The Fundraising Regulator will produce guidance on how fundraisers should use artificial intelligence (AI) later this year, an event heard yesterday.
Speaking at the annual ELEVATE conference in London, Paul Winyard, head of policy at the Fundraising Regulator, said the new guidance would accompany the revised code of fundraising practice.
Winyard said the regulator’s futures working group, made up of members of senior management as well as board and committee members, has been “keeping a close eye on AI” as part of its research into the future of fundraising more generally.
“It’s one of those things where there’s been a lot of talk about AI for a couple of years now, but not really a great deal of understanding about how it’s going to be used, or how it can be used,” he said.
“For us as a regulator, it’s quite hard, obviously, to set a regulatory framework for behaviours and ways of practice that aren’t yet known.
“So, really, we’re still in that learning process of understanding how fundraisers will use it [AI], the challenges that it presents, the risks, the opportunities.
“I anticipate that we will be producing something probably later this year on this, but because it is such a complex and wide-ranging subject, it’s something we want to make sure that we get right.”
Streamlined code to be published in coming months
Winyard said the revised fundraising code of practice is due to be published in PDF format in April or May of this year, with a “hard launch” on 1 November.
It is set to be 40% shorter than its previous version and will be more “principles-based” and “streamlined” in order to make it more accessible.
Alongside the code, Winyard said the regulator planned to publish “quite a big suite of guidance” such as the guidance on AI.
“We need to make sure that we accompany a more streamlined code with some quite extensive guidelines to help fundraisers be compliant and understand the new framework,” he said.
The regulator previously held extensive consultation periods from summer 2022 on the new code.
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