The report from the Fundraising Regulator also shows that overall public trust in UK charities has fallen since 2023, but donors’ actual experience of supporting charities remains largely positive.

The organisation surveyed 3,018 adults across the UK — including Scotland, which has its own, separate regulator — in May 2026, and compared results with a previous December 2023 poll.

In 2023, 42% of respondents said they trusted local charities to deliver on their promises. This dropped to 34% in 2026, although they remain the second most trusted group (behind health professionals, at 46%).

For national charities, the figure dropped from 32% to 27%. For national government, it is now just 11%.

Fundraising experience: positive overall

However, trust in “people who ask you to donate money or goods to a charity” — which was the exact wording of the question — has remained stable. In both 2023 and 2026, just 16% said they did not trust fundraisers.

In addition, the experience of those who do donate to charities — around 85% of respondents in both 2023 and 2026 — remains largely positive.

In 2026, 23% called it ‘very positive’ and 41% called it ‘somewhat positive’, which are almost identical figures to 2023, although the report notes that the methodology means they are not completely comparable.

In both years, 29% answered ‘equally positive and negative’.

Method by method

The report also looks at peoples’ levels of comfort with different fundraising methods.

The most acceptable fundraising method was donation of goods — 81% of people said they were ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ comfortable, followed by sponsorship of individuals (68%), charity bags (65%) and charitable lotteries (64%).

At the other end, 28% were okay with door-to-door fundraising, 29% with telephone fundraising, 38% with text donations and 43% with tap to donate.

However, since 2023 comfort with online fundraising platforms has decreased from 60% to 52%, whereas it has increased for door-to-door fundraising (from 20% to 28%) and public fundraising (43% to 47%).

The report also shows significant differences between age groups — younger people are much more likely to be comfortable with both door-to-door and public fundraising. Donation of goods is the only category in which those aged 65+ are more comfortable than those aged 16-24.

Many make no checks

Asked what checks they made before making a donation, 32% said they did not make any. This rises to 53% of over-65s, but is lower than 20% for both 16–24s and 25–34s.

Meanwhile, 25% said they would look at the charity’s website, 21% would do some research on the cause area, and 18% would ask friends or family.

A less popular answer is looking for the Fundraising Regulator’s badge at 11%. However, 45% said in response to a separate question that they’d be more likely to donate to a charity displaying this badge.

Elsewhere, the research says that only 17% of respondents remembered seeing the regulator’s Fundraising Badge in the past year, while 47% said they had never heard of the Fundraising Regulator.

Paul Winyard, head of policy at the Fundraising Regulator, says that there are several positive findings for charities, and comments:

“Charities must continue to invest in strong oversight, effective training and responsible fundraising practices so the public can give with confidence and charities can continue to thrive.”

OSCR’s report also looks at the average income and expenditure breakdown of charities with an income of £250,000-plus — the level at which this detail is required by the regulator.

These charities get 63.1% of income from charitable activities (such as delivering contracts or services), 18.1% from trading activities (such as retail, merchandise or admission fees for museums), 13.4% from donations and legacies, and the remaining 5.3% from ‘other’ sources.

Looking at their outgoings, 83% of expenditure is on charitable activities, 7.6% is on raising funds, and 9.4% on ‘other expenditure’.

Cross-border comparison

These figures are broadly in line with the 5% to 12% which Dutch charities spend on raising funds, as highlighted in a Fundraising Europe story in December — although these figures are not directly comparable given differences in how each regulator defines and reports fundraising and overhead costs.

The above figures also relate only to charities registered solely in Scotland. In addition to these 23,640 charities, a further 1,306 ‘cross-border charities’ are registered with OSCR. These are charities also registered with another regulator, generally the Charity Commission for England and Wales (CCEW).

The Scottish charities have an average income of £794,000, while for the cross-border charities it is a far larger £15.2m. This reflects the cross-border charities being generally high-profile organisations operating across the UK and sometimes internationally — and OSCR estimates that roughly a tenth of cross-border charities’ money might be spent in Scotland.

The majority of Scottish charities are far smaller — around seven in ten charities have an income of less than £100,000, and 26% have an income under £5,000. Two-thirds (69%) have no paid staff, and less than a tenth have more than 10 staff.

Nearly half of the £18.76bn total income of Scottish charities is from 18 universities (31.2%) and 149 registered social landlords (14.3%).

Charities per population

Scotland’s population is 5.6m, giving it 4.3 registered charities (excluding cross-border charities) per 1,000 people.

The same 4.3 figure is true of Northern Ireland, with 8,337 charities registered with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile in England and Wales, the figure is much lower at 2.8 per 1,000 population, based on CCEW’s figure of 171,613 charities.

