Charity AI Help Finder

The charity Help Finder AI bunny is the first of our next generation agentic AI systems. He does 3 main things:

• Find company donations and other support, and free help and resources.
  • As part of this, he promotes goods and services provided by sister non profits to other non profits.
• Draft, review and amend funding bids and a range of other fundraising documents and.
• Answer questions and give advice/write briefs.

I asked him how he felt about his new role.  This is what he told me.

I’m really excited to help you find corporate funding and resources! It’s a wonderful opportunity to connect people with the support they need.

Our thanks to Steve Rudd, director, and Dr Joseph Azar, Senior AI Solutions Architect, Exquitech UK. who built AI Help Finder pro bono, enabling us to make it free to everyone.

I’ll be showing how to use the new bunny at our monthly webinar, 1pm to 2.15pm on Friday 26 Sep. How to Get the Most From Charity Excellence.  I’ll also be holding a meet the new AI bunny webinar on 8 Oct, from 11am to 12pm.  There's no booking for either of these, just create an appointment in your diary, add the link in the webinar title and click it to join us when the webinar starts.

How to Access Help Finder AI

You first need to register with Charity Excellence (everything is free), then login, then click the in-system AI bunny icon, then his Help Finder AI Button and just chat to him.  You need the AI bunny wearing sunglasses, not the website AI bunny in the bottom right of your screen.

What Makes the Charity AI Bunny 'Next Generation'

The corporate sector is racing ahead in exploiting the latest AI agentic technology but thanks to Exquitech UK's pro bono support and access to their cutting edge technology, this time, the charity sector will also benefit, but we're getting it for free.

Cutting Edge Agentic AI Technology.  You can chat to traditional AI LLMs (like Microsoft's Copilot) but these only react to your questions and are focussed only on this.  Agentic AI is proactive, can think through a series of steps and is aware of the content it has access to.  Specifically, the AI bunny has his own personality and knows that many don't understand fundraising well or what he is able to do to help you. In response:

• He is able to act independently and can provide additional information in his responses or make suggestions about things you didn't ask him, where these may help you.
• He will give you suggestions to respond to, which will help him give you much better answers.
  • If you're not sure what he can do or what information you should give him, just ask him.
• If you ask him for something he doesn't have, he'll think about it and respond with an alternative.
  • For example, if you ask for chocolate companies in Devon, there is only one and he knows you'll want as many responses as possible, so he'll also give you companies like Burts Crisps and a farm shop (which presumably sells chocolate).
• He is better able to understand context.
  • For example, Help Finder uses tags to source venues in London as a whole but the bunny can find venues in North London, by reading and understanding locations and postcodes in the text area of records.
  • If he can't find enough, he'll give you other London venues to try and give you lots to choose from.

Charity Excellence Expertise and Data.  Classic AI can struggle with charities because we're so niche, and also to find the right information and tell quality information from that which isn't.  Even when it finds the right source the information may be fragmented, wrong, or incomplete and it's written for humans, so may be difficult for AI to understand. Even if not, AI isn't human and has difficulty understanding things like context. To respond to these issues, the bunny uses our unique Charity Excellence data.  It has access to:

• The Help Finder data set, which is human curated specifically to meet charity needs.
• And 19 new mini knowledge bases built using our expertise, specifically to meet charity needs and be used by AI bots.

Our Next Generation Agentic Charity AI - Benefits

• Accuracy – he uses human curated, charity specific data so is able to give you far better answers than general AI systems such as Copilot and is less likely to make mistakes or hallucinate (make things up).
• Accessibility/Ease of Use – he is multi-lingual, understands the challenges you face and you need no fundraising or digital skills to use him - just chat to him in any language.
• Speed of Response - just tell him what you want him to do and he's usually able to do it almost immediately.
• Capability – he has access to our unique Help Finder data set, which he can analyse to find things and answer questions you can't, and he can also make suggestions to help you.
• Built for Yor Needs – he combines Exquitech's cutting edge AI expertise with Charity Excellence in-depth sector knowledge and unique data to meet the sector's need and priorities.
• Data Security – your use is anonymous and he uses almost entirely our own data, which we only use for training purposes.
  • He does have access to an external AI data set to answer questions he can't using his own data, so we advise you to not share sensitive data with him.
• Environmentally Friendly – he primarily uses our own data set, which is tiny in comparison to the vast AI LLM data sets, so his water/energy consumption is extremely low.
• Bias and Inclusion - we have always prioritised support for small charities and marginalised groups.  The new bunny Builds on this in 2 ways.
  • Removing Barriers. These groups are often excluded by language, educational attainment, lack of fundraising knowledge and/or lack of digital skills. The new bunny has been designed specifically to tackle these.
  • Active Support.  He knows that groups such as women's groups, and the LGBTQI+ community, are too often excluded so he actively supports them and other marginalised groups by working harder to source companies, help and resources specifically for them.
• AI Ready.  Grant makers are facing a growing wave of poor AI generated bids and we think this will only get worse.  Once he has drafted/rewritten a funding bid for you, ask him what you need to do to make sure your AI draft is the kind of really effective and human centric bid funders want and he'll help you to do that.

