Why Precision Group is asking you to read a white paper about artificial intelligence
We are not AI experts, and we will not pretend to be. However, we do recognise the growing importance of AI governance for charities.
So why is a Somerton print and mail business recommending a 46-page legal white paper about AI governance? The short answer is because it matters to our Group CEO. Cory founded Precision Group and he cares a great deal about the not-for-profit sector. When something useful for charities crosses our desk, his instinct is to pass it on. This is one of those things that he wants the team here to pass on.
We found it through Dr Cassandra Chapman, who shared it on LinkedIn. It is very useful so in that spirit here it is.
Download the paper
The white paper is free to read and share under a Creative Commons licence. You can access it via its DOI: https://doi.org/10.14264/5cdb683
Read it, pass it to your board, and discuss it.
What the paper is
Artificial Intelligence and Australian Charities: Governance, Bias, Human Rights and Public Trust for Non-Profits in the Algorithmic Age was published in March 2026 by the University of Queensland’s School of Law and Centre for Policy Futures. The authors are Dr Kim D Weinert, and Dr Brydon T Wang.
The forewords come from the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG, former Justice of the High Court of Australia, and Dr Lorraine Finlay, Human Rights Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission. The calibre of those people and UQ mean that it is very useful. An important attribute we would argue.
The authors say most charities are not adopting AI out of ambition. They are adopting it because demand is rising, funding is tight and volunteers are tired. The paper takes that pressure seriously. It argues that existing charity governance was built for human decision-makers who can explain and take responsibility for their choices. AI can blur that. The authors put their central point plainly: “The question is not whether charities can use AI but whether they are justified in doing so while remaining trustworthy.”
Trust is not the same as trustworthiness
This distinction is a very useful idea in the paper. The authors point out that many people who rely on charities have no real alternative, so they may keep engaging even when they are not confident in how they are being treated. Charities cannot assume they are trusted or that their AI is trusted. Instead, charities must demonstrate trustworthiness before deploying AI.
The paper builds a framework on three signals of trustworthiness. Benevolence asks whether an AI system serves the interests of the beneficiaries. Integrity asks whether it aligns with charitable purpose, the law and human rights, and whether decisions can be explained and challenged. Ability asks whether the charity actually has the capacity to understand, monitor and, when needed, switch off what it deploys. And where this capacity is absent, restraint is the most responsible choice.
The six principles
The paper then sets out six governance principles, which Dr Chapman summarised neatly in her post:
- Charitable purpose must retain its primacy
- End-user and beneficiary voices must be centred;
- Algorithmic transparency and explainability;
- Proactive bias identification and mitigation;
- Meaningful human oversight and override; and
- Clear accountability allocation.
The authors also include practical checklists for charities, the ACNC, lawmakers and funders. For a busy board, those tables on pages 41 to 44 are probably the best place to start.
However, the paper’s core questions still apply. It suggests every charity ask two things at the start of any AI project: “Whose interests does this system serve?” and “Who bears the risk if it fails?” Those questions work just as well for a donor segmentation model as for a housing triage tool.
Why this matters to a printer, mailhouse and 3PL provider
Charities rarely build their own technology. They buy it, and they hand supporter data to suppliers like us. We are part of their supply chain. If this paper prompts you to ask harder questions of the people who handle your donors’ names and addresses, we think that is a good outcome.
Start the conversation inside your organisation
Downloading a white paper is easy (see below). Talking about it is where the rubber hits the road. Here are five questions, drawn from the paper, that could be discussed in your next leadership or board meeting:
- Where are we already using AI, including features quietly built into software we bought?
- For each use, whose interests does it serve, and who carries the risk if it gets something wrong?
- Could we explain any AI-assisted decision to the person it affected, in plain English?
- Who in our organisation is named as accountable for our AI use?
- Which of our suppliers handle supporter or beneficiary data, and what have we actually asked them?
Download the paper
The white paper is free to read and share under a Creative Commons licence. You can access it via its DOI: https://doi.org/10.14264/5cdb683
Read it, pass it to your board, and argue about it.
Thank you Dr Kim Weinert and Dr Brydon Wang for your very useful white paper. And thank you to Dr Cassandra Chapman for sharing it bringing it to our attention.
Sources:
White paper: https://policy-futures.centre.uq.edu.au/files/23478/AI%20and%20Charities%20web%20Brydon%20Wang%20Kim%20Weinert.pdf
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
