Inside The Gathering: Ideas and Insights Shaping Organisations Today

This month, our team joined SCVO and more than 4,000 people at The Gathering in Edinburgh, the largest free voluntary sector event in the UK.

Across two days, we hosted the Peer Works table in the exhibition hall, spoke with countless attendees, and soaked up the energy of so many organisations in one place. In between the chatting, pitching, and comparing notes, Alison (Events and Digital Co‑ordinator) and I also managed to catch a few of the programme sessions.

Calling the programme “packed” would be an understatement, but we chose sessions based on our interests, what we could bring back to Peer Works, and what we thought would be most useful for our community.

Here are some of our takeaways:

‘Shifting cultures: creating neurodiversity-friendly workplaces’

• People process information differently, so flexibility beats “one‑size‑fits‑all.”
• Clear expectations, predictable routines, and no surprises help everyone.
• Simple, plain English and structured meetings support better understanding.
• Provide agendas in advance and offer multiple ways to contribute.
• Be mindful of sensory environments – they can overwhelm.
• Shift from “deficit” thinking to recognising natural human variation.
• The best practice: communicate openly and ask, “How can I support you?”

Session information on the SCVO website 

‘Change the story, change the world: campaigning, communications and practice in challenging times’

• Charities often do strong work but struggle to cut through – audiences are overwhelmed and short on time.
• As communicators, we must present information differently to be heard and to drive change.
• There are three ways to influence society: change behaviour, change awareness, or change narratives.
• Shifting narratives is the most powerful route: Change the story, change the world.
• Framing is about the choices we make in how we present an issue; these choices shape how people understand problems and solutions.
• Effective framing can unify people around shared responsibility, not blame.
• Single‑issue campaigns can grow into wider social movements when framing is intentional.
• Poor framing can cause harm, especially when media narratives reinforce stigma.
• How we talk about any topic directly influences how it is perceived, understood, and acted upon.

Session information on the SCVO website 

‘The robots are your friends: how to harness AI for charity comms’

• AI language models are mathematical prediction engines; a “fancy autocomplete”
• The Eliza effect makes AI feel human, but it cannot care, empathise, or understand.
• AI is driving a ‘zero‑click web’: people only read the AI overview on Google, language models recycle content (from your website, too).
• Marketing & comms are shifting fastest: AI helps with brainstorming, drafts, summaries, transcription, image/video generation, translation, and data analysis.
• Prompting is a new key skill. Strong prompting + clear context = better results.
• Ethical use matters: AI frees humans for real human work; but you have to apply the test – does this make us more human or less?
• Risks: AI is biased, over-agreeable, makes mistakes – and can be dangerous if misused in mental-health context.
• Regulations are insufficient and a major concern.
• Good AI policies must be matched by strong internal training.
• Learn how to own your AI (turn off “improve the model” data‑sharing settings, use local and open-source models, build your own chatbots…)
• Using AI images in your comms can create trust issues, unless you are transparent about using them.
• AI won’t replace expertise. People still need to have specialised knowledge to get good results from using it as a tool.

Session information on the SCVO website