It’s easy to feel like you’re on your own when you’re running a small charity. Navigating the ins and outs of managing everything can be challenging, overwhelming, and, well, lonely.
Feeling seen? You’re in the right place. I've designed this 6 month online course to support you through every step - the highs and the lows. The live workshops, group problem-solving sessions, a bank of resources and a dedicated online community are here to guide you when you need it most.
And there’s more! You’ll be welcomed into a group of like-minded folk, where judgement is left at the door - and support is available in abundance.
Fiona Sandford, Visionary, Cohort 2
Marlene Kawira, Afrikala Arts, Cohort 1
Strong foundations: from strategy to fundraising, you’ll be well equipped to confidently lead your small charity to do amazing things in the world.
Confidence: this course will support you to feel in control (and enjoy your work!)
Connections: say “bye” to loneliness, and “hello” to friendly faces - your peers, who’ll happily support you at each stage of your journey.
Owen Day, Envision, Cohort 2
After the introductions (and non-cringy icebreakers), we’ll focus on:
Assembling your team
Getting others involved (trustees, directors, committees, volunteers, staff, freelancers.)
Good governance foundations
Systems to make your life easier.
We’ll dive into the key elements of developing an effective strategy. Including:
Finding your North Star
The importance of needs assessments
Co-design and participatory strategic planning
Theory of Change
(Halfway, already?) Month 3 will focus on:
Programme design, and identifying the key elements of a successful programme
Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning
In Month 4, we’ll hone in on one of the most important aspects of running a small charity: budgeting for fundraising. You’ll learn all about:
Full cost recovery (making sure your budget covers all of your costs)
Stretch budgets, and ways to be innovative in your fundraising strategies
Financial monitoring and reporting - providing you with the tools to keep track of your finances and make informed decisions for the future.
Month 5 is all about the bread and butter of any successful charity. We’ll dive into:
Fundraising strategies - my top tips on how to raise funds
Storytelling and communications, so that you can spread the word and engage your audience.
(Time flies when you’re having fun!) By now, you’ve gained a wealth of practical knowledge. But we all know it doesn’t end there. Our final month will equip you with the confidence to:
Manage multiple responsibilities
Find balance at work
Plus
Wellbeing tips and techniques
Resources for further support.
Sounds like a lot, right? Well, that’s because it is.
The goal is to give you the strong foundations you need to excel as a small charity leader and create real social change. As we progress through these 6 months, you’ll be able to implement what you’ve learned straight away - drawing on new knowledge, resources and techniques to grow your organisation.
Megan Barrett, Power to Connect, Cohort 3
I’ve spent 20 years in the small charity sector, leading through chaos, learning the hard way, and earning a Master’s in Charity Management (top 10% of my class).
I turned a charity in crisis into a multi-award-winning organisation that supported more people in one year than in the previous 20 combined.
Now I’ve distilled everything I’ve learned into this course - so you can skip the overwhelm and lead with confidence from day one.
Kgauhelo Dube, The Artist's Help Desk South Africa, Cohort 3
Small Charity Leaders Club™ is great for anyone that wears all the hats at their small organisation. You might be a founder, a trustee, a manager, or a CEO. Basically, it’s designed for anyone who has the weight of the world on their shoulders - and wants to learn the skills to help their organisation thrive. It's open to any social good structure whether you're an unregistered group, a registered charity, CIC, social enterprise or individual.
This is one of the most common questions I get.
Small Charity Leaders Club™ is designed for people at very different stages of their small charity leadership journey. In each cohort, there’s usually a real mix, from people stepping into their first charity leadership role, to leaders with 10, 15, even 20+ years of experience.
If you’re more experienced, some of the more fundamental teaching content may feel familiar. That’s normal, and many people say it’s actually reassuring to realise how much they already know. That said, leaders consistently tell me they still take something new from every module whether that’s a different way of framing an issue, a practical tool or idea they haven’t used before, or simply the chance to step back and think more clearly.
Each module also includes a guest speaker who offers a deeper dive into a specific topic, moving beyond the basics and into up-to-date sector insight and expert practice.
Where experienced leaders often find particular value is in the peer support. The small, confidential peer groups provide protected space to talk through real, live challenges with others who genuinely understand the complexity of leading a small charity.
