UNLOCKING CIVIL SOCIETY’S ROLE IN AI GOVERNANCE: INSIGHTS, TOOLS, AND NETWORKED ACTION
- lidiavelkova
- Jul 3
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 4
About the Power to Shape AI Initiative
Civil society organisations (CSOs), academics, researchers, and like-minded public bodies play an essential role in shaping AI towards the public interest: both through reactive action addressing harms, and proactive action to set the agenda. This requires strong capacity on two fronts:
The capacity to engage with their constituents and the public about AI
The capacity to advocate for ethical governance and stewardship of AI
Power to Shape: CSO Voices on AI is a collaborative initiative designed to strengthen civil society’s role in shaping how AI is governed. It was born out of the recognition that CSOs are too often excluded from AI decision-making, despite being close to the communities most affected. It aims to address the disconnect between top-down AI policymaking and grassroots realities by creating spaces for collective learning, agenda-setting, and ultimately, co-creation of tools and strategies for collective CSO action.
The Power to Shape initiative is participatory and co-creative by-design, ensuring that CSO voices are not only consulted but actively shape every step. For this reason, in June 2025, we convened a first-of-its-kind global co-creation Conversation with 38 CSO, academic, and public sector active participants. The two-week asynchronous Conversation was hosted on our open digital platform, designed to gather insights and co-create strategies for collective action, followed by two online workshops seeking to deepen understanding and enhance actionable insights.
This process surfaced a strong appetite for more sustained, structured, and inclusive civil society engagement. And while our first engagement focused specifically on how AI is used in public services, we are now looking to expand the work to strengthen civil society influence on AI governance more broadly - across sectors, use cases, and policy arenas.
INSIGHTS FROM THE POWER TO SHAPE AI CONVERSATION
Key barriers to CSO influence
Opaque processes: AI systems in public services are often deployed without transparency, consultation, or accountability.
Information barriers: CSOs struggle to access even basic information about how AI is used in public services.
Ethical risks from poor data governance: Particularly in under-resourced contexts, biased or incomplete datasets compromise outcomes.
Perception of civil society as blockers: Governments often feel pressured to “move fast,” sidelining deliberation and co-creation.
Fragmentation and duplication: CSO efforts are dispersed and disconnected. There is no shared infrastructure to coordinate, share, or strategise together.
Enablers of more effective CSO engagement
Mass awareness and public mobilisation: Coordinated campaigns (like advocacy around the GDPR) show the power of simple, relatable narratives at scale.
Strategic capacity-building: Beyond travel funding, CSOs need support to navigate informal decision-making spaces and build alliances.
Coalitions across sectors: Partnerships with academia, trade unions, supportive tech actors, and thematic CSOs increase credibility and reach.
From critique to alternatives & proven methods: Offering practical, actionable alternatives (not just pointing out harms) delivers more impact.
Not reinventing the wheel: Emulating what’s worked in other issue areas can be more effective than creating new strategies & narratives every time, especially when resources are limited.
Stronger, aligned messaging: A few powerful, repeatable narratives, grounded in lived experience, cut through policy noise.
Early engagement in policy cycles: Influence is more likely when CSOs are embedded early and bring concrete recommendations.
Towards a Shared Framework for CSO Influence
As a result of the Conversation, we are looking for opportunities to develop a capacity-building and tools designed to help CSOs influence AI governance more effectively. Based on co-creation feedback, these needs to include:
Participation & Engagement Tools: Templates, citizen & advocacy participatory methods, and stakeholder mapping strategies to support early, strategic and effective CSO involvement in AI governance.
Capacity-Building Modules: Practical training for thematic and ‘non-tech’ CSOs, including guidance for navigating informal influence spaces (i.e., Summits) and building alliances.
Narrative & Communication Resources: Storytelling tools, shared messaging frameworks, and media strategies to humanise AI and align civil society advocacy.
Advocacy Planning Frameworks: Tools to help CSOs move from critique to action, defining goals, identifying targets, sequencing activities, and building influence.
Coordination Tools: Digital infrastructure to support the fostering of a community-of-practice and underpin collaboration, reduce duplication, and share knowledge.
Case Studies Repository: A curated collection of real-world advocacy examples and successful campaigns that can be adapted and replicated across contexts.
Sustainable Resourcing Guides: Strategy templates to secure long-term funding and support joint efforts between CSOs and public institutions.
Our next steps
Building on the momentum of our insight co-creation process, we are now moving into a phase of synthesis, publication, and partnership development. Our aim is to turn the insights gathered into actionable tools and shared infrastructure that can support civil society’s long-term influence in AI governance. Our initial thinking on next steps is to:
Finalise and publish the insights report from our co-creation process
Write a thought piece reflecting the methodology, insights, and resulting framework for change
Continue convening conversations with CSOs, researchers and stakeholders
Seek partners to co-create and pilot CSO Advocacy capacity-bulding tools with civil society and institutional actors.
JOIN US IN SHAPING THE FUTURE OF AI GOVERNANCE
We are seeking:
FUNDING PARTNERS to co-develop the CSO advocacy tools and capacity-building programs
INSTITUTIONAL ALLIES to pilot collaborative CSO participation in AI governance
NETWORKS & PLATFORMS for joint advocacy and knowledge-sharing
Let’s co-create the tools and spaces civil society needs to meaningfully shape AI governance.
DOWNLOAD OUR INSIGHTS BRIEF