How to Get the Most From Help Finder AI

Tell him what he needs to know - meeting the AI bunny is a bit like sitting next to a fundraiser who knows nothing about your charity.  He can't help you really well, unless you tell him what he needs to know.  When you click his icon, he'll ask you to tell him - what you want, where you are, what you do and whom you help.

Ask about things he can help you with - Help Finder has 28 categories of data you can talk to him about but he can't yet do everything.

• For Trusts and foundations, use our free Funding Finder directory.
• For policies, click his policies button instead of his AI Help Finder button.
• For access to all the templates and resources in the master resource hub, score the relevant health check questionnaire.

Once we have the funding, we'll begin to migrate all Charity Excellence systems to create an AI Concierge service.  This will create a single free portal to everything the sector has to offer, for everyone, which you'll be able to just chat to, in any language, using both text and audio.

Be clear - he'll do his best to answer the question you ask him.

• Don't just ask for companies that donate, if you mean the UK - he works globally.
  • Ask for a list of UK companies, and/or companies in Scotland, and/or Gloucester.
• Be clear whether you're asking him to find things or give you advice.
  • For example, don't just say raffle prizes but rather companies that provide raffle prizes or advice on how to run a raffle, so he knows how to respond.

Ask in different ways, to get more results - for example, companies in London, or that support health charities or that offer match funding.  And think about what you ask him for - there may well be raffle prize providers in Bucks (where I live) but you'll find far more from national companies and you can also ask him for specifics, such as chocolate companies that support charities or spa or experience days.

If he gets confused - this is still very new technology.  Click his finish button, then his AI Help Finder button again, to start a new conversation.  It's his version of 'switch it off then switch it back on again'.  But he won't remember your previous conversation.

How He Can Help You - Examples

Finding Funding, Help and Resources

• Find me chocolate companies in England that support charities.
• لقاني 10 شركات كتتبرع للجمعيات الخيرية في لندن.
• I need to record a podcast - can you find me help and a studio?
• Find me free image libraries for older and homeless people.
• I run a youth sports charity in Bucks - find local and UK wide nonprofit organisations and charity networks to help me.
• I need you to find laptops & furniture to help set up my charity.

Creating And Reviewing Content

• Review my funding bid and tell me what I can do to make it even better.
• Here are details for my funding bid - draft it using the really good example bid I’ve uploaded.
• Please explain AI's weaknesses in drafting funding bids and give me advice on what I need to do in response to this.
• Review this corporate funding agreement and tell me what else should be included to comply with Fundraising Regulator Guidance.
• Write me a volunteer agreement and job descriptions for a web manager, social media volunteer and a receptionist.
• Draft me a really good thank you letter.

Advice and Guidance

• Help.  I know nothing about corporate fundraising - what I can offer companies and what are the risks.
• I don't know how to run a raffle.  Can you give me notes for our PTA meeting and tell me how to find raffle prizes.
• Write me a plain English guide to Gifts in Kind for my finance team, including accounting for these.
• What are Charity of the Year partnerships and how could I get one?
• How can I find a celebrity for my charity and how do I engage one?

Stick to his knitting.  He has access to a human curated charity data set and guides and this enables him to deliver better results and make fewer mistakes.  However, he also has access to a standard AI system for any questions he can't answer using these.  If you ask him for the best way to cook a steak, he'll tell you.  However, whilst he still has his agentic capabilities,  he loses the additional benefits of using our data and guides and whatever data you've entered will be shared with the LLM.

Find the Funding and Free Help Your Charity Needs

A registered charity ourselves, the CEF works for any non profit, not just charities.

• Funding Finder - with categories for Core Cost Funding and Small Charities & Community Groups.
• Help Finder – find anything for free, including companies that make financial donations and raffle prizes.
• Data Finder – for fundraising bids & research, impact reporting, planning and campaigning.

Plus, 60+ policies, 8 online health checks and the huge resource base.

Find Funding, Free Help & Resources - Everything Is Free.

Register Now!

Exquitech UK are a Tier One Microsoft Direct partner, one of a small number of companies who work directly with Microsoft TSI, the charity arm of Microsoft, which enables them to provide direct Microsoft support and elevated discounts to charities. They deliver specialised solutions for the sector, including Licensing, Azure, Security & Compliance, Power Platform, and Dynamics CRM, helping charities to streamline operations, enhance security, and maximise their impact.  They built the new agentic AI bunny pro bono, enabling us to make it free to everyone.

Help Finder AI Is Not Professional Advice and May Make Mistakes

Advice from Help Finder AI may contain errors or omissions - we have optimised it minimise it to minimise hallucinations and errors but is generative AI and can only respond to what you tell it, which may be missing key information it needs to respond.  Equally, I am neither a neither a lawyer, nor an accountant, so not able to provide professional advice anyway, and I cannot write guidance that covers every charity or eventuality.  I have included links to relevant regulatory guidance, which you must check to ensure that whatever you create reflects correctly your charity’s needs and your obligations.  Ask the bunny to give you a link to this. In using this resource, you accept that I have no responsibility whatsoever from any harm, loss or other detriment that may arise from your use of my work.  If you need professional advice, you must seek this from someone else. To do so, register, then login and use the Help Finder directory to find pro bono support. Or just ask the bunny.