How many charities? Fifteen thousand fewer
Howard Lake | 3 February 2009 | Blogs
How many charities are there? Far more than most people imagine. But while there are new charities being registered every week, other charities go out of business or close down.
And they do so not just because of the recession.
Courtesy of a Parliamentary question from David Evennett, Conservative MP for Bexleyheath & Crayford, we now know that 14,787 charities were removed from the Charity Commission‘s register, which covers England and Wales, for the three years from 2005 to 2008.
In answering the written question, minister for the third sector Kevin Brennan MP quoted from a letter from Andrew Hind, chief executive of the Charity Commission.
The Commission gave statistics for the removal of charities for four reasons:
* Ceased to exist or operate due to merger, incorporation or transfer of funds (total over three years: 4,753)
* Ceased to exist or operate for other reasons (total over three years: 9,305)
* Voluntary removal of charities below the minimum registration threshold (total over three years: 281)
* Duplicate registrations and other corrections (total over three years: 448)
So, given new charities were registered during that period, how many charities does that leave us with in England and Wales?
According to the Register of Charities, there are currently 166,081 main charities, and 22,980 subsidiary and group/constituent charities, making a total of 189,061 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.