How charities spend their money remains a key concern for current and potential donors. In this report we examine how a selected sample of UK charities present their key financial information to the general public, exploring both the content and form of this information. We find that it is clear charities are working hard to demonstrate how much they are achieving through the income they raise and how efficiently this is being done. However, there are a number of recurrent issues that are worth highlighting: 

Sarah Nathan & Peter Dawson

The charity sector in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland entered 2025 facing significant financial pressure. Rising costs, increased demand for services, and uncertainty around long-term funding have created a climate of anxiety. Yet, despite these challenges, there are clear reasons for optimism, with promising trends in giving, public sentiment, and government collaboration offering a brighter outlook.

Pressures Facing the Sector

There has been considerable change in the lottery sector over the last decade, with various reforms to the sector and strong growth among large Charity Lotteries. Whilst seeing strong overall growth, the National Lottery has seen some dips in its sales and returns made to good causes. Various consultations and inquiries have discussed potential explanations for this, including, changes in the mechanisms of ticket prices, the odds of winning, and the possibility that competition from Charity Lotteries may be a threat to the National Lottery.

This week's blog summarises the findings of our new report, 'Show me the money!', which examines the ways that charities present their financial information to the public. 

The general public largely supports charities’ campaigning, with higher support from younger people. Read more about this in our blog this week.

Our new report with the People's Postcode Lottery highlights how fundraising limits affect charity lotteries- and ultimately hurt smaller charities. It explores the fundraising environment for small charities, examines charity lottery regulation and its impacts, as well as analysing attitudes toward charity lottery limits among MPs and the general public.

Some key figures:

Joe Saxton is talking to WCVA’s conference gofod³ on March 21 in Cardiff, and the thrust of his talk is simple: It’s time to have a separate Welsh charity regulator.

Mae Joe Saxton yn siarad yng nghynhadledd gofod³ Cyngor Gweithredu Gwirfoddol Cymru yng Nghaerdydd ar 21 Mawrth, ac mae prif neges ei sgwrs yn un syml: mae'n hen bryd i gael rheoleiddiwr elusennau yng Nghymru i Gymru.

Our latest blog explores the public and MPs opinions on charity lottery regulation.

We're pleased to release our latest findings on the public and MPs attitudes towards charity lottery regulation from Autumn 2018. 

Key findings of the report are: