Giving charity CEOs the confidence to use AI properly

Context

Hands Across Canberra works across the ACT community sector, and the question kept arriving from the organisations it supports: what are we allowed to do with AI?

It was a fair question with no easy source of an answer. Charity chief executives were watching their staff adopt AI tools informally, watching peer organisations do the same, and being asked by boards whether the organisation had a position. Very few had access to the expertise that would normally answer this. Most community organisations have no in-house counsel, no privacy officer and no technology executive.

That leaves a chief executive choosing between two poor options. Prohibit AI, and forgo a genuine opportunity to increase service capacity without increasing headcount, which matters in a sector where demand rises faster than funding. Or allow it informally, and carry a risk nobody has assessed, involving some of the most sensitive personal information there is, about people least able to bear the consequences of a mistake.

Our approach

Aimed at the decision-makers

We ran the workshops for chief executives rather than for staff. This was deliberate. Staff training tells people how to use a tool; it does not resolve whether the organisation should be using it, on what data, under what conditions. That decision sits with the chief executive and the board, and it cannot be delegated to whoever is most enthusiastic about the technology.

Built on obligations, not on AI generally

The sessions were not general AI awareness. They were grounded in the specific things a community organisation has to satisfy:

• Privacy, and the practical difference between de-identified and identifiable client information once it enters a general-purpose AI tool.
• Duty of care to clients who may be vulnerable, and what that implies about using AI anywhere near a decision affecting a person's support.
• Funder and contractual obligations, which frequently constrain how information may be handled regardless of what privacy law permits.
• Consent and transparency, and whether clients would reasonably expect their information to be handled this way, which is often a sharper test than legality.

Where AI genuinely helps a charity

The other half was the opportunity, framed honestly. The administrative load in the community sector is substantial and it directly displaces service delivery: grant applications and acquittals, funding reports, board papers, policy documents, meeting notes, and searching an organisation's own accumulated records.

That work is largely internal, uses information the organisation already holds, and does not touch a decision about a client. It is where the benefit is real and the risk is manageable, and it is a very different proposition from anything touching case management.

The most useful thing we can give a chief executive is not a policy. It is enough understanding to recognise which side of the line a given idea falls on, and the confidence to say so.

Practical, not theoretical

Sessions were built around the questions leaders actually brought: real proposals their staff had raised, real tools already in use. Working through concrete cases rather than abstract principles is what turns a session into a decision people can defend afterwards.

We also ran this across organisations rather than one at a time, which shares the cost and lets chief executives compare notes with peers facing identical questions. In a sector where nobody can afford a consulting engagement of their own, that model matters.

Outcomes

Chief executives across the Canberra community sector came away able to tell which side of the line a given idea falls on, and to say so with confidence to a board or a funder.

That is the outcome we want. A CEO who understands where the boundaries sit makes dozens of sound decisions over the following year without needing us again.