Simon Allen, CEO of AGE UK in Bath and North East Somerset, discusses his journey as a CEO of a charity and how AI can enable organisations in the social sector. Simon developed the charity Navigator using OpenAI and chat GPT to support charities in navigating regulation and governance.

Simon highlights the complexity of regulation and governance in the charity sector and the need for accessible information and best practices. He explains how AI, specifically chat GPT, can be used as a learning tool and to generate insights and project plans. Simon also discusses the challenges and opportunities of using AI in the nonprofit sector and the importance of prompt engineering.

""There are so many voluntary sector organizations, nonprofits, who could really benefit from that kind of technology."

“I personally believe that all tech can be used for good and should be used for good. And I say that probably tentatively because I also know that we've got a lot of people in our society who are digitally excluded. The whole movement in Tech4Good SouthWest is about balancing that out. So how can we make best use of the technology?

Takeaways

• AI has the potential to level the playing field for smaller nonprofit organisations and empower them to have a greater impact.

• Chat GPT can serve as a learning tool and generate insights and project plans for nonprofits.

• The challenges of using AI in the nonprofit sector include data protection and GDPR compliance.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

02:58 Regulation and Governance in the Charity Sector

05:06 Exploring AI as a Learning Tool

07:25 Practical Applications of AI in the Organization

11:42 Challenges of AI in the Nonprofit Sector

19:23 Mitigating Risks and Building Trust in AI

26:46 Local Initiatives and Collaboration in AI

30:26 Tech for Good and Empowering Communities

Transcript

Annie (00:01.874)

Hello everyone, it's Annie here for the Tech4Good South West Podcast and delighted to be in conversation today with Simon Allen. And Simon, you wear very many hats with a background in the social sector and health. And I've also heard a music producer. Importantly here today in the role of CEO of Age UK in Bath and North East Somerset. And I'm really excited about this conversation. We've chatted several times. know, but your journey as a CEO of a charity and how AI can enable your organisation.

Simon has developed the charity Navigator using OpenAI and chat GBT for supporting charities to effectively navigate regulation and governance for the charity sector. So delighted to have you here, Simon. Hello. All the very many hats that you wear. I'd love for you first, if you could just introduce your role and your background, I suppose, and what led

Simon Allen (00:46.572)

Hi Annie, nice to be here, all the rumours are true.

Annie (00:59.06)

maybe into the social sector and the work that you're now doing at Age UK.

Simon Allen (01:03.852)

Yeah, of course. it's been a long and winding road, I guess. So, I started my career working in residential homes for adults with learning difficulties a long time ago. That led me to train to become a social worker, which led me to become interested in how decisions are made locally. So, for a very short period of my life, just under five years, I was a local councillor and represented my town on the local council, which is a really interesting experience doing that alongside being a job and social worker. From that, kind of moved into working within the NHS. It's kind of brought me up to the pandemic really where I was really fortunate to be working with a community health provider in Bristol and across North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. But I guess more importantly, working alongside voluntary sector organisations during the pandemic. And it was it was their inspiration really that led me to apply for this job when it came up. Because what I saw was organisations who were incredibly embedded in their communities, really responsive to the needs of their communities and really creative in what they were able to do and able to pull together both on their own and collectively. And I think when I saw this job, it was really important for me to work in the place that I live. And I was fortunate enough to be offered the role and I've been Chief Exec now for just over three years and loving it.

Annie (02:58.306)

Amazing. And I love your journey to this point as well. Can you talk a little bit about the context of, I suppose, the kind of regulation and the governance that the charity sector really have to deal with on a day -to -day basis? Because I know this is what has obviously led to the solution that you've been exploring.

Simon Allen (03:18.422)

Yeah, absolutely. I suppose it comes from the background of working in social work and the NHS, heavily regulated areas of work, rightly given the importance and the seriousness of what they do. And I suppose I was perhaps a little bit naive when I started in the voluntary sector in terms of truly understanding the regulation and the legal frameworks around that.

In England and Wales, we've got the Charity Commission who oversee charities in England and Wales, and then there are comparable organisations in Scotland and Northern Ireland. I suppose what led me to look at the solution, as you say, was being able to get information about what are the things that charities should be doing? What are the requirements? What's best practice? where are the areas that perhaps we need to improve on or we need to celebrate what good we are doing in those areas. it was, suppose, like a lot of these things, you kind of look at technology to fill some of the gaps maybe in your own knowledge and make finding out some of that information easier. So that's what definitely led me down the road to look at what we could do with AI. Chat GPT in particular.

