Top 10 fundraising charities in 2002-03
Howard Lake | 7 July 2004 | News
The latest edition of Charity Trends lists the most successful fundraising charities in the UK.
Charity Trends 2004 features analysis of the income and expenditure of the top 500 charities. The top 10 fundraising charities by total voluntary income in 2002-03 were:
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voluntary
income
ranking in ranking £000
2001-02 in
Charity 2002-03
Cancer Research UK 1 1 243,541
The National Trust 3 2 160,583
Oxfam 2 3 131,126
British Heart Foundation 5 4 112,015
Royal National Lifeboat 4 5 95,600
Institution
Salvation Army 6 6 90,064
NSPCC 7 7 79,459
Comic Relief 15 8 73,735
Macmillan Cancer Relief 9 9 71,070
RSPCA 10 10 68,159
Last year, the UK’s top 500 fundraising charities generated a total income of £8.6 billion according to research out today. Of this, £4.6 billion (53%) was from voluntary sources.
The top 500 spent £8.1 billion, a rise in real terms of 10% on the previous year. Eight four per cent (£6.7 billion) went on direct charitable expenditure, up by 11% on the previous year; 9% on fundraising, up by 8%; and 3% on trading, which grew by 7% on 2001-02.
This year 250 new charities have entered the top 500, with even the lowest charity in the table attracting a voluntary income of around £2 million.
Between 2002-03, the single largest source of income to the top 500 charities was donations and grants at 31%, followed by trading fees and contracts at 21%, grants from public bodies at 15%, and legacies at 13%. While income from rent and investments represented 9% of total income, its value actually fell in real terms by 3%.
Overall, voluntary income to the top 500 saw a large swing from the decline experienced in 2001-02, rising by 7.5% in real terms. Of this, income from donations and fundraising rose by 10% and 16% respectively, returning to the high levels of growth of the millennium. Legacy growth, however, slowed to 3%.
‘Charity Trends’ 25th Edition is published by CaritasData Ltd priced £270 or £135 for charities.
www.caritasdata.co.uk
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.