Kitchen-table UK charities funding educational projects in sub-Saharan Africa: issues of sustainability

My research addresses the question:
How can UK kitchen-table charities that focus their efforts on educational projects in sub-Saharan Africa mitigate factors that negatively affect the sustainability of their work?
Kitchen-table charities are managed by volunteers that meet in the home of one of the trustees, usually around the kitchen table. My professional experience as a founder member and Chair of Trustees of a kitchen-table charity, whose mission is to provide secondary education in a remote area of Tanzania, is integral to this research. Despite the contribution of small charities to the funding of education at grass-roots level in sub-Saharan Africa, research into their experiences and challenges appears non-existent.
My study has three objectives: to identify issues that affect the long-term sustainability of kitchen-table charities, to investigate and record ways of building resilience to these issues and to produce an original research information booklet, based on my findings, as a practical tool for practitioners.
I adopted action research as the methodological framework and used grounded theory as my analytical approach to the data. Key findings have been drawn from the generation of sub-categories that I connected to core-categories and include: lack of an exit plan; problems relevant to management at a distance; corruptive practices in-country; no succession plan. Issues of sustainability can be mitigated with increased awareness and thought for the preparedness of problems.
My research has shown that small charities encounter common issues relating to sustainability. I devised a template based on an action research model to assist with problem-solving and forward planning strategies. This template is included in a Research Information Booklet entitled A Practitioner’s Handbook (Appendix 1). The booklet contains the findings of my research and has been welcomed by the participants and other interested trustees.