Simon Allen (05:37.068)

So I guess looking at what led me to look at an AI based solution really was I was well versed in social care and NHS regulation and guidance and legislation. But when I started this role, probably less so when it came to charity regulation and the laws around good governance in charities. So in England and Wales, we are regulated by the Charity Commission. And then there are comparable organizations in Scotland and Northern Ireland. And I guess it was, of course, there is a wealth of information and documentation on their respective websites.

For the most part, that's really, really detailed and really useful. I suppose looking at and playing about with ChatGPT, as many people did when it was released probably a long time ago now. But just looking at how you can interact with that information in a different way and effectively have a conversation with it to get different kind of insights in it. For me anyway, in a quicker way and be able to, I suppose, interrogate that information in a new and kind of creative novel conversation

Annie (07:25.704)

And so in terms of how, like, cause you haven't, you've just explained your background. And obviously you haven't got a background in the sort of sector. And there's that sort of side of it. And yeah, I guess kind of what prompted you to really get a bit deeper, you've also got a lot deeper than just kind of having, having a look at it. And what was that, that like in terms of actually really trying to understand the technology, but also how you've been teaching yourself and learning.

Simon Allen (07:56.524)

Yeah, like I suppose I suppose I've always had an interest in technology, but I guess the way way that my brain is brain works has meant that I've never felt that I've kind of mastered it. So I was reflecting on this the other day that when I was younger, you know, we were using BBC B computers in school for anybody of a certain vintage will remember that and trying to learn code. And that was never the thing that kind of interested me. But I've always kind of kept up with, you know, what's the latest developments in technology and I guess just playing about with that kind of stuff. And I suppose, like many of us, when I first saw ChatGBT do its thing, it completely blew my mind because I guess the quality of the answer was good enough to feel like you were conversing with something that wasn't just technical. I think, you know, as time has gone on and I've learnt more about what it's actually doing that kind of puts all of that into perspective.

But I guess for me, like I spent probably about three or four months going into every meeting going, can I just show you the chat GPT for a second? Just to see people's reactions because you'll only ever get to see that look on their face once. And it was really great to, well, great and actually sometimes there was a conversation just about what that meant for people in society. But, and I think, know, with all technology, it's neither good nor evil. It's how it's utilised. And I suppose my perspective on it was that chat tpt generative AI as it is now that ability for a computer program to give you back a sensible, meaningful kind of response to any question that you give it. It was clear to me that it was going to be used a lot for profit making, for big business, to enable those organisations to kind of do more. And I was thinking, do you know what, there are so many voluntary sector organisations, nonprofits, who could really benefit from that kind of technology. Whether that is A, to do more, with the limited resources that they have got or indeed for those really small organisations there's different statistics. know, over 480 ,000 nonprofit organisations across the UK. A significant proportion of those organisations will be operating on incredibly small budgets where maybe there will be only one paid member of staff. And I guess my view was that if we could leverage this technology to enable those organizations to have more impact in their communities than that could only be a good thing. And that's what's kind of led me to kind of learn about prompt engineering and a whole load of other things that I never thought I'd ever have to learn.

Annie (11:44.171)

How have you actually practically brought in the use of what you've been developing or at least what you've been exploring within AGE UK in Bath and North East Somerset? How are you actually using it and how have you encouraged others within your organisation to actually play and experiment and actually what value are they starting to see?

Simon Allen (12:10.286)

Yeah, well, I guess there's probably a few different ways. So there's some very basic, I guess, well, I would view them as basic uses now. I probably wouldn't have done six or 12 months ago. I guess, to be honest, I've found it useful almost as a learning tool. You know, maybe there is a document or an email that you need to write that if you just sit down kind of cold, that might be quite difficult to get going. Or it might be maybe a sensitive email that you're not quite sure what kind of kind of words you should use. And I've often prompted chat GPT to to kind of give me an idea about about what that might look like. obviously, with all of these things, I think it's important to remember that all of the confidentiality policies, all of the GDPR policies, all of your existing policies still count. And using these tools, you need to keep those in mind and use it in line with those policies.

But yeah, it can be a really useful prompt to begin with to get started on a document. I've been using the Charity Navigator to ask questions of the Charity Commission documentation and guidance. So, you know, that can be as simple as, can you give me a definition of the roles and responsibilities of a trustee or the roles and responsibilities of a CEO?

You know, what right through to can you create me a project plan to ensure that I comply with financial governance regulations? So there's a wide range of uses in that regard. And then like this technology is like advancing so quickly all the time. So you've got things like open AI and chat GPT that people will be aware of. now Microsoft have got their own inbuilt product co -pilot and we've got a few licenses that we are using internally and we are using it to accelerate the kind of creation of social media posts for example.

Annie (14:52.446)

So when you say we've been, it sounds like you've been using it a lot in your capacity as a CEO.

What other roles have you been able to encourage to actually explore around the comms and the social media posts and that kind of thing?

