This week has marked the tenth Small Charities Week, celebrating the achievements and impact of smaller charities across the country.
Here are some of the highlights.
Small Charity Big Impact Awards
The Foundation for Social Improvement, the charity behind Small Charity Week, announced the winners of its Small Charity Big Impact Awards today, with winning charities in five income brackets.
Grapevine Coventry and Warwickshire was the largest small charity winner, with an annual income between £1m and £500,000.
The Lorna Young Foundation was the winner in the smallest income category at under £50,000.
The charities won a professional film toward their promotion work and an impact audit from the FSI.
Pauline Broomhead CBE, founding CEO of the FSI said: “Small charities do amazing work, often having an impact far beyond their size.
"Yet they often don’t receive the attention and celebration they deserve.
We’re delighted that over ten years of Small Charity Week, thousands of small charities have had the chance to shout about their work and get the support they need, and our Small Charity Big Impact Awards are one of the highlights of the week.
“I hope all small charities will use Small Charity Big Impact Day [today] to shout about the impact they make.’
Charities can apply for next year’s Small Charity Big Impact Awards on the Small Charity Week website.
Public perception of small charities
Two thirds of Brits believe small charities have a positive impact on their local community, according to CAF and YouGov analysis.
But lower numbers think this is true nationally and internationally and a majority are not even aware of the small charities in operation.
71 per cent of the UK public have helped a small charity through a donation, sponsorship, fundraising or volunteering.
64 per cent said they were likely to donate money to a small charity in the future.
Older generations were likelier to give goods to small charities, while 16 to 24 year olds were more likely to volunteer their time.
Tessa Tyler Todd, policy and public affairs manager at the Small Charities Coalition encouraged small charities to “shout about their work” on social media.
She said: “Some of the data [from CAF and YouGov] is really encouraging – it’s great that a majority of the public is likely to support small charities in the future and view their impact as positive.
“Having said that, it’s clear that we need to raise more awareness of small charities as only 40 per cent of people could name at least one.
“91 per cent of charities are entirely led by volunteers.
“Raising awareness of small charities will ensure that more can have an impact on people’s lives.
“The time to do that is now; Small Charity Week is the ideal time to support these relationships.”
#BigSupportSmall
The SCC launched its #BigSupportSmall campaign, which encouraged big and small charities to work with each other.
The campaign has gathered 630,000 followers across platforms, beating the target for half a million.
New toolkit
NCVO also launched a governance code toolkit this week to support smaller ‘micro charities’ take on the Charity Governance Code.
NCVO’s toolkit is for charities with an income of less than £100,000 a year and with no paid staff.
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