Prince Michael spends most of his time actively supporting a large number of different charities and organisations.

Patronages include the Brooklands Museum Trust, the Children's Fire and Burns Trust, First Gear, the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, the Museum of Army Flying and the National Eye Research Centre in Bristol

He is Commonwealth President of the Royal Life Saving Society.

He is also President of SSAFA Forces Help, the Institute of Road Safety Officers, the RAC Foundation, the Kennel Club, among other organisations.

Related through his maternal grandmother to Tsar Nicholas II, Prince Michael has always had a strong emotional attachment to Russia, which he first visited in 1992. Now Patron of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, he has returned to the country many times since then both for business as well as his many charity organisations activities.

In 2004, Prince Michael set up his Prince Michael of Kent Foundation in Russia, whose objectives are to provide grants to four sectors of Russian life: Heritage; Culture; Health (principally paediatric burns units); and post-graduate business education. He is also closely involved with a number of other charity, arts and humanitarian organisations in Russia, including The Children's Fire and Burn Trust (which incorporates The Friends of Russian Children), and the St Gregory's Foundation, of which he is a particularly concerned and committed Patron.

He attended the formal re-interment in St Petersburg in 1998 of the bones of the murdered Romanov family.

In May 2005, Prince Michael took part in a section of the White Knights Motorcycle Rally in Russia, starting from Vladivostok and finishing in St Petersburg. The rally was to raise funds for The Prince Michael of Kent Foundation. Some of the money raised was also donated to London's Royal Marsden Hospital and Charities Aid Foundation Russia (CAF).

Prince Michael has represented The Queen at State funerals in India, Cyprus and Swaziland, at the commemoration event marking the 150th anniversary of the Crimean War in the Ukraine in September 2004, and at the reburial of Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in St Petersburg in September 2006.

With Princess Michael, he represented The Queen at the independence celebrations in Belize and at the coronation of King Mswati II of Swaziland.

Prince Michael is chairman of his own consultancy company, offering specialist advice to several commercial concerns, involving countries and sectors in which he himself has a close interest. On their behalf he travels extensively, and has led groups of business representatives to China, India and Russia.

He is Founder Patron of the Pan-European Genesis Initiative, which represents the interests of small and medium enterprises throughout the European Union, and Patron of The Russo-British Chamber of Commerce.