When I ask people in charities ‘who is using AI in your organisation?’ over 90% of people say ‘yes’. That’s a very big change from when I asked the question about a year ago. Then it was around 33-45%.  There’s still a big governance gap to close, as very few organisations have an AI policy or strategy in place. [I blogged about that last year](https://scvo.scot/p/101267/2025/10/01/how-we-produced-scvos-ai-policy), sharing our own experience as a guide for others to learn from. The short version is: * It’s definitely time for a policy, even if it is brief * Use structured conversations to make a grounded and helpful policy * Recognise that this early policy may not cover everything – but you can always add to it as you learn more But this post is about the crucial value of ‘intentional experiments’. If you can get this right, you’ll learn much more quickly as your team, and grow your collective confidence, too. One of the attractions of AI tools is that they are straightforward to use – just type a prompt or make an input, and you get some output. This is why folk have been able to explore and adopt these tools on their own. We’re all experimenting and learning quite quickly. The problem most organisations have right now is that lots of people are experimenting and learning – but they’re not always sharing the results. Learning about AI ‘under the table’ can lead to an individual productivity boost but it means your insights don’t help your wider team. The ‘under the table’ approach to AI experiments is often driven from fear of doing something wrong or being seen to take a shortcut. So the first step to intentional AI experiments is to create that positive culture around learning in the open – encouraging your team to try new things, and share what they’ve learned. Often, sharing something that _didn’t_work can be more valuable than sharing a success, because it helps other team members avoid the same problem, or brings in more ideas about what you could try differently next time. So work hard to give your team the confidence and psychological safety to learn and reflect openly. The next piece is more practical – it’s about the need to keep a ‘scorecard’ of AI experiments as you go. Why is this important? An AI experiment scorecard is helpful because quite often, if you try something new with AI, you get a mixed result. It’s neither brilliant nor awful, but it’s somewhere in between. So you get lots of conversations with colleagues like “Oh, I tried using CoPilot to help with that project” “Interesting, how did it work?” “Meh – it was OK, but there were some issues” The problem with this kind of reflection is that it’s too vague to be useful. You can’t make decisions about future AI use if your colleague’s insight is ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ So how to make your reflections less vague? Enter the AI experiment scorecard! This sounds grand but it’s very simple. It’s just a list of focused questions to keep track of when you’re reflecting on something you tried with AI. Other orgs have developed more complex AI experimental canvases with Miro templates. But a list of questions in a Word document is fine! Here is our version: ![](https://files.scvo.scot/2026/06/image-720x1024.png) [Download the scorecard here](https://files.scvo.scot/2026/06/AI-experiment-scorecard.docx).[](https://files.scvo.scot/2026/06/AI-experiment-scorecard.docx) Feel free to re-use, re-mix and adapt this. Or make your own. But if you can turn AI experiments and learning into a team sport, you’ll learn together much more quickly. --- ## About SCVO SCVO (Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations) is the national membership organisation for Scotland's voluntary sector. Our role is to champion the role of voluntary organisations in Scotland and to support them to do work that has a positive impact. SCVO supports members and the wider voluntary sector with all aspects of setting up and running a voluntary organisation. SCVO represents the needs and concerns of the voluntary sector to the Scottish government in Holyrood and UK government and Westminster. Through our learning and events programme SCVO offers training and development opportunities to the sector. Members access an extensive membership benefits package including specialist, in-depth, 1-to-1 guidance from our Information Services team and from professional service partners. Access to exclusive membership networks (including comms, employers, governance and policy) supports members to grow their connections, stay up to date, exchange ideas and views with peers, and learn through tailored, learning opportunities. SCVO members enjoy free access to Funding Scotland Premium to stay on top of funding opportunities to support their organisation’s financial resilience. Discounts and savings savings on SCVO products and services (including our HR service, managed IT support, payroll service and events and training) and partner offers provide members with support to allow them to focus on delivering their organisation’s goals. Further SCVO products and services include [extensive digital support](https://scvo.scot/support/digital), a climate action resource [Growing Climate Confidence](https://climateconfident.scot), a voluntary sector publication [Third Force News](https://tfn.scot) and a voluntary sector jobs and recruitment service [Goodmoves](https://goodmoves.org). For more information on SCVO membership, visit [SCVO membership](https://scvo.scot/membership)