The latest Digital Skills Report states 79% of charities are now using AI in some form, up from 61% last year.
That is a sharp shift in a short time and suggests two things. AI use in the charity sector is no longer marginal, and adoption is moving faster than the support around it.
The report calls on funders to move quickly. That is a fair challenge, but speed on its own is not the only measure that matters. The better question is whether charities are being supported to use AI in ways that are practical, safe and worth the effort.
Adoption is rising, but capability is not keeping pace
A jump from 61% to 79% changes the conversation. The question is no longer whether charities will use AI. Many already are.
In most organisations, that starts in small, informal ways. Staff use tools to draft content, summarise documents, support research or reduce admin. That makes sense. When teams are stretched and demand is rising, anything that saves time will get attention.
But informal adoption only goes so far.
Without clear guidance, shared standards and proper support, the risks are obvious. Quality becomes inconsistent. Sensitive information can be mishandled. Decisions can be made without enough scrutiny. And the gains stay limited because the organisation never moves beyond scattered individual use.
That is why the report's message to funders matters. The gap is not only access to tools. It is access to capability.
Charities do not just need licences. They need time to test, space to learn, clear policies, stronger data foundations, confident leadership and governance that is proportionate rather than paralysing.
That work is less visible than buying software, but usually far more useful.
The best starting point is the problem
In the charity sector, pressure to do more with less can make any new tool look promising. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is not.
AI can help with repetitive admin, content workflows, knowledge retrieval, service triage and internal productivity. It can reduce friction and free up time for higher value work. But it does not replace judgement. It does not fix weak processes by itself. And it does not remove the need for difficult organisational choices.
The most useful work usually starts with a simple question: where is the friction?
Where are staff losing time? Where is effort being duplicated? Which services are slowed down by manual steps? Where do teams struggle to find the right information when they need it?
Those are stronger starting points than a broad ambition to implement AI.
For charities, this matters even more because trust is part of the service. If an organisation works with vulnerable people, handles sensitive data or delivers public benefit, it cannot treat AI as something added on without care. Any case for adoption needs governance, transparency and human oversight from the start.
That is not a barrier to progress. It is what makes progress sustainable.
Funders need to back readiness, not just procurement
If the goal is stronger, more resilient charities, the answer is not simply more tools. It is readiness.
That can include support for digital leadership, training, data improvement, governance, service design and the operational changes needed to make AI useful in practice. It can also mean funding discovery work before any technology decision is made.
This is often the missing piece.
Too many organisations are pushed towards solutions before they have properly defined the problem. In the charity sector, that creates waste at best and harm at worst. Better funding decisions start with a more honest assessment of need, capability and context.
There is also a question of fairness. Larger organisations are usually better placed to experiment because they have more internal capacity. Smaller charities may see the same opportunities but have less room for trial and error. If funders want the benefits of AI to be felt across the sector, they need to support the conditions that make responsible adoption possible for organisations of different sizes.
The opportunity is real. So is the risk of widening the gap between charities that can move with confidence and those that cannot.
The sector does not need more noise about AI. It needs better support for the adoption that is already happening.
For charities and funders alike, the practical starting point is rarely which tool should we buy. It is where are we stuck, and what would make a real difference.
About the Author
Simon Allen has spent over two decades working with people who are the most excluded and underserved in our society and it’s that journey that shapes everything Digital Wonderlab AI does today. That lived experience now drives the AI practice of Digital Wonderlab built specifically for charities, social enterprises, and purpose-driven organisations.
