Charities Encouraged to Engage with AI Amidst New Training and Grant Opportunities

by Jasper Maddox · 19/11/2025

A stark imperative is facing the UK charity sector: engage with Artificial Intelligence now or, in the words of Kings Trust chair Tom Ilube, face’ real trouble’ within years. This warning lands at a pivotal moment, as a wave of dedicated funding and training opportunities creates a clear, tangible path for charities to begin harnessing AI’s immense potential. These new support mechanisms offer a critical launchpad for a sector that must now balance the promise of enhanced efficiency and impact against the significant risks, ethical questions, and the importance of responsible AI use that accompany this transformative technology. This article explores the concrete opportunities available and the strategic context in which they arrive, providing a guide for leaders navigating this complex new terrain.

The Core Story: A Raft of New Support for the Sector

While the conversation around AI can often feel abstract and overwhelming, a series of practical opportunities has recently been launched, specifically designed to help UK charities take their first steps with the technology. These initiatives, many of which are free and tailored for non-technical leaders, provide a crucial entry point for organisations, particularly smaller ones, looking to build skills, experiment safely, and begin integrating AI into their operations.

New Grant and Funding Opportunities

Several new funding streams are now available to help charities overcome the initial financial barriers to AI adoption:

The Different Foundation’s “AI for All” Programme: This scheme is specifically designed to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in AI, offering a one-off grant of up to £2,500 combined with four hours of expert mentorship. The funding supports projects that tackle digital bias, amplify underrepresented voices, and advance inclusive technology solutions. Eligibility is restricted to UK-registered charities with an annual turnover between £150,000 and £1.15 million and a team of one to ten people. The application deadline is 30 September 2025.
Microsoft’s Azure Grant: Eligible non-profits can apply for an annual grant of $2,000 (USD) in Azure credits. This provides access to Microsoft’s comprehensive portfolio of cloud and AI products, allowing charities to experiment with enterprise-grade tools without the upfront cost.

Free Training and Skills Development

Recognising the profound skills gap in the sector, a number of partnerships have launched free training programmes to build capacity from the ground up:

Charity Excellence and Microsoft Partnership: The “AI Online Learning Programme” is a free initiative open to all, with no prior technical knowledge required. It aims to equip anyone in the sector with the skills to use AI effectively and safely, with modules covering everything from AI basics to specialist topics such as fundraising. As founder Ian McLintock stated, the goal is for “every non-profit, no matter how small, to benefit from AI”.
Data.org, Microsoft, and NetHope Partnership: The “AI Skills for Nonprofits” programme is a free, self-paced online training course created specifically for non-profit leaders with minimal AI experience. It covers foundational concepts and principles of responsible AI adoption, helping leaders to evaluate and plan for the thoughtful implementation of AI tools.
NCVO and Microsoft Partnership: Following a recent joint event for small charities, these organisations highlighted a range of free, online learning paths on generative AI available through LinkedIn, which can be completed at a user’s own pace.

The emergence of these resources is not a moment too soon, as they provide a crucial, practical entry point for a sector eager to develop AI strategy and skills. This should inspire confidence that support is available to help leaders act now and shape the future responsibly.

Context and Background: A Sector at a Tipping Point

To grasp the strategic importance of these new initiatives, it is crucial to understand the current landscape of AI adoption. Recent data reveals a complex picture: while usage is growing at a remarkable pace, it is largely experimental and tactical, set against a backdrop of significant deficits in strategy, leadership skills, and formal governance. This evidence suggests the sector has reached a tipping point, where unstructured exploration must give way to strategic, responsible integration if the full benefits of AI are to be realised. Sector leaders must now feel empowered and responsible to guide this transition ethically and collaboratively.

The latest figures from the Charity Digital Skills Report 2025 and The State of AI in Nonprofits report paint a clear picture of rapid, but shallow, adoption:

Widespread Use: 76% of charities are now using AI, a significant jump from 61% in 2024.
Primary Applications: The most common uses are for administration and project management (48%) and grant fundraising (36%).
Strategic Integration: This adoption is overwhelmingly exploratory, with 51% of charities just “exploring, piloting and testing” tools, while only 2% are using AI at a strategic level.

This rush to experiment is happening in a strategic vacuum. While 76% of charities use AI, a virtually identical proportion (76%) lacks a formal AI strategy to govern its use. This disconnect is not merely a data point; it’s a significant organisational risk, creating a scenario where tactical tools are adopted without strategic oversight. This vulnerability is amplified in the boardroom, where 44% of trustees are rated as having poor AI skills, and among executive leaders, with 36% of CEOs similarly assessed. This deficit contributes to a powerful emotional dichotomy within the sector; a recent Globethics webinar captured feelings almost evenly split between “exciting” and “opportunity” versus “overwhelming” and “hesitant”.

