnings from the first cohort. It was split into three workstreams: Corporate Services, Marketing and Income Generation, and Impact. This gave us a clear framework for our workshops and helped us tackle the broad challenges they were exploring, such as streamlining administrative processes and defining their use cases. At a higher level we also wanted to understand what it meant to adopt these tools into an organisation, and explore questions like: how do we maintain our values when such a technology is challenging the way we’ve normally worked? And how do we do that in a way that feels intentional, ethical, and true to who we are?
Behind the Scenes of the Collab
An Immersion session got everyone grounded in where we are as a sector and an AI Safari brought in brilliant speakers to stretch our thinking on AI now, what’s next and the possible futures (the good, bad and the ugly!). While the day was full of fascinating use cases and provocations, one line from Dr Oonagh Murphy (Senior Lecturer in Digital Culture & Society at Goldsmiths) resonated with the teams, “Some of the most interesting stuff in AI at the minute is the boring stuff.” It was a vital reminder that real impact often comes from fixing the unglamorous foundations - the workflows, the data, the everyday tasks that quietly unlock bigger, more meaningful change.
The Super Mega Workshop brought the charities together to collaborate for a full-day to build their AI roadmaps starting with meaty questions like ‘What’s the ultimate goal for AI in our organisation?’ A fortnightly newsletter and a Discord channel allowed participants to continue the conversation.
Five Truths We Learned
AI can feel noisy and confusing. The collaboration gave charities the chance to strip it back, share real challenges and experiences, and learn together. As the workstreams came together, five consistent themes emerged across both cohorts, and are the principles now guiding each organisation’s next steps.
Boring beats sexy: While tech companies are hyping wildly innovative practices- mundane use cases, like admin tasks, deliver the biggest value.
People before processes: Adoption falters unless staff feel confident, safe, and curious. Taking a human-centred approach to AI is critical to the work.
AI isn’t coming, it’s already here: Doing nothing is not an option, teams are using it whether organisations are ready or not.
Pilots, not plunges: Starting off small with short experiments and pilots builds real understanding.
Values matter more than tools: Clear principles such as never AI for AI’s sake and being ethical and accountable, are the sector’s secret weapon.
Where we go from here
The final part of the collaboration are the Exec sessions which get leadership aligned on ambition, red lines, and actions. It’s been a valuable time to gather with the decision makers to guide them on these themes. A question we always get asked is how other charities are doing this work, and during the session we also give some use case examples of who’s piloting what and trying things out.
Many of the cohort are keen to keep learning from one another so we've ensured they maintain a cadence of communication. The collaboration has been really enriching as an exercise in working together to understand AI, and thought experiments in how to intentionally and considerately explore it in the context of specific organisations. We’ll soon share more of our learnings via a sector-wide resource.
We want to thank the cohort for trusting us on this journey and look forward to seeing how it evolves for them individually!