Raising and spending money

Find out about the main ways charities get money, and answers to your questions about how they spend that money

Charities in the UK raise and spend over £40bn every year. In this section we answer questions about where charities get money from, and about how they spend that money.

Raising money

Many charities can only make the difference they do thanks to your donations, whether that’s putting money in a collecting tin, setting up a direct debit, or leaving a gift in your will.

As well as fundraising from the public, charities also get money in several other ways. The amount of money they get from different places will vary between charities.

In recent years, many charities have been trying to earn a larger proportion of their income from businesses they’ve set up. This money helps make the donations they get from the public go further and helps the charity to be sustainable in the long run, even if fundraising or money from other sources goes down.

Spending money

Charities always try to spend money as carefully as possible so that they can make the biggest difference possible with their limited resources. Like any organisation, there are always some unavoidable costs that they have to manage. People often ask about staff costs, senior salaries and overheads.