What the Latest Charity Commission Data Tells Us
The Charity Commission has recently released its Annual Return 2024 analysis report. It’s based on annual returns from 2024, so a little behind-the-times, but still worth a look.
Despite the pressure on the sector, there has been a small increase in the number of registered charities. People still want to get together and do stuff to make something a bit better. That feels worth celebrating at the moment. The vast majority of charities remain small:
- 91% have an income under £1 million
- 85% are under £500k
- 61% operate with less than £100k a year
That’s not a problem, it just gives a sense of what the sector is like. Big isn’t necessarily beautiful when it comes to charities.
What’s more concerning is there appears to be (on average) quite a different experience for organisations with income under £500k. Above that, and they are more likely to have income that exceeds expenditure. But below, the reverse is true – they are spending more than they’ve received. Clearly not sustainable, and smaller organisations are more likely to be fragile. But putting that right is also tricky, since access to government funding is uneven. 35% of charities over £500k received a government grant, but only 16% of charities under £500k did, making smaller organisations more than twice as unlikely to benefit from this support.
I find the overall picture on international spending a bit confusing. The top countries giving money to UK charities are in the US, Switzerland, and China. The top three countries by expenditure were US, Switzerland, and India. That’s about £5bn in, and £2.5bn out (of a total gross income to the sector of around £100bn). So the numbers are quite big, and not what I’d have said if asked to guess. I’m intrigued why so much money goes to US and Switzerland.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
