The Rise of Micro Apps: How Non-Profits Can Do More with Less

The rise of Micro Apps

How Non-Profits Can Do More with Less

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Most Software as a Service (SaaS) products you see nowadays are racing to add AI features. Not because of the hype, but because their unique value propositions have eroded. At their core, many of these tools are wrappers around databases and data models.

Here’s the shift.

With vibe coding tools (eg. Lovable, V0, bolt, Firebase Studio, Cursor) and easy-to-use databases (eg. Supabase), the barriers to entry for building SaaS products, cost and time needed, have been lowered significantly.

Big systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning systems, the backbone for finance, HR, supply chains; and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, will still exist, because you need audit trails and reliability.

But the user interface, and the way people actually interact with those systems?

That is changing fast. With a few building blocks:

1. Hosting
2. Authentication
3. Database
4. Middleware (the “plumbing” that connects different systems so data can flow between them easily)

You can build a micro-app tailored exactly to your processes. The beauty is that several micro-apps can even share a common backend. This keeps everything consistent and reliable.

Here’s a simple example.

Imagine you need to process incoming documents, or what engineers call Optical Character Recognition. In plain terms, it’s just automatic document scanning.

• A user logs in, uploads files.
• The files run through an AI model that can “see” text and images (engineers call this a vLLM - a vision-enabled large language model)
• The AI extracts the data and automatically fills a spreadsheet or integrates with your main system.
• If the AI is confident, the process skips straight to approval; if not, it goes to manual review.
• You can add a simple interface to track and preview documents.

That entire app could be built by a software engineer in about 16 hours, using US$25–50 worth of credits, with zero ongoing maintenance for low volumes of data.

This is a game changer for non-profits.

• Admin-heavy tasks like data entry, volunteer management, onboarding, donor tracking, or case management can be automated at a fraction of the cost.
• You can deliver best-in-class user experience without spending millions.
• Most importantly, it means more time and clarity for the people you serve.

There is another bonus: while you’re building, AI tools often spot missing details or suggest steps you didn’t think of. In other words, they act like a process consultant. For resource-strapped non-profits, this could drive standardisation and enhance best practices, without the need for expensive digital transformation programmes.

This is not a projection, at Better.sg, we’ve already seen this in action by delivering:

• A full CRM built on Lovable and Supabase
• A community sharing app for a financial empowerment non-profit
• A volunteer management system developed with Firebase Studio and Windsurf

What about cybersecurity? Yes, this is important, but early tests are promising. By using simple, proven building blocks (secure login, row-level security, edge functions, hooks), lovable minimises attack surface and though we’ll share more in a future article, our initial findings from pentesting such applications are extremelly encouraging.

Ultimately, the bottom line is clear:

Micro apps are here. They’re fast, cheap, and tailored, and they free organisations to focus less on admin, and more on impact.