Trust and the Future of Charity Work: Lived Experience in the Age of AI
Artificial intelligence is already changing the way charities, social enterprises and community groups work.
Some organisations are using AI to draft funding applications, write policies, summarise meetings, analyse survey responses, create social media content, translate information, prepare reports and reduce the administrative pressure on small teams. Others are watching from a distance, unsure whether AI is safe, relevant, affordable or aligned with the way they work.
For many mission-led organisations, especially those led by lived experience, the question is not simply whether AI can make work faster. The deeper question is whether AI can support the work without flattening the knowledge, trust, relationships and community understanding that make the work meaningful in the first place.
That is why Do it Now Now is launching a new listening campaign on AI, trust and the future of charity work.
We want to hear from both sides of the relationship: the organisations delivering support, and the people receiving it. The deadline is 31st August 2026. Visit: dilloo.doitnownow.com/research/ai-trust
Why this matters now
Charities and community organisations are under intense pressure.
Demand is rising. Funding is stretched. Reporting requirements are increasing. Small teams are carrying complex work across governance, fundraising, safeguarding, delivery, evaluation, communications, finance and strategy.
In that context, AI can look like a solution.
It can help people write faster. It can turn messy notes into summaries. It can help teams understand funder priorities. It can support translation, planning, analysis and content creation. Used well, AI could reduce some of the administrative burden that stops organisations from spending more time with the people and communities they exist to serve.
But that is only one side of the story.
AI can also create new risks. It can produce inaccurate information. It can make language sound more polished but less authentic. It can encourage organisations to generate more applications, more reports and more donor content without addressing the structural pressures underneath. It can create privacy, safeguarding and consent issues. It can introduce bias into decisions about who receives support. It can misunderstand needs that are complex, hidden, changing or difficult to evidence through a form.
For lived-experience-led organisations, the stakes are especially high.
Many of these organisations exist because mainstream systems have failed to understand people properly. Their value often lies in relationship, trust, context, cultural knowledge and the ability to recognise things that do not fit neatly into a category. If AI is introduced without care, it could strengthen the very patterns of exclusion these organisations were created to challenge.
So before we rush towards automation, we need to listen.
The five questions guiding this campaign
This campaign is anchored in five core questions about the economics and ethics of AI in the charity sector.
First, will AI genuinely reduce the cost of running mission-led organisations, or will it simply raise expectations?
If AI helps teams work faster, funders may begin to expect more applications, more reporting, more outputs and more evidence. We want to understand whether organisations see AI as a source of relief, or another way for already-stretched teams to be asked to do more.
Second, how might AI affect who receives support?
Many organisations already make difficult decisions about waiting lists, eligibility, urgency and need. If AI is used to support triage or prioritisation, we need to understand what it might miss. Some needs are not easy to describe in a form. Some people are less able to advocate for themselves. Some forms of harm, exclusion or vulnerability are hidden until trust has been built.
Third, will AI make fundraising more accessible, or more competitive?
AI may help smaller organisations write stronger applications and communicate their impact more clearly. That could be positive. But it could also create a fundraising arms race where every organisation is expected to produce more polished bids, reports, stories and donor communications. We want to understand whether AI opens the door for smaller and lived-experience-led organisations, or whether it creates new barriers.
Fourth, what happens to dignity, consent and personal stories?
Charities often rely on case studies, lived-experience narratives and service-user stories to fundraise and report impact. AI could make it easier to edit, summarise or dramatise those stories. But who controls the final version? How much emotional polishing is too much? When does storytelling become extraction? Service users must be part of that conversation.
Fifth, what should organisations disclose?
If AI has helped write a funding application, should the funder know? If AI has summarised a service user’s case notes, should the service user know? If AI has helped personalise a donor email, should the donor know? Transparency may build trust in some contexts and reduce it in others. We want to understand where people draw the line.
We need to hear from organisations
We are inviting charities, social enterprises, unregistered community groups, mutual aid groups, informal collectives, trustees, staff, volunteers, consultants and community organisers to complete our organisation survey.
We want to understand:
how organisations are already using AI;
what tools they are using;
where AI is saving time;
what tasks are still creating the greatest administrative pressure;
how organisation leaders feel about AI in fundraising, reporting and service delivery;
what risks they are most concerned about;
whether they have policies or guidance in place;
what support they need to use AI safely and strategically.
We are especially interested in the experiences of lived-experience-led organisations and smaller community groups, because these organisations are often closest to the communities most affected by decisions about funding, access and support.
We need to hear from service users too
Too often, technology is introduced into services before the people affected by it have been asked what they think.
That is not good enough.
Our service-user survey is for people who receive, or have received, support from charities, social enterprises, community groups, mutual aid groups or lived-experience-led organisations.
We want to understand:
how comfortable people feel about organisations using AI for admin, translation, communication and feedback analysis;
whether people would accept AI being used in decisions about access to support;
what parts of someone’s situation AI might misunderstand;
what should always involve a human being;
whether people want to be told when AI is used;
what would build or break trust;
how service users should be involved in setting the rules.
People do not need to know a lot about AI to take part. We are not testing technical knowledge. We are listening for boundaries, hopes, concerns and lived reality.
This is also about Dilloo
The findings from this campaign will help shape the continuing development of Dilloo, a platform created by Do it Now Now to support mission-led organisations with governance, opportunities, funding readiness, strategy, documents, advisors, impact and practical follow-through.
Dilloo is being built with a clear belief: AI should not replace lived expertise, community knowledge or human judgement. It should reduce unnecessary administrative burden, help organisations make sense of their work, and support better decisions without removing the people, context and relationships that matter.
This campaign gives people a chance to experience Dilloo’s survey functionality while also contributing to a wider sector conversation.
We are interested in how survey tools can do more than collect answers. In Dilloo, surveys should help organisations listen well, understand patterns, protect sensitive information, generate useful insights and turn feedback into action.
What we will do with the findings
The responses will inform a sector report by Do it Now Now on AI, trust and the future of charity work.
The report will explore:
how charities and community organisations are currently using AI;
where AI is creating benefits;
where AI is creating risk;
how funders should think about AI and organisational capacity;
what service users expect from organisations using AI;
what should remain human-led;
what support the sector needs next.
We will also use the findings to improve Dilloo, especially around AI safety, governance, fundraising support, service-user consent, ethical storytelling, transparency and lived-experience-led design.
Where we use quotes or examples from survey responses, we will anonymise them unless someone has clearly given permission to be identified.
Our starting position
We are not anti-AI.
We are also not interested in pretending that AI is neutral, harmless or automatically empowering.
Our position is simple: the people closest to the work should shape how AI is used in the work.
That means community organisations must be heard. Lived-experience-led leaders must be heard. Staff and volunteers must be heard. Trustees must be heard. Service users must be heard.
The future of AI in the charity sector should not be decided only by software companies, consultants, funders or large institutions. It should be shaped by the people who understand the consequences of getting it wrong.
Take part
If you work or volunteer with a charity, social enterprise, community group, mutual aid group or lived-experience-led organisation, please complete the organisation survey.
If you receive or have received support from a charity, social enterprise, community organisation or mutual aid group, please complete the service-user survey.
Your views will help us understand how AI can be used in ways that are useful, safe, transparent and grounded in trust.
Before we automate more of the charity sector, we need to ask better questions.
And we need to listen carefully to the answers.
The deadline is 31st August 2026. Visit: dilloo.doitnownow.com/research/ai-trust
