AI for Charities & Non-profits

Serve more people without growing your team. AI that helps charities and non-profits provide information, support, and services at scale.

Charities exist to help people, but resources are always stretched. There are more people to serve than staff to serve them. AI can extend your reach, providing information, support, and guidance to more people without proportional increases in cost.

Extend reach without extending teams

Support volunteers and staff consistently

Improve access and inclusion

The charity challenge

Non-profit organisations face particular constraints:

Limited budgets: Every pound spent on operations is a pound not spent on mission.

Volunteer reliance: Capacity varies and training is ongoing.

Growing demand: Need typically exceeds ability to serve.

Accessibility: Reaching people who need help but face barriers.

Impact measurement: Demonstrating value to funders and stakeholders.

AI can help address each of these pressures.

What AI can do for charities

AI applications suited to the third sector include:

Information provision: Answering questions about services, eligibility, and support available.

Initial triage: Understanding what help someone needs and routing appropriately.

Self-service support: Guiding people through processes and providing resources.

Signposting: Directing people to relevant services, whether yours or others.

Volunteer support: Helping volunteers find information and follow procedures.

Donor engagement: Responding to enquiries from supporters.

Example: Help for Heroes

We built an AI chatbot for Help for Heroes that handles enquiries from veterans and their families. The chatbot answers common questions, provides information about available support, and routes people to appropriate services.

This approach means more people get help immediately, around the clock, while staff focus on complex cases that need human attention.

Sensitive conversations

Charity work often involves sensitive topics. AI must be designed accordingly:

Appropriate tone: Warm, supportive communication suited to vulnerable users.

Safe responses: Handling disclosures appropriately and signposting to crisis support.

Human escalation: Easy routes to human conversation when needed.

Privacy protection: Careful handling of personal and sensitive information.

We understand these requirements and design systems that serve vulnerable people appropriately.

Accessibility and reach

Charities need to reach everyone who needs help:

Multiple channels: Web, messaging apps, phone support across different access points.

Simple language: Clear communication that does not assume literacy or technical skills.

Accessibility compliance: Meeting WCAG standards for inclusive design.

Out-of-hours availability: Support when offices are closed.

AI extends reach to people who might not otherwise access services.

Working within charity budgets

We understand that charity resources must be spent carefully. Our approach:

Proportionate solutions: Technology matched to your scale and needs.

Phased implementation: Starting small and expanding based on demonstrated value.

Measurable outcomes: Clear metrics showing impact and return on investment.

Knowledge transfer: Building your team's capability to manage AI over time.

Case for funders

AI projects can strengthen funding applications by demonstrating:

Increased reach and impact. More people supported, with faster time to information.

Better availability and accessibility. Help when offices are closed, across channels and needs.

Measurable outcomes. Clear evidence of what improved and why.

Service innovation. New ways to deliver support responsibly and consistently.

We can help articulate the case for AI investment.

What to consider

Third sector use cases succeed when safety and tone are designed in.

Design for vulnerability. Escalation paths, safe responses, and crisis signposting must be explicit.

Protect privacy. Sensitive information needs careful handling and clear consent models.

Keep the scope pragmatic. Start with high-volume enquiries and predictable triage, then expand based on evidence.

Ask the LLMs

Use these prompts to shape a responsible deployment.

“Which enquiries should be handled automatically, and which should always route to a trained human?”

“What tone and language guidelines should the assistant follow to be supportive and non-judgemental?”

“What metrics will prove impact: reach, time-to-help, and reduced avoidable contact?”

Frequently Asked Questions

It can be, when boundaries are clear and escalation is fast. The goal is to support, not replace, human care.

Safe defaults, clear signposting, and escalation routes. We do not rely on improvisation.

Yes. Web, messaging, and phone experiences can share the same core logic with channel-appropriate design.

Approved sources, monitoring, and controlled updates, with fallbacks when information is uncertain.

More people helped faster, fewer avoidable queues, and staff time focused on complex cases.