OSCR’s report also looks at the average size of charity boards. Among Scottish charities, the mean average number of trustees is seven, and the median is five. Cross-border charities have both a mean and median of nine trustees, reflecting their generally larger size.

In April, Fundraising Europe reported on separate research into Scotland’s grantmaking foundations, which found they hold almost £4bn (€4.7bn) in net funds.

The researcher behind the report, Giulia Togna from Milan’s Università Bocconi, says she hopes it will support philanthropic organisations to adopt AI “in a way that is informed, responsible, and consistent with its potential transformative role”.

Togna’s research was commissioned by Italian philanthropy sector body Assifero, and is based on responses from 33 members of the organisation in late 2025 and early 2026.

Experimentation without strategy

It shows that 88% of the 33 are using AI, but only eight have an internal policy on AI use, and only one organisation has reached what Togna termed “strategic adoption”.

The other organisations in the study were evenly split between “explorative adoption” and “structured adoption”, with larger organisations more likely to be in the latter, more advanced phase than smaller ones.

The research said that the organisations most likely to be in the structured adoption stage were corporate foundations. Togna says that sharing the infrastructure and skills of their corporate patron was one likely reason for this.

Between half and two thirds of respondents are already using AI for research and analysis, and production of written content or communications.

In addition, many respondents saw the prospect of it being used for reporting, strategy, monitoring and impact measurement in future — although only one or two respondents are currently doing this.

Skills gaps the biggest barrier

Asked about the barriers to further adoption of AI, the most common responses were:

• Internal skills gap (58% of respondents)
• The lack of a strategic vision for the implementation of AI (45%)
• Concerns of diluting the organisation’s human touch (38%)
• Resource concerns (35%)

In her conclusion, Togna says that Assifero could support the uptake of AI within philanthropic organisations by “fostering spaces for peer learning, critical dialogue, and the exchange of diverse experiences, thereby helping to drive change processes aligned with the values ​​and unique characteristics of the philanthropic sector”. She ends:

“This study represents a first step in that direction: a starting point for ongoing reflection — conducted alongside foundations and philanthropic entities — on how to guide the adoption of AI in a manner that is informed, responsible, and consistent with its potential to drive transformation.”

Fundraising Europe readers will recognise the pattern of AI already being implemented, but in an unplanned manner. The same picture was clear in two recent reports — one published by France générosités ​in June 2026, and another by tech supplier Blackbaud, focusing on UK charities.

The report is the latest edition of a biennial research project by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam’s Centrum voor Filantropische Studies, and includes data from a number of different surveys.

2024’s giving represents 0.54% of the country’s GDP, which is the lowest figure the report has seen — it was as high as 1% in 1999 and 1.1% in 2003, but dropped below 0.7% for the first time in 2022: to 0.58%.

43% of 2024’s donations came from households, 30% from corporations, 12% from lotteries, 9% from bequests and 6% from foundations. Donations from households grew from €2.2bn in 2022 to €2.4bn, and while the number of households donating dropped, from 83% to 76%, average donations grew by €58 to €415.

However, the report notes a sharp decline in giving to charity after receiving a specific request — 81% of households gave following an ask in 2006, tumbling to 34% in 2025.

The number of requests that fundraisers make is also declining — 60% of households received a request in 2006, but just 41% in 2025.

Corporate giving increases slightly

The report also reveals that while 61% of businesses gave to charity in 2020, this dropped to 39% in 2022, but recovered slightly to 44% in 2024. Total corporate giving in 2024 was €1.7bn.

Legacy momentum

In the last two decades, the sector’s legacy income has grown by an average of 4% each year. It has been accelerating recently — growth has been 8% per year since 2018, and reached 13% between 2022 and 2024.

A press release on the report says:

“The growth in legacies suggests that the long-predicted ‘Golden Age of philanthropy’ is drawing closer. At the same time, this form of giving is also highly dependent on a relatively small group of people, mainly from the oldest generation, who have also contributed the most during their lifetime.”

The report, Staten, kapitalet eller medborgaren – vem finansierar civilsamhället? (The state, capital or the citizen – who funds civil society?), is the twelfth in an annual series.

It was launched at Almedalen, Sweden’s annual cross-party political festival, by Charlotte Rydh, secretary general of EFA member Giva Sverige. The report was co-produced by Giva Sverige and six other civil society organisations: Fremia, Ideell Arena, Ideell Kulturallians, Ideella Sverige, Studieförbunden i samverkan and Sveriges Föreningar.

It shows that around 80% of funding for the sector comes from private sources such as membership fees, donations, corporate giving, foundations and investments.

This figure rises further to 84% (up from 82% in 2017) once two specific sectors — education and research, and unemployment funds — are removed. The report says these areas account for nearly two-thirds of public funding to the nonprofit sector, and notes that while some of them do receive most of their funding from government, this is far from true of the vast majority of Swedish nonprofits.