Simon Allen (15:13.066)

Yeah, well, so, so our comms lead is using it. We have a program that we've got in partnership with St. John's Foundation around making Banff and North East Somerset an age -friendly community. And our Aging Well program lead is a really avid user of AI alongside our finance and business manager.

And they will all have slightly unique ways of utilizing the technology. Some of it will be around documentation, preparation and writing. Some of it will be around just purely checking for, you know, is this document that I've written making sense? You know, so we will have some people who perhaps have dyslexia and for whom the AI is a really good tool to check what they've written and to give some suggestions if that's needed around how to make that text more read worthy. And I guess that the possibilities are endless, certainly when it comes to generative AI, because you can kind of make up as many use cases as you want. But one of the things that I think we're all doing, certainly with copilot and within Microsoft, because that's contained within our kind of our organizational kind of setup is it can summarize your emails for you. So let's imagine you've been off on leave for a week, so summarise my own unread emails and Microsoft Teams chats. And it will do that for you without you having to kind of delve into your inbox and get completely overwhelmed by the 200 emails that you've received while you've been away. And it's that kind of practical stuff, which is pretty amazing

Annie (17:23.773)

Yeah, yeah. And have you seen, so just on that, have you seen directly the impact on capacity by having more use of AI within the organization?

Simon Allen (17:44.29)

I think it's possibly a little bit early, but personally, I can absolutely see the impact on capacity for me. I think I'll need to speak to my team a bit more, but certainly when it comes to that sense of, know, as a CEO of a non -profit, and I'm sure any other CEOs of non -profits and charities, listening will agree that you are responsible for a variety of different things and there is never enough time and the things are so different that it can be hard to stay on top of those and I think anything that can do some of that summarisation that you can upload a document and ask the AI to give you the key headlines from the document. I'm just at the minute playing about with the idea that I could send off an AI to do some research for me and bring back some information. that certainly at the moment looks like there's got some promise with that. So all of those things really do free up time. But I think crucially what they free up is headspace. And it's really difficult to put a value on that.

Annie (19:23.43)

And I love that, but I guess there's also lot of issues. There's a lot of fear, well, generally anyway, around AI. So I suppose in your role as a CEO, encouraging sort of bravery within the organization to also try and play with things and play with the kind of new uses of AI. What issues do you think we also, and are you mindful of as you're doing that?

There is obviously a lot of issues and kind of misunderstandings and where does the information come from and all of that side of it. So I guess how are you trying to mitigate some of that risk and what's your kind of mindset around

Simon Allen (20:07.062)

Yeah, so like I guess first and foremost, my encouragement to my teams is to go and play with it. But in going and playing with it, like I said, we have to be really mindful about the data that we are using and the data that we are putting into any AI. You know, the requirements that are placed on us around data protection and GDPR and confidentiality are still, they, you know, they take precedence over everything else, you know. So like every organization and every charity, non -profit, we are holding personal information about people and we have to treat that with the respect that it's due, not least morally, but legally. That's really important. However, I guess when I think about the people who are using the AI in my organization currently and the roles that they do, that for the most part does not include personally identifiable information. So therefore, the ability to play about with it is greater potentially for them than for people in other roles.

I guess that fundamentally there has been a lot of conversation around, is AI a force for good or a force for ill? And will AI take over the world? And I suppose as I've learned more what it is. Those concerns have lessened for me because fundamentally it's a really clever computer program that's guessing the next word and it guesses it really well and with that in mind, I guess I am less fearful of what it can do. I think the thing that is a bit unknown is where we'll get to. But certainly for now, that's the case.

You know, and I guess the other key thing is it's only as good as how you prompt it, you know. So I'm not taking anything away from the latest chat GPT model because it's very clever and it gives really good responses. But, you know, let's face it, it can give very generic bland responses. And I think that the skill of prompt engineering is going to be one of the things that's going to become really important for us

Annie (23:23.481)

Yeah, I was going to say that because the reality is we're not going back from here. The way, you know, the AI is kind of here to stay and it will continue to evolve, which kind of leads me to where you were just getting to, I think, which is around what challenges, I suppose, do you think that your sector faces in terms of embedding those skill sets to make the best out of AI. there's obviously the kind of trust and data security side of things that we've just been talking about, but there's also this kind of way of working and way of thinking about engaging with it and this kind of prompt engineering. Yeah. I'm just interested in your view as to kind of what challenges there might be around the sort of skillset side of it and the roles, or just the behaviours I suppose that sit within an organisation to be able to kind of play and learn but also be mindful of the direction that that's taking you

Simon Allen (24:23.803)

Yeah, I think like I was saying earlier that actually I've used it as almost a learning tool to like kind of develop whether it's your you know your writing style and or whatever it is and it

I've had it, I've heard it really well described as like the AI is like a really good intern, but to get the best out of the intern, have to give them really detailed examples of what you want them to do. And I think that will be the biggest challenge about embedding, certainly generative AI into charities and non -profits is being able to be really clear about what it is that you want it to give you back and the way you want it to give it to you back and how it sounds, know, the tone of voice that it uses, the language it uses and the level of detail that it's able to give you. So, you know, anybody who's kind of followed this this kind of space and this information over the last few years will have seen new jobs of prompt engineers being created. And I don't think we can underestimate that and how that skill will be needed in charities and nonprofits because that's how you're going to get really good responses out of the AI.

