Guest Blog: From Admin to Impact, How AI is Changing Charity Work

In this guest blog, Janinah McKenzie Knowland of JMK & Co reflects on ways in which AI is changing how charities work.

When people think about charity work, they often picture frontline delivery: The youth worker mentoring a teenager, the carer offering support to an individual with additional needs, or the volunteer working several days a week at their local community cafe. What people don’t always see is the amount of admin and reporting that are a part of all the services that socially driven organisations deliver.

For many mission-driven organisations, admin feels like a constant chore that consumes much more of their time than they'd like. Staff don’t always have the time to do it properly, and when it comes to reporting, project systems are often not fit for purpose. I’ve seen situations where one staff member records outcomes in a (cloud) document via Google Drive, another uses a spreadsheet, and someone else has their own local version tucked away in their laptop documents folder. Senior managers then face the unenviable task of pulling all these disparate strands of data together, often under tight reporting deadlines, without always knowing where the missing data they need can be found and from which team.

It’s here that AI has the potential to make a real difference. Not by replacing people, but by taking away some of the manual, repetitive admin and reporting work that stops staff from focusing on what really matters: Their communities.

How AI Comes in

AI isn't a magic wand, but it can certainly help remove some of the repetitive, time-consuming work that holds charities back. An example of this can be through charities making the most of digital tools with AI features already integrated into them. More specifically; design tools like Canva, CRM tools like Plinth and Project Management tools like Asana, or Notion. Nowadays there’s a whole suite of AI driven, digital tools that can be used to build systems and digital workflows for organisations. Allowing them to utilise AI automation and spend less time manually inputting information into systems. Most popular of these AI tools however are LLMs (Large Language Models) like Claude and Chat-GPT, both being used by millions of individuals and organisations internationally to help with creative and production tasks such as: Copywriting, content creation, bid writing, project planning and research.

These tools open up new possibilities for charities to boost creativity and save time. But alongside the excitement comes a set of understandable concerns and questions.

hesitations around ai

Time and time again, I've heard charity staff say that whilst AI seems promising they still have hesitations around adopting it fully within their own organisations or workflows. Worries I hear most often in our AI webinars and workshops are (in no particular order):

• Will using this put our data at risk?

• What if I'm not using the tool to it’s full potential?

• Will this be another expensive tool that our charity doesn't use?

• Where will I find the time to learn a(nother) new system?

These are valid questions especially for charities that handle sensitive information - Data security in particular is a serious issue. However, the key isn't to avoid AI altogether - It's to experiment carefully, create boundaries and/or an AI policy and make sure to treat it as a tool that's used on a regular basis rather than only on a quarterly basis when it's Board reporting time. These factors, I think, can enable charities to use AI ethically and with confidence.

how i use ai as a consultant

As a consultant in the non-profit sector, I typically use a pricing sliding scale when working with organisations, so smaller charity clients are charged less. As a result of this business model, AI has been an absolute game changer for me, as it means I'm able to work more efficiently and produce more in a shorter amount of time. So I'm able to support smaller charities, as well as larger ones, due to now having more time in my diary.

FYI in case you're wondering, my go-to tools are: Chat-GPT - I love the ‘Projects’ feature. Plus Perplexity, I do a lot of research in both my personal and professional life and Perplexity has replaced my previous search engine tool.

the future of ai

Looking to the future, I believe AI can help shift the balance for charities. Instead of staff losing time to reporting systems or admin bottlenecks, they’ll be able to focus more on 1:1 work and direct delivery. That means more impact in communities - excluding the need for bigger budgets. 

But there’s another reason this matters. The future of AI will be shaped by the people who use it. If voices from the VCSE sector aren’t involved, there’s a real risk that AI will develop in ways that fail to reflect the values and principles charities stand for. However, if do-good organisations adopt these tools and expose them to their values, then future models can evolve in ways that reflect ethics, compassion, and fairness.

final thoughts

Think of AI as a tool to experiment and have fun with. As whether we like it or not, AI has become a mainstay in our lives. However, it’s important to remember that the role of AI isn’t to replace people, it’s to free them up to do more of the work that only people can do: Listening, supporting, caring, and creating change.

So start small, experiment, and keep your values at the centre. If charities embrace AI in this way, it won’t just lighten the admin load faced by all in the sector, it could help shape the technology itself into something that truly serves the common good.

If you would like to know more about how JMK & Co can help, please contact Janinah.