Small charities need more help and here’s why

Over the years we have written many times about the critical importance of small charities to our communities.

They are more trusted, more agile and mobilise people in ways that larger charity never can. The 95% of registered charities that are classified as small employ over 1 million staff and motivate and support around 13 million volunteers to give their time and skills. Their impact is, almost literally, immeasurable.

They do all this despite a complex legal and regulatory framework, rising costs, an ever more competitive funding landscape, relentlessly rising demand for their services, structural barriers to public sector engagement and seismic shifts in the was our society functions (including increased hostility towards their work and rapidly developing technologies such as AI).

We believe our society would collapse without them.

And yet there is a crisis amongst organisations providing small charities with volunteers, trustees, skills, advice and practical support, what the sector calls infrastructure support. The Chair of the Charity Commission recently chose to highlight this in her speech to the Commission’s 2026 Annual Public Meeting.

In recent weeks we have seen announcements of the closure and then rescue of Reach Volunteering and the closure of the Directory of Social Change. These follow on the back of other closures in the last couple of years including Getting on Board, The Foundation for Social Improvement and the Small Charities Coalition.

Local infrastructure support has been in decline for decades, with organisations like Councils for Voluntary Service, Rural Community Councils and Councils for Voluntary Youth Service either closing, merging or shifting their activities towards direct service provision rather than support for other charities. Usually this is because of withdrawal of funding from local authorities. Attempts have been made to reverse this trend, such as the Big Assist programme (2012-2016), but it continues and is even accelerating.

Some larger funders like Lloyds Bank Foundation, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and the Community Catalyst programme (that we help to deliver) continue to invest in capacity building and the National Council for Voluntary Organisation has maintained its free membership for small charities.

But much more is needed and it should not take a crisis to galvanise action, such as when funders stepped in recently rescue Reach Volunteering.

What the sector needs is concerted, meaningful and long term investment in capacity building and infrastructure support.

Government (local, regional and national) needs to partner with these enlightened funders and the remaining infrastructure organisations to put its money where its mouth is and secure the future of small charities and non-profits.

This would not be simple altruism (though that is good in itself). It is possibly the only way the state can manage the relentless rise in demand for public services. For example, the related crises in youth mental health and youth employment can only be addressed through preventative action and early help.

In our view, small voluntary sector organisations are best placed by far to deliver that action but they cannot do so if they without volunteers, a sensible legal and regulatory framework or the skills to use maximise access to funding and the potential of technologies. To do that they need the training and practical support that is the hallmark of effective infrastructure support and capacity building.

Government and funders must be bolder in supporting small charities and non-profits so that they in turn can be bolder in addressing these deep-seated societal challenges.

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Want to find out more? Contact us at julian@almondtreeconsulting.co.uk to discuss your organisation’s needs.