Episode 4 - Small Charities - Stuart talks with a trustee and an adoption specialist

Episode 4 - Small Charities

In the podcast this week, we switch our focus from larger charities to smaller organisations.

There was a lot of enthusiastic feedback for last weeks episode with Mary O’Callaghan and Rob Way from British Heart Foundation - people particularly liked hearing about the rigorous approach that Rob was taking.

We’re also really excited to see the international appeal of the podcast. We’re not just UK, and have listeners across the globe - with South Korea and Singapore jointly making up nearly 10% of the listener-base. If you are one of our regular listeners from outside the UK, then please do get in touch and let me know if there are any areas you’d like to hear more on.

This week’s episode features:

Ivan Delany - Trustee at Cambridge House (Charity)

Pratish (PK) Kotecha - Independent Business Change Consultant and User Adoption specialist

Stuart McSkimming - Podcast host, independent consultant and experienced CIO with over twenty years experience in the charity sector

We open the bonnet on small charities and consider the differing approaches they should be taking. Ivan gives us his five takeaway tips for AI success for smaller organisations.

Listen at https://virtuevirtuosity.com, search for ‘Virtue & Virtuosity’ on your podcast player, or scroll down to the bottom of this newsletter for links to the latest episode on your chosen player.

But first… AI & Technology News This Week

This week I’m going to ask you to do a bit of thinking. If you haven’t yet listened to this TED Talk by Mustafa Suleyman then you should. Suleyman started out in the UK charity sector, and cofounded the Muslim Youth Helpline in 2001. After several years working on a variety of charity and government projects, he then started up the AI company Deepmind in 2010, Inflection AI in 2022, and recently became CEO of AI at Microsoft. I’m just mentioning the history, in case any senior charity leaders reading this are wondering where their career might take them…

But - back to the TED talk. In it, he gives his take on where we’re headed, and describes AI’s as Digital Companions. If you listen to my podcast this week, you’ll realise that Suleyman’s explainer on AI, is multiple factors more visionary than my simplistic explainer on GenAI. My favourite line for this audience, from the TED talk is where he describes that soon all companies, including charities, will have their own organisational AI. Picture that - 25 years ago, your charity got an Intranet (and remember how fraught the project to create it was!) Now, the next generation corporate information system will be an ‘Organisational AI’. Sticking with the intranet analogy, it makes me dread the meeting where the programme sponsor is trying to select a catchy name for this new inhouse tech.

And in other news

Sustainability - In Episode 1, Caty Mülller talked a little bit about sustainability and concerns about power usage. This week, a report came out from International Energy Agency where they predicted that electricity consumption from data centres, AI and crypto could more than double over the next two years (from 460 terawatt-hours to over 1000 terawatt-hours). But to put these numbers in context - this would only represent about 3-4% of global electricity consumption.

AI Safety - this week Google brought out their Frontier Safety Framework - where they attempt to unpick the challenge around regulating future AI safety and propose guiderails to identify when AI might pose a threat to human safety. Expect to see a lot more in this area - there is a long way to go, but it is good to see a starting point.

The Podcast

Virtue & Virtuosity Episode 4: Five Tips for small charities wanting to start on their AI journey.

This week we talk to a trustee. Ivan Delany describes his role as Digital trustee on the board at Cambridge House. He talks about his remit to provide guidance on forward strategy, but also to provide scrutiny across day-to-day plans within the charity in areas such as Cyber, and getting value-for-money from investments.

He gives us his top 5 tips for successful adoption of AI in smaller charities:

Invest in your people - provide education and training - because the best ideas will come from them. Have an AI usage policy - hard work for a smaller organisation - but really important to enable your staff to innovate within guide-rails. Understand your organisation - what are you doing, how are you doing it, what are your processes Partner and find ways to access the expertise you need whether through a digital trustee like Ivan, or through commercial partners Prototype - don’t get lost in theory - remember fail fast, fail often is the route to success, so try stuff, prototype it

We also talk with Pratish, a business change expert particularly focused on Microsoft technologies. He talks through how smaller organisations can approach adoption - and considers some really simple but beneficial use cases.

If you want to read more about our guests and their organisations, please scrolll down to the bottom of this newsletter for a short overview.

Coming up next week

Half-Term - yes, we’re taking a break from the podcast next week. I’ll still pull together a newsletter, but it’s not cool to listen to work podcasts whilst on holiday, so you’re going to have to switch to some chilled out music instead. And if the new Billie Eilish album isn’t really your thing, then head over to Boomy where you can use AI to create your own songs. We’ll be back on June 7th with the podcast.

Feedback

I’m really keen on feedback - this podcast and newsletter is for you - for the sector, so don’t forget, drop me a line [email protected], if you’d like me to showcase anything you’re doing on AI in your charity, if you have a suggestion to include in the newsletter, or if you have a great story to tell in the podcast.

Podcast Links

Remember – follow on your favourite podcast platform, today, so that you don’t miss an episode.

https://virtuevirtuosity.com

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0G3vGA98kpk6biZqQVsSVL?si=005d3205859d4668

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/virtue-virtuosity/id1742994475

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5hbGl0dS5jb20vNjMxMTUxOTE

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VirtueVirtuosity

Castbox: https://castbox.fm/channel/Virtue-%26-Virtuosity-id6126681

RSS feed: https://feeds.alitu.com/63115191

(please ask if you think there is somewhere I else I should be publishing, and I’ll endeavour to add it!)

Further Info on our guests and their organisations.

Ivan Delany and Cambridge House (Charity) - http://ch1889.org

Cambridge House, works to tackle the impacts and root causes of poverty, social inequity and injustice experienced by those in our communities, providing people with the support, advice and opportunities they need to improve their lives.

From campaigning for safer conditions and security for renters to offering free expert legal services in housing, employment and benefits law, to the delivery of youth and disabled people’s empowerment projects or helping support the development of social policy and practice through our research and knowledge exchange; everything we do is focused on our core mission of transforming lives and transforming society.

Transforming lives: Ivan mentions the five areas that Cambridge house works across: Independent Advocacy, Safer Renting, Law Centre, Youth Empowerment and Disabled Peoples’ Empowerment

Transforming Society: Our vision is of a society without poverty where all people are valued, treated equally and lead fulfilling and productive lives. To realise this vision we campaign for changes in policy and practice that will help dismantle structural barriers to people’s social, economic and cultural inclusion.

Ivan Delany is a Technology and people leader with a history of transforming technical teams to ‘be human’ and get behind the organisation’s purpose.

With a love of technology as a means to get things done, Ivan is proud that he has had varied roles in the field: From coder, consultant, infrastructure specialist, solutions architect to project manager, and more.

Working in finance, healthcare, social justice, and having an interest in the education sector, not-for-profit came to Ivan as much as the sector came to him. Whilst working as a technology consultant at Deloitte one of his clients, the V&A, asked “why don’t you take a huge pay cut and come and work for us?”. So he did, and loved it! After the V&A Ivan led IT and Technology at Marie Cuire for eight years, and is now about to embark on a Digital and Technology leadership role in the education sector.