Small and Large Grant application guidelines

These downloadable guides are intended to enable charities to preview our full application forms and prepare an application. Charities must be invited to submit a full application after first submitting an expression of interest.

The Freemasons’ Charity approach to AI

We believe AI technologies offer opportunities for enhancing business operations, innovation, and services to beneficiaries, donors and other stakeholders. However, it is important to mitigate potential business, security and privacy risks, and ensure that AI is used in ways that align with the Freemasons’ Charity values and legal obligations.

In using AI tools, the Freemasons’ Charity is committed to the following objectives:

• Be ethical
• Be legal
• Protect sensitive, personal and restricted data
• Be transparent
• Monitor usage and evaluate

Use of AI in the Charity Grants process

The Freemasons’ Charity are continually evaluating how AI tools can support us to deliver an efficient and effective grants process; from initial expression of interest through to grant award. We currently use AI tools to assist staff in:

• Gathering publicly available information in order to perform due diligence
• Transcription and note-taking during online meetings
• Summarising relevant application information for staff, Committee Members and Trustees
• Identifying trends and common themes in applications and progress reports

The Freemasons’ Charity does not use AI tools to score or assess charity applications, or in the decision-making process.

Use of AI in applications

The Freemasons’ Charity recognises that some applicants may choose to use AI tools when preparing funding applications, and that these tools can be particularly helpful for charities with limited resources. If you decide to do so, please be aware that AI generated content can sometimes be generic and contain inaccurate information. We encourage you to proofread and fact-check any information produced by AI to ensure it is accurate, relevant, and genuinely reflective of your charity’s work and impact.

We also ask you to consider the potential risks associated with using AI, including issues relating to bias, misinformation, data protection, and environmental impact. For further guidance and resources on the effective and responsible use of AI you may find the Charity Commission’s published advice helpful, as well as other organisations supporting charities in this space such as CAST and NPC.

Further information

For further information about our Charity Grants programmes or to discuss an application, please call 020 3146 3337 or email charitygrants@freemasonscharity.org.uk