However people search, it’s crucial that your charity appears in the answer. Whether it’s Google or AI choosing who gets seen, you want to give your charity the best possible chance of being included.

Discovering a charity through search

This is one of the key ways people will discover your organisation. It includes search engines like Google and Microsoft Bing, and appearing high up in these search results is key to getting your charity in front of people. Optimising for search engine discovery is referred to as SEO, short for Search Engine Optimisation. It includes writing meta titles and descriptions, including keyword targeting in your content and internal linking throughout.

Search is more competitive than ever, but nonprofits can take advantage of that. Often, charities upload content that lacks strategy. Perhaps they’re focused on the website but not the content itself, or writing without structure in mind. The time you spend writing great content means it deserves to be seen, and applying some strategic thinking can help make that happen.

Your content strategy should consider different themes, writing for specific audiences, as well as formatting to increase the likelihood of appearing in search results. We created a blog writing guide for charities that covers everything from content ideas to a free format template to help you optimise your content and make your charity discoverable.

How nonprofits can leverage AI search

While traditional search has been around for a long time, AI search is relatively new. It includes the AI feature on Google, but also LLMs (Large Language Model) such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.

When Google features your website it’s alongside 10 other blue links that fit the criteria, but with AI it often provides one answer, making it more competitive. AI has to decide whether your website is worth mentioning in its answer, and there are ways you can signal that it is. While there has been much discussion about AI for charities, this isn’t about you using AI at work, it’s about making sure other people who do consult AI can hear about your organisation.

Getting AI platforms to talk about your charity follows much of the same principals as SEO but there are key differences. In both instances you still need to write for your actual human readers first! But a lot of the strategy used to help AI cite your content will also help readers better navigate and understand it too.

AI favours content that demonstrates clarity, credibility, consistency and presence. If your organisation demonstrates all of these through your own website, additional platforms and third-party mentions it is more likely to be referenced in AI results.

Is your charity website AI ready?

Getting your charity discovered in AI search should be part of your website strategy. Through a combination of on page optimisation (updates to your website itself) and off page actions (anything outside of your website such as earning backlinks).

Assess your charity’s likelihood of being surfaced in AI search with our free downloadable scorecard: Can AI recommend your charity?

Three ways charities get found in 2026: search, AI and the grant you’re not using