Small Charity Week: Resources, Support and More for Wirral Charities

Small Charity Week is worth celebrating, but is also an opportunity to reflect on unique challenges

We are really proud to celebrate Small Charity Week this week, a time dedicated to recognising the incredible impact that small charities have on our communities and to highlight the multitude of challenges that they have to navigate each and every day.

NCVO defines small charities as those with an annual income of less than £1 million. While they may be defined as small with reference to their financial income, their reach and connection to local communities are anything but. These charities are able to respond quickly to emerging needs, and provide tailored support. In most cases they can be the backbone of community support systems.

The reality is that many of these organisations are faced with regular and real pressures.

Challenges for Small Charities

Accessing stable and sustainable funding remains one of the biggest challenges. Many small charities rely on short-term grants and project based funding. Competition for funding is increasing year by year. While simultaneously fulfilling all their statutory obligations under the law and ensuring that their people are kept safe. According to research from the Cranfield Trust 'Small Charities are under sustained pressure with income generation being the top challenge'.

As a CEO of one of Wirral's tremendous charities recently told me "Burnout in our Sector is real" Staff and volunteers in small charities are often deeply committed to their beneficiaries, but this dedication can come at a personal cost.

Finally small charities frequently find themselves caught between the day-to-day operational demands and the need for strategic planning to safeguard the future of the organisation.

So to mark the importance of Small Charity week, Wirral CVS would like to support you with the following:

Tuesday 23rd Drop In

Fancy a chat and a coffee? Zel and Alex will be loitering with intent at the Blooming Skull Café in Make Hamilton between 12 noon and 3pm. Pop in to discuss any successes, challenges or support you may need!

Small Charity Week Poll

Tell us what would be useful to you as a volunteer or staff member of a small charity by filling in our poll below:

What support would be most valuable to your small charity right now?

• Leadership and governance training
• Fundraising and income diversification training
• Strategy and impact measurement training
• Marketing and Communications training

See All Options

Resources

We have created a list below of some fabulous resources for Small Charities below.

• Utility Aid has a new switching service that allows users to view commercial utility quotes, compare offers and if you choose to, to complete a full switch to a new supplier. These offers are available to new NCVO members only and do not apply to existing or renewing memberships. Organisations with an income under £100,000 can get NCVO membership for free using the code SCW100. Organisations with an income between £100,000 and £1 million can get 50% off NCVO membership using the code SCW50.

• Free Charity Finance Resilience Check. This short diagnostic helps you to assess whether your finance function is set up to provide clarity, confidence and resilience, not just compliance.

• Lawworks Pro Bono advice helps to broker legal advice to small not-for profit organisations on a wide range of legal issues, to support the continuation and expansion of their services to people in need.

• Probono Economics support you to get free support from a dedicated volunteer economist who can help charities with data analysis or visualisation, spreadsheets or short pieces of research.

• Free fundraising resources from the CIOF for small charities.

• Media Trust support charities to build their communications skills through our innovative training, volunteering and content creation programmes.

• Cranfield Trust help with free charity management support.

• Charity Excellence have a page of resources for small charities week.

I leave you with the words of the CEO of Community Foundation for Merseyside in a webinar I attended last week when she was asked about practical steps to strengthen resillience for small organisations:

1. Look at the right, flexible funders and try not to panic bid for any grant which brings burdens with it when under income pressure.

2. Hope is not a strategy.

3. Don't weaken your pitch relying on AI tools.

4. Don't be afraid to reach out when you are in need to resources like decelerator.org.

If you have anything you would like to share with us this week, including activities at your organisation, please email info@wcvs.org.uk