Small charities often seem to be misunderstood, overlooked, or spoken about as if they are all basically the same. And I think part of the problem is that the sector no longer seems very clear on what a small charity actually is.
In fact, I’m not sure there is much consensus at all.
NCVO itself seems to use at least two very different definitions. On its SCAP page, a small charity is defined as having an annual income of under £1m. But on its most recent UK Civil Society Almanac page, a small charity is defined as having an annual income of under £100k.
That is not a small discrepancy.
Those are two very different kinds of organisation, with very different levels of capacity, resilience and room for manoeuvre.
And that matters, because language shapes who gets seen.
If an organisation with an income of more than £9 million can describe itself as ‘small’, I think that suggests the sector has drifted a long way from the lived reality of genuinely small charities – and especially micro charities.
The Almanac page says small charities make up 80% of the UK sector (though the Charity Commission’s more recent analysis appears to put that figure closer to 62%).
And beneath even that, there is another important distinction: depending on where you look, somewhere between a quarter and a half of UK charities have an annual income of under £10k.
That is a very different operating reality again.
Because when you get down to that level, ‘small’ can mean something much more acute than simply not large.
It can mean no paid staff. Or one exhausted member of staff trying to do everything. Or trustees holding things together in the evenings. Or an organisation that is doing important work locally, but with almost no slack, no specialist capacity, and no room for error.
That is why I worry that small charities – and particularly micro charities – have long been underserved by the infrastructure around them.
And by infrastructure, I mean umbrella bodies, consultants, funders, and the wider support systems that are supposed to help charities function better.
Often, what is offered seems to reflect a different sort of organisation from the one many micro charities actually are.
The advice may be sensible, but unrealistic.
The funding process may be open, but too onerous.
The expectations may be reasonable on paper, but unmanageable in practice.
The support may technically exist, but still not quite meet the day-to-day needs of charities operating on tiny incomes, with tiny teams, and a constant backlog of competing demands.
That is the gap I keep coming back to, and my conversations with micro charities seem to confirm it.
There often seems to be a significant distance between what the sector offers and what micro charities actually need in order to function well.
But I could be wrong. Or only partly right. Or seeing only one slice of the picture.
I’m exploring a lens I’m calling Micro-Charity Operating Reality (a way of describing the distinct pressures facing very small organisations) – so I’d be really interested in what others think.
What should count as a ‘small’ charity?
And do you think small – and especially micro – charities are getting the kind of support they actually need?