Rydh comments:

“There’s a perception in the public debate that civil society is mainly dependent on public funding. It’s important for many organisations, but it’s only part of the financing.”

The report also notes that state support to civil society organisations, excluding unemployment funds, is at its lowest level in real terms in a decade.

The short version of the report ends with four conclusions and recommendations.

1. Being mainly privately financed “entails both risks and opportunities” for the civil society sector. One risk is that it becomes harder for less affluent groups to participate in their work, and another is that organisations’ activities are overly influenced by the demands or interests of donors.
2. Demographic change is reshaping resources and activity, with the 6–20 age group due to shrink by 230,000 (out of a total population of less than 11m) in the next decade, while the number of those aged 70+ will grow by nearly a fifth.
3. There is a growing number of nonprofit associations, but membership income is not increasing at the same level. Had membership fees remained the same proportion of disposable income as they were in 2013, the sector would have received around SEK13bn (€1.2bn) extra in 2024 alone.
4. State funding is shifting — it has fallen in areas like culture and international aid, but risen in areas like defence and criminal justice.

Earlier this year, Fundraising Europe shared findings from Giva Sverige research showing a growing gap between voters for the centre-right and nationalist parties in the country’s governing coalition, and supporters of opposition parties. Supporters of government parties were far less likely to give money to charity, it found.

This new forum has been created as part of the Commission’s new Strategy for Civil Society, which was announced in November 2025.

The Commission says that members of the Platform should be “independent, non-profit civil society organisations with proven experience in promoting and protecting democracy, the rule of law, equality, fundamental rights and civic space”.

Members should ideally operate in multiple member states, candidate countries or potential candidate countries, according to a Call for Expression of Interest document published on 6 July by the Commission — but those with a smaller footprint may still be considered. This document also explains:

“Members will contribute as a partner in shaping the Platform’s priorities, review progress and assess challenges related to civic space and EU values as well as identifying opportunities for support and protection. The Platform will enable exchanges of knowledge, good practices, and updates and on the progress of implementation of the Strategy for Civil Society, to ensure that dialogue leads to meaningful impact.”

Applicants, who will be appointed to the platform for three years, need to complete two application forms and provide a one-page cover letter.

Nonprofits will not be paid for participation in the platform, although travel expenses for one person per member may be paid, according to a Terms of Reference document.

Currently, gamblers can place bets on the outcome of the country’s state-licensed National Lottery at private bookmakers, rather than buying tickets for the lottery itself.

Because those bets are taken by private sector bookmakers, they do not contribute to the revenues of the Lottery, which has distributed more than €6.5bn to charities and good causes since it was established 39 years ago.

Research conducted for the National Lottery estimates that lottery betting takes €81m from charities each year, and links the practice to the loss of an estimated 1,929 jobs in the charity and retail sector, and €12.7m of government income.

Lottery betting is already banned in 25 of the 27 EU member states. The National Lottery is calling on the Irish government to follow suit.

Áine Myler, chief executive of EFA member CII, says:

“On behalf of our members and the wider sector, we support the National Lottery’s call to prohibit lottery betting in Ireland, as it diverts funding away from the causes the National Lottery is intended to support. CII has made numerous representations to government for this change to be implemented, and so we now urge the minister again to address this issue.”

The National Lottery’s recommendation is also supported by the Retail Grocery Dairy & Allied Trades Association.

As was also the case in the World Giving Report 2025, Europeans gave away less of their income to good causes than anyone else last year — 0.6%, compared with 1.6% in Africa, 1.2% in Asia, 0.8% in both North America and Oceania, and 0.7% in South America.

South America is also the continent where least people (50%) gave (by any means) to good causes in 2025, versus 57% in Europe, and slightly more than two-thirds in both Africa and Asia.

Ukraine the ‘belonging’ outlier

CAF says that around the world, 66% of people feel a strong sense of belonging to their local community — but the figure is below 50% for all of the 11 European nations in the survey.

People in 10 of those European countries all gave on average less than 1% of income to good causes in 2025. The outlier is Ukraine, with 1.2%. Meanwhile, people in countries with a higher sense of belonging gave on average 1.7% of their income.

CAF found that younger people are nearly twice as likely than older people to say that community plays a large role in their life, whether local, religious or online (54% of under-34s, versus 31% of over-55s).

Donors in higher income countries are also more likely to give to charities that work around the world than those in less wealthy states — and Norway and Sweden are the only countries in which more than half of donors give to global charities.

Government influence and impact stories

The report also says that people who see the impact of charities in their local area are more generous. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of people globally say that charities have had a fairly or very positive impact in their local community, rising to 75% in Africa. In Europe, almost half (48%) of people say that charities make no difference locally, or that it is impossible to tell what the impact is.

