The National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF) has announced a £3m programme to track the impact of AI on local communities and fund civil society organisations to shape how the technology is used.
NLCF’s programme, launched in partnership with UK Community Foundations and the Centre for the Acceleration of Social Technology (CAST) was announced at its AI For Funders conference in London today.
The funding investment will support the development of a UK-wide “AI pulse network” pilot of 50 community organisations, alongside community-led development of alternative AI tools and models rooted in local needs and lived experience.
Projects could include a local charity that supports people with benefit claims being funded to spot when decisions made by an algorithm are going wrong, and to share those warning signs with the wider network of 50 sector organisations.
The first grants are expected to be awarded in autumn this year, with more details including funding application opening dates and pilot project locations yet to be confirmed.
In a speech at the conference, NLCF chief executive David Knott warned that the rapid development of AI risks leaving some of the UK’s most marginalised communities behind.
“AI is advancing at extraordinary speed, but society’s ability to understand, interpret and shape that change is not keeping pace. That is the wisdom gap we now have to confront,” he said.
“Today’s funding announcement is about helping communities see change earlier, make sense of it together, and shape a parallel path in which AI is guided not only by technical possibility, but by social wisdom.
“If communities are to help society learn and adapt in this moment, they cannot sit at the edge of these systems – they have to help shape them.”
‘Urgent need’ for equitable AI adoption
Zoe Amar, co-chair of the Charity AI Task Force, welcomed the announcement.
“Our interim 2026 Charity Digital Skills Report data shows that 88% of charities are now using AI day to day, so the need for a joined-up, equitable approach has never been more urgent,” she said.
“We want to see more funders across the sector following this lead.”
The Charity Digital Skills Report 2025 found that a higher proportion of Black-led charities were avoiding AI in areas where it could cause harm (47% versus 36%).
Meanwhile, most (53%) LGBTQIA+ led charities said concerns about data privacy and security concerns were a barrier to adopting AI tools and 65% of neurodivergent-led charities were concerned about the implications of AI for data privacy and service quality.
Careful Industries founder Rachel Coldicutt also welcomed the programme and said: “Industry headlines focus on hype and short-term return, but the impacts of AI on communities tend to surface over time and often impact marginalised communities first.
“Data centre disruption, deepening digital exclusion as services shift to digital by default, and emerging harms such as vulnerable users turning to chatbots in place of qualified mental health support are all playing out in real time.”