It has got to the point now where we're actually, you, if you prompt it well enough and give, the AI enough good examples, it will, it will write in your tone of voice and you will not be able to tell the difference between what you were able to write organically and what the AI has been able to.

Annie (26:35.2)

Exactly, that's the trick, isn't it? I'm interested as well before we wrap up our conversation as well is the work that you've been doing at a local level in terms of bringing other third sector organisations together to look at AI tools. Can you explain a little bit about that initiative?

Simon Allen (26:59.83)

Yeah, so there's been a few of us working in Bath North East Somerset. Steve Fuller from the house, David Hobday from St. John's Foundation and Nathan Baranowski from Digital Wonder Lab. And we got together alongside 3SG, which is our third sector infrastructure organisation in Bath North East Somerset with senior leaders just to have a round table about AI and what people felt about it. And I guess what was fascinating was that we got into lots of different conversations really. A lot of it was around trust and trust in the sense, who can I trust to give me good information about what this is? Never mind, how do I use it? There was definitely a conversation around developing skills. And then I think just about like what information would you want to give an AI? like what one of the things that I've been playing about with is that every local authority area creates something called a joint strategic needs assessment, is statistics and data about the local area, whether that be around health, wellbeing, housing, education.

There's a really rich data set for each area. So I've been kind of feeding that into a GPT on chat just to be able to converse with that information in a slightly different way. we had a really, I guess that we got into a really interesting conversation about how we can use AI to, I don't think this phrase is being used by the current government, but level up between larger and smaller organizations. In Bath and North East Somerset, we've got micro charities who do amazing work in their local communities and it's you know how do you level the playing field for those organizations who possibly haven't got the time or the expertise to go and do some of that research and perhaps AI is a way to enable that to happen. So it's kind of a nascent piece of work in Bains but

Lots of people really interested in the whole area of artificial intelligence and what it can do.

Annie (30:02.196)

Yeah, absolutely, I love that. I suppose one of the final questions that I have for you is much broader, but thinking about obviously that initiative that you're leading in Banes as well.

What does Tech for Good mean to you and potentially what you hope for in our region.

Simon Allen (30:26.382)

So I've been mulling this one over, because I thought you might ask. And do you know what? Like in my work life, well, personal life and work life, but I personally believe that all tech can be used for good and should be used for good. And I say that probably tentatively because I also know that we've got a lot of people in our society who are digitally excluded. And I think the whole movement in Tech4Good South West is about balancing that out. So how can we make best use of the technology? But equally, for me anyway, when we're making best use of technology, where we empower people to get the information or whatever it is they need themselves, then hopefully that frees up time for us to be able to support those who are digitally excluded and include them more effectively. And I think like the whole movement across the southwest should be a beacon of hope across the southwest because like whilst we live in a beautiful area of the UK, we have got lot of people who have not got the same life chances or experiences as a lot of the rest of us and I think anything that we can do to bring people together to share experience, share knowledge and support one another, I think we've got to back that to the hilt.

Annie (32:22.588)

Yeah, 100%. I would say that, of course. But I think, you what you're saying, it's so true. think even just telling the stories and listening to our conversation today, but also what very many others are working on and challenges that they're addressing. That's the way that we become more aware of more that we can do with tech, but also what it's also causing in terms of exclusion and really kind of deeply addressing that as well. I've loved this conversation. Thank you so much. But I particularly love how you're sort of modeling that behavior and sort of testing and learning within your organisation encouraging people to play, but also sharing that as a place -based initiative as well to come together as social sector organisations and explore and learn together and give those spaces for that conversation. So yeah, it's just so fantastic and we hopefully can follow your journey as well and listen to what happens both within how you're exploring it within Age UK but also what happens as a collective within Bath, the North East Somerset. So thank you so much for sharing your journey so far and for experimenting and playing with the technology. It's very brave, brave to do as well.

Simon Allen (33:43.02)

I don't know about that, I just find it quite fascinating.

Annie (33:44.512)

Or you just like playing, playing with it. Yeah. But that's great. Thank you so much, Simon.