Small Charities

While smaller charities have made wide ranging digital progress, they have much lower digital skills and capacity than larger charities. This gap persists year on year and highlights a clear case for dedicated support and funding to help develop capacity and skills.

About our sample of small charities

• Small charities represent 428 (65%) of our responses, with an income of up to £1m. This includes:
  
  
  • £0 to £10,000: 48 organisations (11%)
    
    
  • £10,001 to £100,000: 124 organisations (29%)
    
    
  • £100,001 to £500,000: 177 organisations (41%)
    
    
  • £500,001 to £999,999: 79 organisations (18%).
    
    
• 35% are led by people with lived experience of the issue they address.
  
  
• 78% are registered charities or a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), 14% are a company limited by guarantee and 10% are a Community Interest Company (CIC) limited by guarantee. 25% are a social enterprise or community business.
  
  

Digital stage

• 68% are at an early stage with digital (33% curious and 35% starting out), compared to 32% of large charities.
  
  
• 32% have a strategy in place for digital (24% advancing and 8% advanced). Worryingly, this has declined from 36% in 2024 and 42% in 2023.
  
  
• For the smallest charities, with an income of up to £100,000, 79% are at the curious and starting out stage. This falls to 61% of those with an income between £100,001 and £500,000 and 59% of those in the £500,001 and £999,999 income bracket. The same trend was apparent and has slightly increased in both 2024 and 2023.
  
  
• 72% of small charities see digital as an organisational priority, with 18% saying it is a high priority. This compares to 77% in 2024 (indicating this might be declining). 
  
  

Digital services

• 38% say digital plays a key role in how they organise and deliver services (vs 61% of large charities), while 9% deliver fully online/digital services.
  
  
• 46% use digital in a limited way, behind the scenes.
  
  
• 54% support clients with digital inclusion (15% see this as an organisational priority).

Digital progress

• 59% of small charities have made good or significant progress with digital this year. 
  
  
• Key achievements for small charities include:
  
  
  • Social media engagement (66%)
    
    
  • Revamping our website (43%)
    
    
  • Staff and volunteer digital skills (39%).
    
    
• Smaller proportions made progress with data collection, analysis or use (31% small vs 45% large), IT, systems or infrastructure upgrades (27% small vs 53% large), data protection and cybersecurity (26% small vs 46% large) and AI tools, use cases, opportunities and risks (24% small vs 41% large).
  
  

Leadership and digital skills

• 44% of small charities do not have someone with digital expertise at board level.
  
  
• 47% say that recruiting a digital trustee would help them progress with digital, followed by 33% who want their board/trustees to learn about emerging tech and AI.
  
  
• 64% need their CEO to develop a clear vision of what they could achieve with digital in order to move forward with digital, while 46% want their CEO to keep up to date with emerging trends, tech and AI tools.
  
  

Digital priorities for the year ahead

1. Build our online presence and social media engagement (70%).
   
   
2. Increase online fundraising (62%).
   
   
3. Grow our reach (60%).
   
   
4. Attracting funding or donations (59%).
   
   

Small charities have similar priorities to large charities, but are less likely to be prioritising their strategy for AI (30%, vs 51% large) and digital service delivery (27%, vs 38% large).

Barriers to digital progress

1. Squeezed organisational finances (72%).
   
   
2. Finding funds to invest in infrastructure, systems and tools (68%).
   
   
3. Lack of headspace and capacity (62%).
   
   

Small charities use of AI

• 72% of small charities are using AI tools, a significant increase on 53% in 2024. Half (49%) are at the exploring stage, while 21% are actively adopting AI tools.
  
  
• Organisationally, small charities are using AI for:
  
  
  • Administration and project management (43%, vs 57% of large charities)
    
    
  • Grant fundraising (43%, vs 27% of large charities)
    
    
  • Communications and fundraising (38%, vs 28% of large charities).

Small charities AI skills, mindset and support needs

• While 68% agree or strongly agree that AI developments are relevant to them, only 38% are responding to AI opportunities and challenges (vs 53% of large charities).
  
  
• 53% are worried about the implications of using AI. Interestingly, this is lower than the 74% of large charities (who are further ahead with AI use), indicating that worries around AI are increasing with use and uptake of AI.
  
  
• 48% say their board or trustees have poor skills and knowledge of AI.
  
  
• 37% feel their CEO has poor skills and knowledge of AI, while 40% say they have fair skills (7% say they are excellent and the remainder do not know).
  
  
• Small charities want to improve their understanding of AI and how charities are using it (63%) and to learn how they can practically use AI in their everyday work (58%).
  
  
• Key barriers to moving forward with AI are limited digital skills (47%), a lack of training or support (45%) and data privacy, GDPR and security concerns (38%).

Small charities and funding

• In the last 12 months, 37% of small charities accessed funding that covers digital costs, compared to 48% of large charities. 
  
  
• The biggest barrier to accessing digital funding is dedicating time to apply (42%).
  
  
• Top funding needs:
  
  
  • Capacity/headspace for organisational development (58%)
    
    
  • Develop our strategy (for digital, data or AI) (46%)
    
    
  • Core staff or cover staff time to spend on digital/data (57%).