Blog
Notes from the work.
What we've learned building AI for UK charities - what works, what doesn't, and why. Roughly monthly, since 2023.
2026-03-15
Why we updated our playbook for charities
A year ago we published the AI Playbook for Charities. It was already going out of date. We've just published the second edition.
2026-02-24
How charities can leapfrog digital transformation with AI
Many charities missed the digital transformation wave. They don't need to go back and do it properly -- they can skip ahead.
2026-02-15
Why PDFs give AI a headache
"Just upload the PDF" is the most misleading advice in charity AI. The gap between what that implies and what it takes to reliably extract data from real documents is where most of the interesting build work lives.
2026-01-31
What 84 AI recipes taught us about the DIY boundary
We've mapped 84 practical AI use cases for charities. The most useful thing about the collection is what it reveals about where self-service stops and custom development starts.
2026-01-15
The NHS is moving much faster than charities on AI
An organisation not known for agility is outpacing the charity sector on AI adoption. That should give charity leaders pause.
2025-11-15
Navigating GDPR and large language models: a practical guide for charities
Can your charity send supporter data to an American API? The answer is yes, but the detail matters. Here's how to get it right.
2025-10-15
Data quality is the real AI strategy
After two years of working with charities on AI, the single biggest predictor of success isn't AI capability - it's data quality.
2025-09-15
The real cost of AI for charities - and why custom is cheaper than you think
Cutting through the "AI will save you money" narrative. When AI saves money, when it costs more, and why the economics of build vs subscribe have shifted.
2025-08-15
Claude Code, agentic AI, and what METR's data means for charities
AI autonomy capabilities are doubling roughly every seven months. That pace matters even if your charity isn't ready to build anything yet, because the economics of what's possible are shifting underneath you.
2025-07-15
The Charity Digital Skills Report 2025: 76% of charities now using AI
AI adoption is up 15% in a year. Charities have gotten started, but the governance, board capability, and strategy to support it are still catching up.
2025-05-15
The limits of Copilot and Power Apps: when off-the-shelf AI isn't enough
Copilot and Power Apps are fine for what they do. But charities are discovering the ceiling, and the problems that matter most sit above it.
2025-04-15
AI isn't a computer. It's a bridge.
Someone asked us on stage recently whether it was safe to use AI to translate content into other languages. They wanted a yes or a no. That's the wrong kind of question for this kind of technology.
2025-03-15
Why charity meeting notes are deceptively hard for AI
"Just transcribe the meeting" sounds simple. For charities, it's anything but.
2025-02-15
Why we wrote a playbook for charities to use AI
Almost everybody we spoke to said we shouldn't do it. A small agency didn't have the bandwidth. We did it anyway, because nobody was bridging the gap between what San Francisco was saying and what the third sector actually needed.
2025-01-15
Thinking about AI maturity
It's hard to be a beginner. But admitting you're a beginner is the only honest place to start, and having a framework for what progress looks like makes it easier to have the right conversations.
2024-11-15
Thoughts on what makes AI strategies useful
Most AI strategies we've seen end up in a filing cabinet. The useful ones change how people in the organisation actually think and act.
2024-10-15
Prompting is still annoyingly important
Everyone says AI is as easy as "just ask it a question." The quality of what you get back depends heavily on how well you express what you want. That turns out to be genuinely hard cognitive work, and it matters more than most charities realise.
2024-08-15
AI adoption in charities is about culture and change, not technology
The tools are the easy part. Getting an organisation to change how it works is where AI adoption actually succeeds or fails.
2024-07-15
The ICO's AI guidance - a practical summary for charities
If your charity uses AI with personal data, you have legal obligations under UK GDPR. Not guidelines. Not best practice. Here's what the ICO's guidance means for common charity use cases.
2024-05-24
The EU AI Act passed - what UK charities need to know
The UK isn't subject to the EU AI Act. But its risk-based framework is the most useful thinking tool we've seen for charities trying to work out which AI use cases need governance and which just need common sense.
2024-04-15
Microsoft Copilot for nonprofits - should your charity pay for it?
Copilot for M365 is now available to nonprofits at around £20/user/month. The Teams meeting summaries are potentially useful. But Copilot handles personal productivity. The harder organisational problems need different solutions.
2023-06-15
Words are hard - why natural language is a bottleneck for interaction
Everywhere you look you'll find text prompts to talk to machines. But, in many circumstances, it isn't a good interaction pattern.
2023-06-08
The dangers of integrating with large language models and how to reduce them
Creating experiences on top of large language models can expose people to harm. As social innovators we should tread carefully.
2023-06-01
Casting large language models into permanent form
We should introduce the concept of 'embodying' LLMs where, instead of always directly interfacing with LLMs, we direct them to solve specific, discrete problems.
2023-05-05
Are LLMs our version of 3D printers?
3D printers changed how physical products were designed and built. Ideas were quick to iterate, test and validate. Large language models (LLMs) are potentially the 3D printer moment for digital products.
2023-04-26
9 misconceptions about Large Language Models
I've been running workshops, trainings and webinars over the last month. These are the most common misconceptions that come up about what Large Language Models are and what they can do.
2023-03-28
Beware, AI may never be 'production' ready
We should be open to the idea that the hallucinations, misinformation and misrepresentation might be impossible to remove.