Charity Shops Beating the Recession

Neil Irwin
1 September 2009 - 8:17am
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Tagged as:

• Funding

While the gross income of the 5,035 charity shops in the sample fell by 3.1 per cent to £526.1m, their costs fell even further, by 4.9 per cent to £414.6m, leaving a collective profit of £111.5m.

Charity shops have now increased their profits for four years running, and in eight of the last 11.

Property costs as a proportion of total income have stabilised, rising marginally to 19.2 per cent from 19.1 per cent, while staff costs as a proportion of total income fell to 30.5 per cent from 31.9 per cent.

Oxfam continues to make the most money from charity shops, despite a slight fall in its profits of 0.3 per cent to just over £21m.

Cancer Research UK, British Heart Foundation and Salvation Army all increased their profits to close the gap in second, third and fourth places respectively.

The biggest percentage profit increase was shown by Scope, which was up by 168 per cent, taking it to number 20 in the profit ranking with a surplus of £772,000.

Survey author Diane Sim said: "UK charity shops have survived the UK recession and many are thriving, benefiting from increased consumer demand, affordable rents, a strong supply of volunteers, new retailing concepts and the new income stream afforded by gift aid.

"The key challenge facing charity shops will be to fend off strong competition for quality donated goods."

Significantly, the number of charities claiming gift aid on items sold has more than doubled from 16 per cent to 33 per cent, raising a total of £6.6m.

High profile charities claiming gift aid on donated items include British Heart Foundation, Sue Ryder Care, Barnardo's, PDSA, Sense and Shelter.

For further information and comment please contact: Diane Sim, survey author, on 0779 637 6058 or dj.sim@btinternet.com

or Gareth Jones / Daniel Phelan at Charity Finance on 020 7819 1200 or gareth@charityfinance.co.uk or daniel@charityfinance.co.uk

Copies of the Charity Shops Survey 2009 can be purchased at www.charityfinance.co.uk/shops2009 at a cost of £74.75 including VAT.