If you’re unsure whether the Club is right for you, a more useful question than “what if I already know a lot of this?” might be: "do I have the capacity for more learning, and would it be valuable to have structured thinking space, shared understanding, and a trusted group of peers to sense-check things with over the year?"
Small Charity Essentials™ and Small Charity Leaders Club™ are designed to do slightly different (but complementary) jobs.
Small Charity Essentials™ is a self-paced, DIY learning resource. It’s there to give you clear, practical foundations for running a small charity - things like governance, strategy, fundraising, finance, people, and systems. You can dip in and out, go at your own pace, and return to it whenever you need.
It’s particularly helpful if you want straightforward guidance, templates, and clarity without needing to show up live. It doesn’t come with the accountability of learning alongside a group or cohort, but if you know you’ll prioritise it, it can be a really solid option.
Small Charity Leaders Club™, on the other hand, is a cohort-based leadership programme. It runs over 6 months and includes live teaching (covering the same core topics as Small Charity Essentials™), plus guest speaker sessions, and structured peer support.
As well as covering the fundamentals, the Club goes deeper. The guest speakers offer focused deep-dives into specific and timely sector topics, and the programme creates space for sense-making, reflection, and leadership practice - thinking things through, talking them out, and learning alongside other people doing similar roles.
A simple way to think about it is:
Essentials gives you the what and the how
Leaders Club gives you the what and the how, plus thinking space, guest-speaker deep-dives, peer support, and real-time application
Many people do both. Some start with Essentials to build confidence and understanding, then join Leaders Club when they want deeper learning, connection, and support over time.
If you’re deciding between the two, a helpful question to ask yourself is:
Do I mainly need practical guidance I can work through in my own time - or would I benefit from live learning, shared reflection, and being part of a group of peers?
Most (not all!) people who join Small Charity Leaders Club™ come from organisations with an annual income of under £1.5 million. Within that, there’s a wide range - from people who are genuinely on day one with very little money in the bank, through to what I’d call the “larger end of small” maybe bringing in £750k-1.5million.
That said, I also have participants from organisations with incomes of £2–3 million a year.
That’s because income is only one way of thinking about the size or complexity of an organisation. Some people define “small” by turnover. Others think about staff numbers, volunteer reliance, or the scale and intensity of their delivery.
Two organisations with the same income can feel completely different to run.
Rather than focusing on a single metric, it’s more helpful to think about what you’re hoping to get from the Club. If revisiting (or properly grounding yourself in) the fundamentals of running an effective, sustainable, impactful organisation would be useful (governance, strategy, people, money, fundraising) and avoiding burnout along the way - then the Club is likely to be a good fit.)
In other words, whether your income is £5,000 a year or £5 million, if you’re navigating the realities of leading a smaller organisation and carrying a lot of responsibility, you’ll probably recognise yourself in the (virtual) room!
The course runs once a year from April to October with a break in August. The 2026 Module dates are:
Wednesday 8th April 2026
Wednesday 6th May 2026
Wednesday 3rd June 2026
Wednesday 8th July 2026
Wednesday 9th September 2026
Wednesday 7th October 2026
Once you've signed up, you will be placed into a monthly 90 minute Peer Support Group that suits your schedule.
Cohort 4 starts April 2026 .
Online (but we will try to get together in person for a friendly cuppa, if people want to and locations allow).
Because I believe in the power of community! By taking this journey with a group of like-minded peers, you’ll access peer support. Plus, this means I can make the course more affordable (and accessible) to a wider range of organisations.
Click the 'Buy now' button further up this page!
Hannah Culff, TOP UK
"It's not that all the information is all brand new, although all incredibly useful, but there's something amazing about giving yourself the time and space, in such a dynamic but supportive environment, to really think through the issues each module tackles. I honestly can't recommend this course enough.
Vic is honestly brilliant.
Full of knowledge and energy and doing the course really helps remind you why you're wedded to the sector! It's a really difficult time to be in the charity sector (I know we're not alone there) and the camaraderie between the group members helped me to feel less alone and despairing and reminded me that we need to fight on.
Now is not the time for the sector to loose all it's wonderful leaders, of whom there were so many on this course! Vic's course helps acknowledge how hard our jobs can be at times but also how wonderful a job we do and how we're stronger when we have connection with others.
On top of that we came away with some great new knowledge and a bank of useful resources that is unrivalled anywhere else!"