Using AI in Trust Fundraising

Overview

There seems to be increasing chatter around AI in trust fundraising - what I've been hearing falls into a few broad categories:

• Funders saying that they are seeing increasing numbers of applications that they recognise as being written by AI, with some providing some guidance on their views on using AI to help write applications
• True believers saying how great AI is and how it will save you tonnes of time by writing great bids for you
• The majority of trust fundraisers asking if AI can really help them write better or faster/more funding applications; and if so how to do this when there seem to be major issues around the accuracy and quality of content produced by AI.

This event is aimed at the people in that third group.

To clarify, by AI in this instance we're referring to the likes of Chat GPT, Copilot etc.

Join this free lunchtime session to learn about the trends in using AI in trust fundraising and how to use AI to help write strong funding applications.

Event format:

• Introduction (Alex Blake)
• Trends in using AI in trust fundraising (Ian McLintock)
• How to use AI to help write strong funding applications (Jonathan Ashton)
• Opportunity for participants to share their experience and ask questions.

This is a live event where we encourage active engagement, including sharing experience, challenges and asking questions.

The event will not be recorded.

Please do not bring your AI notetaker to the meeting - if we are at capacity, I don't want real people who have booked their place to miss out because we have dozens of AI notetakers joining us.

About the organiser:

Alex Blake

I’ve been helping charities to secure grant funding for about 20 years now and while there is no such thing as perfect, lots of practice does mean I have plenty of experience to share with you. I’ve worked with over 130 charities, developing funding applications that have so far raised £40 million. I work with a small number of charity clients on a one-to-one basis and events like this are my way of engaging with a broader range of people in the sector - I look forward to seeing you soon. In the meantime, feel free to follow or connect with me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexblake-kedaconsulting/

About the speakers:

Ian McLintock has been a volunteer for nearly 50 years and has worked at senior management level for 30+, including numerous chair and CEO roles. He’s the founder of Charity Excellence, which has 50,000+ members, and is the largest UK charity community. He launched the first free charity AI system in 2022, the first bid writer and charity AI training in 2023, and the first free charity agentic AI in 2025. His latest initiative is Charity Excellence Learning, launched in Nov 25 with the first charity online AI training; the first fundraising course launches on Christmas Day. All Charity Excellence services are free.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianmclintock/

Jonathan Ashton has worked in trust, lottery and statutory grant- and tender-writing for over 30 years, at over 30 different charities. He has also assessed for seven different funders. He maintains the best practice website www.goodgrantfundraising.org.uk and trains and mentors trust fundraisers. Regarding AI: Jonathan is author of a 750-page book on prompting AIs and uses AIs in over 3 dozen different ways for trust fundraising. He has run half day courses, with 1:1 mentoring, for trust fundraisers in using AI.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-a-aab32976/