International aid still the UK's most popular cause
Howard Lake | 5 July 2004 | News
The latest edition of Charity Trends reports that international aid remains the UK’s most popular charitable cause, ahead of cancer.
According to Charity Trends 2004, during 2002-03 international aid attracted 18% of donations to the top charitable causes, one and a half times that of its closest rival, cancer.
As a consequence, five new charities working in international aid have entered the UK’s top 500 fundraising charities. This, alongside new initiatives such as Sport Relief, saw the combined voluntary income of international aid charities reach £654 million.
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Cancer was the second most popular cause, with three cancer charities appearing in the top 15, and the merged Cancer Research UK ranking as the UK’s largest charity, with a voluntary income of £244 million.
The top 10 most popular causes for 2002-03 by voluntary income were:
| cause | %voluntary income of top 10 causes |
|---|---|
| International aid | 18 | Cancer | 12 |
| Religious/general services | 10 |
| Heritage/Environment | 10 |
| Arts / Culture | 10 |
| Children | 9 |
| Religious Missionary | 8 |
| Animal Protection/Rescue | 7 |
| General Social Welfare | 7 |
| Disability | 5 |
| Religious International | 4 |
Based on matched samples for 2002 and 2003, arts and cultural organisations enjoyed the largest real-terms growth in voluntary income at 37%. They were followed by UK hospices at 28%, heritage and the environment third at 23%, and animal protection/rescue fourth at 19%.
Charity Trends 25th Edition is a comprehensive analysis of the resources and expenditure of the UK’s voluntary sector. It includes the five year growth trends in the income and expenditure of the top 500 fundraising charities; financial information on the top 500 corporate donors and grant-makers; and charts the growth in the top charities’ income over the last 25 years.
It is published by CaritasData Ltd priced £270 or £135 for charities.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.