AI recipes for charities
Practical approaches to using AI and machine learning in your charity. From data analysis to service delivery, find techniques that work for your charity.
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Use AI to proofread and improve your writing
You've written a fundraising appeal, a report for trustees, or a page for your website, and you want a second pair of eyes before it goes out. But there's no one available to review it, or you need faster turnaround than asking a colleague. You know it could be tighter, clearer, or more engaging - but you've been staring at it too long to see the problems.
Review contracts and agreements with AI
You've got a supplier contract, partnership agreement, or funding terms to review but no in-house legal team. You need to spot problematic clauses, understand what you're committing to, and identify anything unusual before signing. Paying a solicitor £200-400/hour for every contract isn't realistic on a charity budget, but signing without proper review is risky.
Respond to subject access requests faster
You've received a subject access request (SAR) and need to find, review, and redact personal data across emails, spreadsheets, case notes, and shared drives within one calendar month. Manually searching every system, reading every document, and redacting third-party information takes staff days or weeks. Larger charities might get several SARs a month. Miss the deadline and the ICO gets involved.
Evaluate AI tools for data protection compliance
A team member wants to use a new AI tool, or you're evaluating platforms for a project, but you're not sure if it meets your GDPR obligations. Where does the data go? Does the provider train on your inputs? What happens if there's a breach? Your DPO (if you have one) is already stretched. You need a repeatable way to assess AI tools before adopting them, without needing a law degree.
Connect Claude to your charity's tools with MCP
You're copying and pasting data between Claude and your other tools constantly. Pull a report from your CRM, paste it into Claude, ask a question, copy the answer back. Or you want Claude to look something up in your database but have to manually fetch and paste the data first. Every conversation requires this tedious shuttle of information.
Brief your trustees on AI risks and opportunities
Your trustees are asking about AI but you're not sure what to tell them. Some are enthusiastic and want to adopt everything immediately. Others are worried about risk and want to avoid AI entirely. Neither position is helpful. You need to give them a balanced, practical briefing that covers governance duties, real risks, and genuine opportunities - without hype or scaremongering.
Featured recipes
Popular approaches across different skill levels
Review funding bids before submission
You've written a funding bid but you're too close to spot the problems. Have you answered every question? Are outcomes clear and measurable? Does the budget add up? Is the logic sound? You submit and get rejected for avoidable mistakes: missing information, unclear theory of change, budget errors, not matching funder priorities. You need fresh eyes but colleagues are busy and deadlines are tight.
Generate impact report narrative from data
You've got the data for your impact report: 127 people supported, 78% showed improvement, 45 moved into employment. But turning those numbers into readable narrative takes hours. You stare at a blank page trying to make statistics into a story. Funders want compelling narrative backed by data, and you're spending days writing reports.
Generate grant reports from project data
Grant reports are due and you're staring at a blank page. You've got spreadsheets of beneficiaries served, outcomes achieved, budget spent - but turning that into a compelling narrative takes hours. Each funder wants slightly different information formatted differently. You end up copying and pasting from previous reports, hoping you've updated all the numbers.
Spot patterns you weren't looking for
Your trustees want to know what's interesting in your data, but you don't have a data analyst. You've got spreadsheets full of service usage, outcomes, demographics - but you don't know what questions to ask. Manually checking every possible correlation would take forever.
Find relevant grants automatically
There are thousands of grants out there, but finding the right ones is painful. Keyword searches miss opportunities because funders use different language. You end up manually browsing databases, reading irrelevant listings, and probably missing grants that would have been perfect.
Automate monthly reporting with Claude Code
Every month, someone spends hours pulling together reports - extracting data from your CRM, copying figures from spreadsheets, formatting everything into a Word document or slide deck for the board. It's tedious, error-prone, and the person who knows how to do it is a single point of failure.
Browse by pathway
Structured learning journeys for different goals
First steps with AI for charities
A gentle introduction to using AI tools in your charity. Start with simple, high-value use cases that anyone can try today.
From prompts to agents
Build AI systems that use tools, search for information, and complete multi-step tasks autonomously.
The fundraising AI journey
From finding grants to retaining donors - AI techniques for every stage of the fundraising cycle.
API loops and programmatic AI
Move beyond copy-paste. Learn to call AI from code and process hundreds or thousands of records automatically.
The self-directed ai learner
Build AI skills on your own terms, even when your workplace hasn't caught up yet. Practical experiments you can do in stolen half-hours with your own data and projects.
Browse by category
Find recipes for your specific needs
Data Analysis
Extract insights from your data
16 recipes
Service Delivery
Improve how you serve beneficiaries
17 recipes
Fundraising
Boost donations and donor engagement
10 recipes
Operations
Streamline day-to-day tasks
18 recipes
Impact Measurement
Track and report your outcomes
9 recipes
Communications
Reach and engage your audience
11 recipes
Compliance
Meet regulatory requirements
14 recipes