Handover: small charities know what hurts, not what skill they are missing

This story details the impact of Reach Volunteering's closure after 45 years of service. Reach was a platform that connected small charities in the UK with volunteers and trustees who could provide professional skills. Every year, it placed 5,996 volunteers and trustees in 2,440 organizations, contributing around £60 million in expertise. Small charities typically have annual income under £1 million, with nearly half having income under £50,000.

The closing of Reach is attributed to a lack of funding for the infrastructure supporting small charities in building capacity. Reach was the largest single source of trustees in the sector, and its closure occurs at the peak of its impact. The author, unable to rebuild Reach's 45 years of relationships, focused on one aspect of Reach's work – the expertise it provided.

They created a tool called Handover to address the issue of small charities not knowing which skill they are missing. Handover takes a plain description of the problem a charity is facing and identifies the capability that needs to be filled. It provides a trustee or volunteer role to address the gap, along with a short list of essential skills, an honest time commitment, and an advert that can be easily copied into a newsletter.

The author emphasizes that small charities struggle with accurately describing gaps in their capabilities. Instead of receiving role-specific advice, charities often get a generic list of skills, which does not adequately address their unique problems. Reach's real value was its ability to recognize symptoms of underlying issues and name the gaps that needed to be filled.

Handover aims to replicate this expertise, refusing to ask what role is needed and instead focusing on what is going wrong and reasoning upward to find the solution. The tool is built using React 19, TypeScript, and Vite, with no backend, and relies solely on Google's Gemini AI for its functionality.