AI Exposure · Charity CRM
What Beacon actually does with your data
A UK charity CRM with AI on every plan since 2024. Beacon publishes where your data sits and how to switch the AI off, which leaves one question to ask them directly.
- Trains on your data
- Beacon says no
- Processed
- The UK
- Can you turn it off
- Yes, one switch
- Verified
- 2 July 2026, against Beacon's published documents
What AI is in it?
- Ask your database questions. Describe the segment you want in plain English and Beacon AI builds the filters for you, instead of you wrestling with query conditions.
- Email and thank you writing. Drafts and edits emails and form acknowledgements, working from the supporter records in front of it.
- Formula building. Writes the Excel style formulas behind smart fields and automations, so non technical staff can automate the database.
Does your data train AI models?
Beacon says no.
Beacon states that your data is not used to train public AI models, on a page that is easy to find.
One word in that sentence is worth noticing: public. The statement does not say whether your data helps improve any model at all, which leaves one precise question to put to Beacon in writing.
Where is your data processed?
The UK.
Beacon's stated position is that your data never leaves the UK, even when the AI features run, and its published sub-processor list has the right shape to back that up: core storage and processing sit with Amazon and Google cloud in London, and data only goes further afield if you connect optional extras like Mailchimp or Stripe, which is a choice rather than a default.
What Beacon does not publish is which company's AI model does the work. No AI company appears on the sub-processor list, which suggests the models run inside Beacon's own UK cloud accounts, and that detail belongs in the same written question as training.
Free versus paid: Free on every plan. Beacon AI arrived in August 2024 at no extra cost, on every plan. So there is no tier question to untangle, which cuts both ways: nobody in your organisation decided to buy it, it was simply switched on for everyone one day. The job here is knowing it is in the building, not budgeting for it.
Can your organisation turn it off?
Yes, one switch.
An administrator can switch Beacon AI off for every user of the account, in Settings, then Charity Preferences, and the switch is documented in Beacon's own help guide. It is one decision, taken once, for the whole organisation.
What does this mean for the people you support?
Your CRM is the most person dense system your charity runs: every donor and what they gave, members, volunteers, event attendees, and sometimes the people you support.
An AI that builds filters and writes emails works directly with those records. The published answers here are clear enough that the remaining job is not investigation but decision: whether the switch stays on, taken deliberately rather than inherited.
What to check this week
- Make the switch a decision. Beacon AI is available to everyone on every plan. Confirm whether your team uses it, and make keeping it on, or turning it off in Settings, then Charity Preferences, something your organisation chose rather than a default it inherited.
- Ask Beacon the one remaining question. In writing: is our data used to train or improve any AI models, public or otherwise, and which company's model processes what staff type into the AI features? The published pages answer the public models part. Close the gap and keep the reply with your policy.
- Check who can ask the database questions. An AI that turns plain English into database queries makes the whole CRM easier to browse. Make sure roles and permissions in Beacon match who should be able to ask.
Sources
Everything above is my plain English reading of what Beacon publishes. The originals:
- Beacon: Beacon AI reviewed 2 July 2026
- Beacon guide: Working with Beacon AI reviewed 2 July 2026
- Beacon: Sub-processors reviewed 2 July 2026
- Beacon: Introducing Beacon AI reviewed 2 July 2026
Vendors change these documents quietly and often. If you spot something out of date, email me and I'll re-verify the entry.
What if the AI reading your CRM was yours?
Beacon is a CRM, and CRMs are exactly what this is for. The fictional charity I use for demonstrations runs CiviCRM rather than Beacon, but that difference does not matter: both hold their donor records behind an API.
The API is what a private AI assistant running in your own AWS account reads, with every figure linking back to the real record. You keep Beacon, and no outside AI company sees the question or the answer.
Here is that assistant answering "Who are our top donors this year, and have we thanked them?" from the demo charity's live CRM records. The full walkthrough is at analyse your donor data just by asking.
See your whole toolkit at once
This page covers one tool. The AI Exposure Report Generator covers your toolkit: tick the tools your charity uses and get one report showing what the AI inside each of them does with your data, as a Word document you can table at your next meeting. Free, and nothing you tick leaves your browser.
The Report Generator, start to finish: tick your tools, read your exposure, download the report.
Read the other tools
The same questions, answered for every tool in the directory.
Your office suite
Microsoft 365 Copilot
The AI inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams. It can reach whatever the signed in person can reach.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Google Workspace with Gemini
Gemini inside Gmail, Docs, Drive and Meet. Google says your content is not used to train models outside your domain. What it can reach is the longer answer.
Verified 3 July 2026 →AI chatbots
ChatGPT
The one your staff are probably already using. What happens to what they type depends entirely on whose account it is.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Google Gemini
Google's chatbot, one tap away on Android phones, in Chrome and in search. On a personal account, the training switch is on until someone finds it.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Claude
Anthropic's chatbot. The same personal versus organisational story as the others, with the training question put to you as a setting.
Verified 2 July 2026 →Meeting notetakers
Otter.ai
The notetaker that joins your meetings, and can invite itself to the next one. What it hears may help train its AI.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Microsoft Teams
The meeting recorder your charity already owns. Everything it captures becomes a file in OneDrive and SharePoint, where the rest of the AI can reach it.
Verified 3 July 2026 →
Zoom AI Companion
The AI inside the video calls much of the sector runs on. Zoom's no training promise is unusually specific, and there is a reason it is worded that way.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Fathom
The free notetaker that arrives one personal install at a time. The recordings live in the US, and the training answer has two halves.
Verified 3 July 2026 →Charity CRMs
Beacon
A UK charity CRM with AI on every plan since 2024. Beacon publishes where your data sits and how to switch the AI off, which leaves one question to ask them directly.
You are here
Donorfy
A UK charity CRM where the AI mostly arrives through the side door: optional integrations. What you connect decides where your supporter data goes.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
CiviCRM
The open source CRM ships no AI of its own. What that is worth to you depends on which CiviCRM you are running: one your organisation hosts, or a hosted product somebody sells you. Everything below splits along that line.
Verified 20 July 2026 →
Salesforce
In much of the sector through ten free licences. The AI paperwork is detailed and mostly reassuring, with one default that runs the other way.
Verified 3 July 2026 →Accounts
Xero
Your accounts package now has an assistant called JAX. Xero says your data is not used to train its AI, and names the AI companies your questions travel to.
Verified 20 July 2026 →
QuickBooks
Intuit's accounts package now has an assistant throughout. Its privacy statement says your information is used to train its AI models, and it says so in as many words.
Verified 3 July 2026 →Marketing and design
Mailchimp
Your supporter mailing list lives here, and Mailchimp belongs to Intuit now, which means the same small print as QuickBooks covers it.
Verified 3 July 2026 →
Canva
The design tool half the sector lives in, free through Canva for Nonprofits. Whether your uploads help train AI depends on whose account they sit in.
Verified 3 July 2026 →