This disconnect between tactical adoption and strategic vacuum is where AI’s dual-edged potential becomes most apparent, creating both game-changing opportunities and mission-critical risks.

Impact and Implications: The Promise and the Perils

For charities, Artificial Intelligence represents not just a new tool but a transformative force. It carries the immense promise of boosting efficiency and deepening impact, but this potential is matched by profound ethical risks and the danger of exacerbating existing inequalities. Understanding this dual nature is fundamental for any leader charting a course for their organisation.

The Promise: Tangible Gains in Efficiency and Impact

When harnessed strategically and ethically, AI is already delivering remarkable returns. Real-world case studies demonstrate its power to optimise operations and amplify mission delivery while maintaining responsible practices:

Prostate Cancer UK used AI to analyse donor data from 1.5 million supporters. This allowed them to identify optimal segments for their Christmas appeal, resulting in more than double the return on investment compared to previous campaigns.
Church Mission Society adopted AI-powered accounting software to automate data entry and financial management. The move saved the organisation 200 hours of staff time monthly and approximately £50,000 annually.
Rainforest Connection (RFCx) deploys AI-driven acoustic monitoring in forests to detect the sounds of illegal logging, instantly alerting local rangers to enable rapid intervention and protect biodiversity.

However, these high-impact examples are predominantly from larger, well-resourced organisations, and their success casts a stark light on the widening capability gap across the sector.

The Perils: A Widening Divide and Ethical Dilemmas

Alongside these benefits, the rapid and unstructured adoption of AI presents significant challenges that cannot be ignored:

The Widening Divide: AI is deepening the digital gap between larger and smaller organisations. Data shows that 89% of large charities are using AI, compared to just 72% of small charities.
Ethical Dilemmas: The use of AI raises complex ethical issues, including algorithmic bias that perpetuates social inequities, breaches of data privacy for vulnerable beneficiaries, and a lack of transparency in “black box” systems whose decisions cannot be easily explained.
Top Barriers to Progress: Reflecting these concerns, the Charity Digital Skills Report identifies data privacy, GDPR, and security as the single biggest barrier to AI progress for charities, cited by 43% of organisations.

Navigating this landscape of promise and peril requires clear-eyed leadership, and the sector’s most prominent voices are now issuing urgent calls for strategic, board-level engagement.

Perspectives and Voices: A Call for Strategic Engagement

In response to these rapid changes, sector leaders are issuing clear and urgent calls to action. The prevailing message is that charities cannot afford to be passive recipients of technology. Instead, they must engage proactively, strategically, and collaboratively to shape how AI is deployed in ways that align with their core values.

The most forceful call has come from Tom Ilube, chair of the Kings Trust, who warned that failing to engage is ” not an option,” stating unequivocally:

“You have got to engage with stuff, because if you don’t, your charity, your organisation, is going to end up in real trouble in two or three years’ time.”

Ilube strongly recommended that boards recruit an AI expert to guide their strategic thinking and called for “collective action among charities to share resources and strategies,” ensuring the sector moves forward together.

This collaborative approach is already taking shape. A recent event hosted by NCVO and Microsoft UK for small charities exemplified the collective learning journey the sector must embark on. A key insight from the day was the recognition that “no one has all the answers” and that progress depends on a willingness to start small, experiment responsibly, and share lessons openly.

The expert consensus, therefore, is not merely a call to use AI, but a demand to build a sector-wide culture of strategic, ethical, and collaborative adoption—a fundamental shift required to ensure technology serves, rather than subverts, charitable missions.

Navigating the Path Forward

Artificial Intelligence is an unavoidable and transformative force, presenting UK charities with an immense landscape of opportunity balanced by significant risk. While the challenges of skills gaps, strategic deficits, and ethical uncertainty are profound, the sector is not being left to navigate this new terrain alone. The recent wave of dedicated grants and free training programmes provides a critical and timely launchpad, offering the practical tools needed to move from apprehension to active engagement. The path forward requires more than just technological adoption; it demands a fundamental commitment from charity leaders. Now is the moment to seize these opportunities, not merely to implement new software, but to begin the essential work of building internal skills, developing responsible AI policies, and embarking on the collective learning journey necessary to shape a future where AI powerfully and ethically serves their vital missions.