The COVID-19 pandemic presents Northern-based development organisations with unprecedented difficulties. They are challenged in fundraising opportunities in their home countries and in finding ways to continue their work in the Global South. As the first study to present a systematic mixed method, cross-country study of small-scale, voluntary development organisations in four different European countries, this study provides insight into the role of these private development initiatives (PDIs) in the COVID-19 crisis and sheds light on the differential impact of the crisis on these organisations. Whereas most PDIs are involved in long(er)-term development interventions, the COVID-19 crisis was for most organisations their first experience of emergency aid. Overall, we see strong resilience among PDIs and also find that the organisations which relied more exclusively on traditional methods of fundraising (offline) received a greater funding hit than organisations—often with more younger members—that had already moved to online fundraising.