I’ve been refining my thinking about micro-charity capacity. I initially framed the issue as small charities being overwhelmed by unrealistic expectations. The intention behind those expectations is usually good, but I’m increasingly noticing a gap between sector assumptions and micro-charity operating conditions.
I’ve been thinking about this as ‘Micro-Charity Operating Realities‘, a way of describing the distinct structural pressures facing very small organisations: lean teams, delivery-heavy workloads, volunteer governance and limited strategic bandwidth.
I’m less interested in defining ‘micro’ by strict thresholds, because these characteristics often persist even as organisations grow into the ‘small charity’ category. What matters more than size is the combination of capacity constraints and expectation load.
What interests me now is less about whether the sector misunderstands micro-charities, and more about how funding and support design can better reflect the realities under which they actually function.
I’ll be exploring this lens further over the coming months, and I’d be genuinely interested in what resonates (or doesn’t) for others working in or alongside very small charities.
