Donation & Legacy Income
Last Updated_ September 2025
‘Donations & Legacy ‘ income reported by charity
This chart shows the value of ‘Donations & Legacy’ reported by each charity. While we have the majority of values for more recent years, values for 2010 and 2015 have only been sourced for some of the charities.
You can select different charities by using the drop down at the top of the chart.
‘Donations & Legacy ‘ income overtime
By using a consistent ‘basket’ of 33 development & humanitarian charities, for who we have data for each of the years covered, it enables us to get a clearer picture of the change in the cumulative amount reported overtime.
Each of the bands represents one of the ‘basket’ charities, and the name & value can be seen by hovering your cursor over the bands.
We can see that from 2019 there is a slight drop before a significant increase in 2021/22 – however this has been followed by successive decreases.
How do development & humanitarian charities compare with a ‘basket’ of some of the UK’s much loved charities.
To make the comparison we created a basket of 10 charities that rank highly in the YouGov tracker of charity popularity. The names of these charities are shown below in the notes.
It’s worth noting that while the charities within the ‘development’ basket have a wide range of donation & legacy income values, the charities in the ‘most loved’ basket all tend to be larger in size, hence not making the comparison a true ‘like for like’.
The picture the chart paints is that while the cumulative value of the ‘donation & legacy’ income from our development charities has increased by 3.4%, a relatively small amount since 2019/20, the ‘much loved’ charities ‘donation & legacy ‘ income has increased by 14%.
Comparing Year on Year change.
Below we can see how the cumulative value of ‘Donation & Legacy’ income changes in percentage terms from the previous year, using 2019/20 as the initial year.
We see that for the development charities, 2021/22 was the only period of income growth, sandwiched between years of income decline. In contrast, the ‘much loved’ charities saw a slight drop in 2020/21 but then three years of income growth.
Comparing change between development and ‘much loved’ charities at an organisational level.
In the two charts below each dot represents a single charity, grouped by whether they are part of our basket of development & humanitarian charities, or our basket of chosen ‘much loved’ charities. The values represent the percentage change in the ‘donation & legacy’ income each charity enjoyed between 2019/20 to 23/24, and 2022/23 to 23/24.
We see that for both time periods the median growth rate for the ‘much loved’ charities is higher than the median growth rate for the basket of development an& humanitarian charities.
Have larger charities grown at a higher rate?
In the charts above we compared the growth rate in ‘Donation & Legacy’ income between our two charity baskets and saw that the ‘much loved’ charities outgrew our development & humanitarian charities. We know that the much loved charities are typically larger charities (hence their popularity), which raises the question is their collective median growth due to their range of categories (health, conservation, animal welfare etc), or does size play a role?
The UK development & humanitarian charities have been split into three bands, with Band 1 for those whose donation and legacy income in 2019/20 was under £10million, Band 2 for those between £10 to £50million, and Band 3 >£50million.
We see that for both time periods those charities in Band 1 (the smallest) enjoyed a greater percentage growth than both Band 2 and Band 3.
Comparing the change in ‘Donations & Legacy ‘ income overtime
The chart below shows the percentage growth rate for the donation & legacy income for each of the selected development & humanitarian charities. You can see the growth rate for each charity across four time frames to 2023/24.
You’ll see that the list of charities for the time frames 2015 and 2010 is reduced because we were unable to source the data for many charities from 2010 – OR in some cases, the income classification differed from ‘Donations & Legacies’ pre-2015.
Proportion of total income from donations & legacies
The chart looks at the proportion for each charity of their Total Gross Income which is attributed as ‘Donation & Legacy’ income.
Clearly there is a wide range of proportions and despite some indication that larger charities have a higher proportion any correlation is weak.
How has ‘share of market’ changed over time?
While we’re unable to calculate the total value of Donation & Legacy income from ALL UK charities classified as Development or Humanitarian, we can look at what share each of our selected charities enjoy among the cumulative value of the selected charities.
The chart to the right looks at how each charity’s share of the combined value in that year, changes over time.
Raising funds
Below are charts that report on the expenditure for a specific period of time for the purpose of Raising Funds. This is typically (but not always) reported in such a way to reflect the amount spent in relation to Donations & Legacy income.
The charts below report the Raising Funds expenditure in two ways, either as the actual sum of expenditure, or as a ratio of the reported Donations & Legacy income within the same financial period – e.g. Value of donations & legacy income divided by the Raising Funds expenditure.
Expenditure on Raising funds over time by organisation
The chart to the right looks at the reported expenditure on Raising Funds over time for the selected organisations.
Raising funds ratio over time by organisation
The chart to the right looks at the Raising Funds ratio over time for the selected organisations. We’ve also included the median value over time of the ten ‘much loved’ charities we selected to provide a comparison to the Development & Humanitarian charities.
Comparing Raising Funds ratios over time
The chart below directly compares the Raising Funds ratio for our selected UK Development and Humanitarian. By using the drop down you are able to change the year of comparison.
You’ll also see that one column is in red, this is the median value for the Raising Funds ratio from the ten charities we selected to be in our ‘much loved’ charities basket
Do larger organisations enjoy higher Raising Funds ratios?
The final chart in the Raising Funds section asks whether larger organisations typically enjoy higher ratios than smaller organisations – the size based on the Donations & Legacy Income in 2019/20.
The evidence is inconclusive as while we see that charities in band 1 (the smallest) have the lowest median value of 1.77, we also see that the median value for Band 2 is higher than both Band 3 charities and the median for the 10 ‘much loved’ charities.
Where next?
Interested in In-depth Insights?
Our annual INDIGO benchmarking study provides insights to a whole new level, offering a unique opportunity for you to get in-depth data into supporter behaviours and compare your performance with similar charitiess in your market.
- What are key individual giving trends in the market?
- What channel recruitment strategies are organisations pursuing?
- How are supporter profiles changing over time?
- What levels of donor retention are being achieved?
- What is happening with single giving and conversion to Regular Giving?
- How does attrition differ across markets by channel?
Notes.
- ‘Donations & Legacy Income’ is the consistent term used with Annual Financial reports to classify what may be termed ’cause related’ income, as opposed to Trading income, income from Charitable Activities, Government grants etc. Typically income from sales of charity ‘gaming’ products is classified as Trading income.
- The charities within the ‘much loved’ basket are:
- Alzheimer’s Research UK
- British Heart Foundation
- Cancer Research UK
- Great Ormond Street Hospital
- Macmillan Cancer Support
- MIND
- The National Trust
- NSPCC
- RNLI
- The Guide Dogs for the Blind