New: nine AI toolkits, a six and a half hour course, all free for members

This is the moment small charities do what they never could.

One passionate person with the right tools can now do the work of a whole team. Tributary is the central hub where small UK charities learn to harness AI safely, claim every free resource the sector already offers, and raise money like the big names. Free to join, built for the people who hold communities together.

No card. No catch. And when you're ready to grow: Funding Leads from £19 a month.

45 copy and paste AI prompts 20 video lessons 3 health checks 34 vetted free resources £0 to join

What's inside

One login. Four things that punch far above their weight.

Built for charities with no fundraising team, no comms team and no spare Tuesday. Everything below is included in a free membership.

Nine toolkits

The AI Toolkits

Every prompt you need to run a small charity, organised by job: funders, bids, comms, governance, money, services, small donors, appeals and events. Copy, paste, fill in the brackets, done.

Open the toolkits →
20 lessons

The AI course

Four modules of guided video: AI foundations and your legal duties, safe day to day use, saving real money, and AI powered fundraising. Worth £199, free for members.

Start the course →
Traffic lights included

The health checks

Funding Readiness, Governance and AI Readiness. A few honest minutes each, and you get a graded report with the fixes that matter most.

Check your charity →
Kept current

The resource map

Every free and pro bono thing the sector offers you, in one place: free consultancy, free software worth thousands, match funds, trustee finders and more.

Open the map →

Browse by what you do

Five areas. Everything organised around your actual job.

Members get a dashboard arranged by the work: each area gathers its toolkits, training, checks, briefings and resources in one place.

Free membership unlocks all six. Join at the bottom of this page in thirty seconds.

Two volunteers planting together in a community garden

Who this is for

Built for the lifesavers

The woman who runs the youth club on Tuesday nights. The couple behind the food bank. The retired nurse who still does home visits. Small charities are real, passionate people holding communities together with almost nothing, and the tools were never built for you. That changes here. Everything in this hub exists to hand you the leverage that was always out of reach.

Why AI, why now

AI is the first real leveller small charities have ever had.

A big charity has a bid writer, a comms officer, a data person and a prospect researcher. You have Tuesday evenings. Used well, AI does a striking amount of those four jobs. Our toolkits and course exist to get you there safely, in plain English, without the hype.

Open the AI toolkits

Straight from Toolkit 1: the funder longlist

Try it now. Paste this into any AI assistant and fill in the brackets.

You are a prospect researcher for UK charities. List 15 trusts and foundations likely to fund [YOUR CAUSE] work in [YOUR AREA] for a charity with income under [YOUR INCOME]. For each one give: name, what they fund, typical grant size, how to apply, and one honest sentence on why we fit. Present it as a table, most likely funder first. If you are not certain a funder still exists, say so and tell me to check its website.

AI sharpens your charity. We connect it to companies.
Ten companies approached in your name every week, warm replies handed to you. From £19 a week, first 100 charities lock the rate for life.

See how it works →

The course

Six and a half hours that change how your charity runs

AI for Small Charities: twenty video lessons across four modules, and every single one is practical. You watch a lesson, you use it the same day: your legal duties covered, an acceptable use policy drafted, admin automated, a funding bid improved. Worth £199. Free in full for every member.

  • 01 AI foundations, your legal duties and governance
  • 02 Safe day to day use, privacy and your AI policy
  • 03 Where AI saves your charity real money
  • 04 AI powered fundraising: research, bids, donor comms
Start the course free
Preview: What is AI?

Two minutes, no signup needed

6.5 hours 20 lessons Worth £199, free for members

Try a taster

The two minute AI Readiness Test

Five honest yes or no questions, made for small charities. Members get the full diagnostics: the Funding Readiness Check and the Governance Health Check, with graded reports and action plans.

The resource map

Free help you're leaving on the table

Plenty of sites list grants. Nobody maps the rest of the free help. We do, we check it, and we keep it current.

Pro bono help

Cranfield Trust

Free management consultancy from senior business volunteers. Strategy, finance, HR. Genuinely free, genuinely senior.

Free software

Google Ad Grants

Up to $10,000 a month of free Google search advertising for registered charities. Most small charities have never claimed it.

Match funding

Aviva Communities Fund

Up to £25,000 a year in match funding for charities under £1m income, via Crowdfunder. Rolling applications.

Ready to grow?

The hub is free. These are the two things we sell.

Prompts and courses make you sharper. What they can't do is open doors: finding the companies near you with money and goodwill for a cause like yours, and actually making the approach. That is our trade, it's priced for small charities, and we never take a penny of commission.

Corporate connections · most popular
£19 /week, founding rate
First 100 charities lock £19 a week for life. £29 after that.
  • Ten companies approached in your name, every week
  • Matched to your cause and your area by a human
  • Warm replies handed straight to you, with the thread
  • You build the relationship; we keep the pipeline full
  • First week free, no card to reserve, cancel anytime
Claim a founding place
Coaching & done for you
£95 to start
Surgery £95 · ongoing support and done for you from £249 a month
  • Sixty minute surgery on your knottiest problem
  • Fundraising strategy built with you
  • Governance and finance reviews before funders look
  • Or the whole outreach job done in your name
See the support options

No commission on anything you raise, ever. No contracts. Cancel in one click.

Join free

Open the gates.
It takes 30 seconds.

One form. No card, no trial clock. You get the toolkits, the full course, both health checks, the resource map and a monthly round up of what's new for small charities.

🔒 We only ever email useful things, and you can unsubscribe in one click. Privacy

You're in! Check your email for your sign in link, then head to the toolkits or the course. Both are already unlocked on this device.

Questions

Fair questions, straight answers

What's the catch with all the free stuff?

There isn't one. Free members are our best advert: use the toolkits, take the course, raise more money, tell another charity. A minority of members will eventually want our paid help with funding leads or hands on support. That's the whole plan, out loud.

We're tiny. Two volunteers and a spreadsheet. Is this for us?

You're exactly who it's for. Everything free on this site is built for charities with no fundraising staff, and the paid help is priced so that one small grant pays for years of it.

How does the corporate connections service actually work?

You appoint us as your professional fundraiser under a written agreement (charity law requires one, we draft it, you can cancel anytime) and we approach ten well matched companies in your name each week: the right businesses, the right person, wording that sounds like you, with the legally required statement in every message. When one replies warmly we hand you the conversation and you take the relationship forward. It's the corporate fundraising work a big charity has a whole team for, at a price a small one can afford.

Is contacting the funders you suggest GDPR compliant?

We point you at organisations, published programmes and professional roles, which is standard business to business contact under UK GDPR and PECR, and every lead comes with a suggested approach that stays on the right side of both. We never sell data, yours or anyone's.

Do you take a cut of what we raise?

No. Never. Flat, small subscriptions are the whole business model. If something stops paying for itself, cancel it in one click with no notice period.

Can we really trust AI with charity work?

With guardrails, yes, and the gains for a small team are enormous. The free course covers your legal duties, safe day to day use and a simple acceptable use policy, and every toolkit prompt is written so you never paste in personal details about the people you help.