Those who see a positive impact donated three times more as a proportion of income supported twice as many causes, and gave to more charity types, CAF says.

Ashling Cashmore, head of impact at CAF, comments:

“Where we have seen charities tell impact stories that donors have really connected with, it has been easier to build the kind of trust and engagement that sets them up for longer-term success.”

CAF also asked people what they thought of their government’s support for a culture of giving — 40% globally agreed that their government encourages giving, rising to 55% in Asia and 51% in Africa.

In Africa, Europe, North America and South America, governments talking positively about charities was seen as the main way they encourage giving.

Meanwhile, Asian respondents said that good charity regulation was the top answer to how governments inspire giving, while tax incentives was the most common response in Oceania.

CAF was supported by a number of global partners in putting together the report, meaning there are deep-dives on many of the countries in the survey including Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany and Italy.

Charities Institute Ireland has announced Scott Kelley (pictured right) as its next CEO. Currently COO, Scott also sits on the EFA board as treasurer.  Scott will formally take up the role at the end of July, following a handover with Áine Myler.

Elsewhere, Association Française de Fundraisers, ISOBRO & Fundraising Norge have all appointed new chairs and presidents in recent weeks, while EFA associate member Philea has also chosen its new leadership.

Association Française de Fundraisers

The AFF has a pair of co-presidents for the first time in its history: Damien Cousin from international NGO CCFD-Terre Solidaire, and Véronique Desnoyers of Petits Frères des Pauvres, which supports people isolated in old age.

They succeed Jonathan Hude-Dufossé, who had served four years as president.

Fundraising Norge

Elin Tvedt of children’s charity Right to Play has been chosen as the chair of Fundraising Norge for 2026-27, a year after joining the board.

She takes over from Karl Magnus Rohde-Næss, who had held the role for the past three years.

ISOBRO

EFA’s Danish member ISOBRO said goodbye to its chair of five years Ann Leiskiko, as she was succeeded by vice-chair Ruben Holmgreen Falk of Kirkenes Integrations Tjeneste, a church charity working with refugees and immigrants.

ISOBRO’s board of directors consists of:

• Ruben Holmgreen Falk, chairman, Churches’ Integration Service
• Jane Kofod, Vice President, Danish Cyclists’ Association
• Tina Engberg, Animal Protection
• Merete Gotsæd Falkenstrøm, Save the Children 
• Lisbet Christoffersen, Children’s Terms
• Camilla Nissen Toftdal, The Osteoporosis Association 
• Katrine Lester, Danish Seniors

Philea

Philea members have elected a new board of directors for 2026-28. The board will be led by Liisa Suvikumpu of Säätiöt ja rahastot (the Association of Finnish Foundations) as president (photo: at podium), alongside Megan Challis from UK-headquartered health research funder the Wellcome Trust as vice-president (left of podium).

They succeed Àngel Font and Carola Carazzone respectively.

The new board comprises:

• Tomek Cholast: a crowdfunding practitioner, fintech expert, and entrepreneur with 20 years of experience. Co-founder of Zrzutka.pl and 4fund.com, he is in his element on the Internet and views technology as a tool for change.
• Anna Gryżewska: for whom NGOs are a passion and a major part of her professional life. She enthusiastically participates in the sector’s transition “from sweaters to suit jackets,” doing her best wherever she is needed.
• Aleksandra Marciniak: Press Officer, specialist in personal and organisational branding, a LinkedIn enthusiast, and a fanatic for work that truly matters. She specialises in fundraising communication.
• Miłka Szotek: a strategic optimist, ambassador of listening between the lines, and an enthusiast of discovering human potential. She believes that real fundraising starts with mindfulness, and that the strongest foundations are built on values and relationships.

Robert Kawałko remains at the head of the board. Twenty years ago, he was among 18 visionaries with a single dream: that a lack of money should never stand in the way of doing good. As president, he continues to be the guardian, promoter, and enthusiast of this vision.

The General Meeting of Members took place at the end of Fabryka Fundraisingu — an event that brought together 73 specialists in Allegro to discuss important, inspiring, and thought-provoking issues, and share their knowledge and experience.

Speakers included Maya Olszewska on the ethical certification system for NGOs, which will introduce a new quality mark, and Sylwia Kobayashi, who shared insights on how fundraisers can build relationships using empathy and the principles of Nonviolent Communication (NVC).

In expert circles led by Tomasz Chołast, discussions focused on attracting people to organisations, strengthening the brand, transitioning from a founder-led model to team management, and dealing with emotional overload and resource shortages.

The day also saw the presentation of diplomas to the graduates of the Professional Fundraiser Course CFR16 and the welcoming of new members. The icing on the cake was… a birthday cake to celebrate the association’s 20th anniversary.