Charities spend £1,500 per second improving lives

More than £1,500 is spent every second on charitable services in England and Wales, according to new analysis published today. Every day, charities spend £136.4 million – equivalent to £1,578 per second – improving lives and helping communities. ACEVO, the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), the Institute of Fundraising and CharityComms today publish a report, called ‘Charity Today’ aimed at giving people a better understanding of the role charities play in public life. The report also gives an insight into how they operate and how they are changing. There are more than 160,000 charities in England and Wales. The largest 6% of these alone spend £49.8 billion a year on delivering services and supporting causes. Much of this is only possible due to the generosity of public donations, and charities’ trading activity. Around 2.29 billion hours each year are given by volunteers and more than 4 in 5 people (83%) have benefited from charity services in the past year. The report comes after Prime Minister Theresa May outlined a vision for a ‘Shared Society’ in a speech given to the Charity Commission last month. Charity leaders are urging government to work with charities to deliver it. To coincide with the release of Charity Today, charities will be in the spotlight across local and national BBC radio today. Follow the online conversations via the hashtag #CharityToday on Twitter.