Charity Excellence Framework (an excellent resource if you haven’t already used them), are currently trialling using AI (artificial intelligence).  

Charity Excellence AI Services Tech Bunnies 

Their 1st GPT3 service is Funding Bid Writing.  The aim is to provide free bid writing.  Charities answer a series of questions, then the AI will draft a bid.  As long as the charity has the information needed to hand, it should take no more than 5 minutes.   

This has got me reflecting on the impact this could have.  If all Charities can get AI to write their bids (which will therefore all be of a similar quality), how are funders going to make decisions?  Will they use AI to make those decisions?  It makes a bit of a mockery of the whole grant application approach.  Definitely time for some reflections by funders on how to handle this change. 

The potential for time saving for organisations is enormous.  There is the potential that the playing field is levelled – small charities being able to compete with the better resourced ones who have paid bid writers.  There is also a risk that the tech will be expensive and could create larger differences between the capacity of the smaller charities and those with resources to invest.  Hopefully CEF will ensure access for the smaller charities. 

We’d love to hear your views (funders, and charities) on the impact you see from AI on the sector.