Outside cricket, Gilchrist is an ambassador for the charity World Vision in India, a country in which he is popular due to his cricketing achievements, and sponsors a boy whose father has died. He was approached in early 2005 by the US baseball franchise, the Boston Red Sox, with a view to him playing for them when his cricket career ended. However, he was selected for the 2007 Cricket World Cup and announced his retirement from Test and One-Day cricket in early 2008.