Research into public trust in charities and research with charity trustees 2025
Annual Charity Commission research on public trust in charities and what trustees think about their role and their regulator.
Applies to England and Wales
Documents
Details
Public trust headlines
Trust in charities remains high. Almost 60% of people have high trust in charities, which continue to be the second most trusted of the social institutions we benchmark against.
Of the factors that influence public trust, this year more people say that charities they know about are maximising spend on the end cause (up 7% to 64%), making a real difference (70%) and operating to high ethical standards (66%, a 5% increase on 2024).
General awareness of the Charity Commission is stable at 49%; claimed in-depth knowledge, and a positive view of the Commission have increased; recent high-profile investigations have shown the Commission in a positive light; the research also shows that regulation is important to people’s trust in charities.
The proportion of people receiving direct help from charities has continued to grow, now 9%; the proportion giving to charity is level with 2024.
Trustee research headlines
This year, more trustees stated they were confident about dealing with conflicts of interest and managing finances, though no associated improvement in knowledge is evidenced in the research when we test it.
We have the survey question about use of Charity Commission advice and guidance. Consequently, 46% of trustees said they accessed guidance from us in some way, a much bigger proportion than we had previously understood.
Over time, fewer of those trustees who don’t use our guidance have said “I didn’t know the Commission produced guidance”, dropping from 20% of them in 2021 to 12% this year (the main reason trustees give for not using our guidance more is that they don’t need to).
38% of trustees say their charity encountered a banking issue in the last year, showing some improvement on last year but still room for improvement
Three quarters of trustees who had contact with the Charity Commission say we treated them fairly; only 2% said unfairly. Trustees think the Commission is getting the balance right in terms of dealing with wrongdoing and giving supportive advice and guidance.
Trustee segmentation profiles
The Charity Commission asked BMG to develop an audience segmentation of charity trustees, to see if this would provide new insights and enable the Commission to communicate with different groups of trustees in a more effective and targeted way.
BMG developed a segmentation based on trustees’ responses to questions on their confidence, experience, and knowledge of their role and responsibilities. This identified four distinct groups amongst trustees. The Commission will consider further how this can improve its communications with trustees.
About the reports
This research was conducted on behalf of the Charity Commission by our research partner, BMG.
The research was conducted in Spring 2025.