Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the ways businesses have the potential to operate, including the charitable sector.
It's tempting to overlook the latest advancements in AI, or consider it the next buzzword, but now’s not the time to bury your head in the sand. Charities should start embracing AI to enhance growth.
This article delves into how AI can help charities and improve online experiences. We spoke with Josephine McCartney, CEO of the Kent Community Foundation (KCF), who offered her insights.
The potential of AI in the charity sector
Charities often face resource constraints, making it challenging to manage operations efficiently. AI can be a game-changer by automating repetitive tasks, improving accessibility, and enhancing the user experience.
One of the significant challenges for charities is the grant application process. AI tools have the potential to simplify this process, making it accessible to organisations with limited resources. Josephine explains, “AI tools can help organisations without a fundraiser find matches between their charity's criteria and hundreds of different funders, while also auto-filling the relevant application forms for them”. This automation not only saves time but can also ensures that applications are comprehensive and well-prepared, increasing the chances of securing funding.
On top of this, AI can significantly enhance the accessibility of charities' services. Many individuals face barriers when accessing traditional application processes, whether due to dyslexia, visual impairments, or language proficiency. Josephine notes, "The new development of artificial intelligence will allow us to make this process more accessible to the neurodiverse. It also helps to support our equality, diversity, and inclusion agenda."
By leveraging AI, charities can ensure their services are more inclusive, reach a broader audience, and more effectively fulfil their mission.
Enhancing charities website usability
A user-friendly website is crucial for any organisation… especially charities. AI can improve the usability and overall experience of charity websites in several ways:
- Personalised User Experience: AI can analyse user behaviour and preferences to provide personalised content and recommendations, enhancing engagement and satisfaction.
- Enhanced Navigation and Search: AI-driven search boxes and chatbots help users find information quickly, improving navigation and reducing frustration.
- Content Optimisation: AI tools can suggest improvements for content readability and SEO, ensuring users find high-quality, relevant information.
- Accessibility Features: AI enhances accessibility with features like voice recognition, text-to-speech, and personalised interfaces for users with disabilities.
- Content Creation: No longer do people have to create alt tags for every image, and meta descriptions etc. AI can create the content for users to review and amend.
As Josephine points out, "AI will definitely save us time. It will help us create a site that's more accessible and understandable—that's what we're all about."
Building confidence in AI usage
Despite the clear benefits, people often hesitate to adopt AI due to authenticity and data validity concerns. Josephine acknowledges this, stating, "My concern, I suppose, of artificial intelligence is around authenticity. And the validity of data and where it comes from, and because of a lot of the negativity around the information it may provide, I think people have stopped seeing it as an opportunity".
To overcome negativity of AI, KCF is taking proactive steps to build confidence in AI within the sector. They plan to offer workshops, training, and toolkits to help small charities utilise AI effectively. "We want to be able to say, look, you can do all of this, and you can do it quite simply. We're going to help you dispel some of the myths around using artificial intelligence," says Josephine.
Richard Pilton, Managing Director of Kayo Digital, emphasises the potential ways AI can have a transformative impact on their clients' websites: "We’re always looking for ways to optimise user experiences, enhance content creation, and drive engagement to ensure we’re delivering high-performing websites.
“Integrating AI into our processes enables our clients to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness, ultimately helping them fulfil their missions more successfully.
“Whether it’s an AI plug-in to help content creation, or the other endless opportunities to leverage AI the right way, it's about learning what’s right for you, and businesses need to start learning this.”
Utilising AI can help charities and businesses streamline operations, improve service delivery, and create more inclusive and user-friendly online experiences by significantly improving efficiency, accessibility, and user experience for business owners, and help enhance the impact and reach of charitable organisations.
Adopting AI is not without its challenges, but with the right approach and resources, the benefits far outweigh the risks. As Josephine aptly puts it, "We need to embrace it and work with it and use it to our advantage rather than being resistant to it or being suspicious of it."
For more information on how AI can benefit your charity and business, visit Kayo Digital.
