Best value charities to donate to

Most of us would agree that many charities do good work, but which are the best value charities to give your money to? In other words, which are the ones that spend the least on admin fees and the most on the actual work?

The public have been left confused for some time now about whether the charities they donate to are doing enough or too little, how much money they are spending on overheads and administration costs, and whether they are paying third parties to increase their cash streams.

how charities spend their money

How charities spend their money is not often clear.

Of course, one organisation might have greater need to spend money on raising awareness than others, depending on how important the public believe their particular cause is.

Clearly cancer charities are going to have a higher profile – and a potentially easier job of raising funds – than a donkey sanctuary.

You would hope that 100% of the money you donate goes to the actual cause you are trying to help. But then, these charities often have people working for them who need to be paid, offices that they work from, admin costs and other things they need to spend money on.

The question is, are these costs reasonable, or could they be much lower?

the biggest charities in the UK

Here is a list of how much money, per £1 raised, goes directly to causes that some of the biggest charities represent:

• Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital – 80p
• Save the Children – 88p
• Cancer Research – 80p
• Barnardo’s – 82p

which are the best value charities to donate to?

There are 180,000 registered charities in the UK but 60% of all donations go to just 500 charities.

While they are all noble causes we at MoneyMagpie believe that it would be good for charities that do the most good to get more exposure.

So, we’ve put together a list of worthwhile charities. Many of these charities may not be familiar to most people, but based on research of the figures available, they represent good value for the money based on how much money goes towards the cause.

 Animals

• Margaret Green Animal Rescue – 98%
• Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust – 92%
• Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens – 97%

 Children

• Catch 22 – 90%
• Family Action – 94%
• Youth Access – 98%

The Elderly

• Elderly Accommodation Counsel – 97%
• Whiteley Homes Trust – 98%
• Guild Care – 91%

 Health and Disability

• Treloar Trust – 95%
• Cicely Saunders International – 97%
• Oncore UK – 99%

Any of the charities above will use your money on the good work itself, rather than the cost of employees, offices and the like.

make your money work harder

Remember that you can give even more money, without it costing you anything, by making sure you tick the ‘Gift Aid’ box when you make a donation.

Even better, you can add Gift Aid when you donate things to your local charity shop. This means that on top of the money they get from selling your stuff, they also get the tax you would have paid on that amount.

Of course, giving stuff to charity shops is a fantastic way of giving to charity anyway – with or without Gift Aid. It’s a great way to recycle stuff, keep it from landfill, enable people in your locality to buy things cheaply and the charity gets to make money out of it too. It’s a total win-win as you can see here.

Also, find out here how to make money from buying things in charity shops!

Remember for this year’s Clear Your Clutter campaign we’re working with Action For Children to organise clothes swaps and sales across the country, find out how to get involved.

What do you think about giving to charity? 

Do you get angry at the idea of charities spending more than 10% of their income on admin? 

Are there any charities you donate to that use almost 100% of their income in the right way? Tell us about it below.