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The Charity Governance Code was refreshed in November 2025. It was the most significant update since the Code was first published, and it changed more than most trustees realise. This post explains what actually changed, what it means in practice for charities of different sizes, and — critically — what "good enough" looks like. Because the gap between "we haven't thought about this" and "we're meeting the standard" is smaller than you'd expect. The headline changes The

Here's a statistic that made headlines across the charity sector this year: 88% of UK charities now use AI tools in their day-to-day work. Up from 76% the year before and 61% the year before that. And here's the statistic that should have made headlines but didn't: only 3% of charity trustees said their charity was using AI at all. That gap — between 88% of organisations reporting AI use and 3% of trustees knowing about it — tells you everything you need to know about wha

Charities face a business case problem that no other sector has. When a commercial business wants to invest in AI, it has one audience: the board, who want to see return on investment. A charity has three. Your board wants to know the risk is managed and the governance is sound. Your funders want to know you're spending wisely and delivering impact. And your staff want to know their jobs are safe and their workload is about to get better, not worse. These three audiences

Whilst we've developed lived experience embedding AI in a small charity. We'll start with an honest disclosure. We are an AI consultancy. We sell an AI toolkit. It would be very convenient for me to tell you that getting started with AI requires professional support. It doesn't. If your charity has no budget for AI, no dedicated tech person, and no idea where to begin, everything in this post is free. You can implement all of it this week with nothing more than a smartpho

The charity sector has a skills gap problem. Everyone agrees on this. The Charity Digital Skills Report 2025 found that 50% of charities cite lack of skills and expertise as a barrier to digital progress. Thirty-five percent rate themselves as poor AI users. Twenty-nine percent don't use AI at all. And 65% say that more training for leaders and trustees would help. The sector's response has been predictable: more training courses. Microsoft and LinkedIn have launched free l

Please note the contents of this blog are for information purposes and does not constitute legal advice. If there's one thing that stops charities from using AI, it isn't cost. It isn't skills. It's fear of getting GDPR wrong. The 2026 Charity Digital Skills data shows that 49% of charities say data privacy and GDPR concerns are preventing them from adopting AI further. That makes it the single biggest barrier to progress — ahead of skills gaps, ahead of funding, ahead of l

This is written for charity trustees — but if you're a CEO or operations manager reading this first, feel free to forward it to your board. That's what it's for. Where the sector stands right now AI tools are being used in 88% of UK charities. That figure comes from the 2026 Charity Digital Skills survey, and it's risen sharply — from 61% in 2024 to 76% in 2025 to where we are now. In most charities, this usage is informal. Individual staff members have found that AI he

Let's start with an uncomfortable truth. If you've ever opened ChatGPT, typed "write a grant application for a youth mentoring programme," and submitted something close to what came back — funders have almost certainly noticed. According to the Charity Excellence Grant Making Trust & Foundation Survey 2026, around 64% of charities have tried using AI for grant applications. But funder reviewers are now reporting a rise in generic, AI-generated language across the applicatio

If your charity doesn't have an AI policy, you're in good company. As recently as 2024, only 16% of UK charities had one. By 2025, that had tripled to 48%. And the 2026 Charity Digital Skills data shows 60% of charities now have a policy in place or in development. But here's the thing that number doesn't tell you: most of those policies aren't very good. The typical charity AI policy is one of two things. It's either a two-paragraph statement that says "use AI responsibly" w

Why This Series Exists Before we publish the first topical piece, this short introductory post sets the frame: who Third Sector AI (TSAI) is, why this content exists, and why we're publishing it. It also establishes the #LessAdminMoreMission brand voice and signals the accessibility commitment. AI and Your Charity: The Opportunity, the Risk, and Why We're Having This Conversation Something significant is happening in the UK charity sector. Not in the headlines — there's no dr