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How we raise our funds

Fundraising continues to be Age UK’s biggest source of net income. It’s the generosity of our supporters that powers the work we do with older people to change how we age .

Read our annual report (PDF, 6 MB)

Through fundraising we raised £66.8 million

Thank you to every individual, group, company and grant-giver who gave to Age UK – you are a change-maker.

How we raise money

We generate our funds through lots of different activities, which means we’re not overly-reliant on one source. It also means our supporters can choose how they want to help us change how we age. In 2024/25:

  • legacies were our biggest source of fundraising income, raising £25.8 million. We encourage everyone to consider leaving a gift to Age UK in their wills to build a better world for all older people today and in future years.
  • we raised £10.9 million from regular gifts and one-off donations. Pledging a regular gift to Age UK every month is an easy way to help us sustain our vital work – we can also keep you updated on the impact you’re enabling for older people.
  • more than 70,000 incredible heroes took part in a whole range of sports and challenge events and organised events in their own communities to raise funds for Age UK.
  • our corporate partners provided invaluable support, including Omaze who raised a record-breaking £5.25 million for Age UK from their Christmas House Draw. Partnering with Age UK offers great ways for businesses to inspire and engage staff and customers of all ages.
  • charitable trusts, philanthropists and grant givers donated generously in our UK work and also the work of our sister charity Age International. Many also made multi-year pledges which really help us plan for the impact we can deliver in future years.

Find out how you can get involved

Our trading activity also generated £7.3 million net income to help power our charitable work

Everyone who shopped in, or donated to, 270 our charity shops, played out lotteries or raffles or bought an insurance or independent living product from Age UK’s Trading Subsidiary Age Co – you are change-makers too!

How we spend money

We spent £68.0 million on charitable activities in 2024/25. This included: 

  • working shoulder to shoulder with older people to transform public attitudes, through campaigns such as Act Now, Age Better
  • using our collective influence and expertise to tackle poverty and reduce inequalities, including successfully campaigning to restore the Winter Fuel Payment, putting £1.5 billion back in pensioners’ pockets 
  • ensuring older people’s health and social care needs are recognised and fully met, such as providing over 5.3 million minutes of friendship calls through our Telephone Friendship Service
  • working as a strong network and partner, to deliver impactful services, like answering 220,263 enquiries to the Age UK Advice Line
  • inspiring our colleagues, volunteers, donors, supporters and local and national partners to drive forward our mission, such as when we launched our 'Let's change how we age' films generating over 1.8 million impressions across social media.

Learn more about what we do

How we do our fundraising

Our aim is to raise funds in the most effective way. Our Fundraising Charter reflects our commitment to high ethical standards and practices.

Ensuring positive fundraising

We work to ensure that engaging with Age UK is a positive experience, and all our donors and fundraisers are treated with respect, fairness, honesty, and clarity. Age UK is regulated by the Fundraising Regulator and complies with the Code of Fundraising Practice and the Fundraising Promise. We have had no Fundraising regulatory investigations or rulings during the last year. We also communicate and collaborate with the wider fundraising community and several professional bodies to encourage and promote the highest standard of fundraising practices across the sector.

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Fundraising through third parties

We deliver our fundraising activities both in-house and via specialist third-party agencies if required including, but not limited to, fulfilment services, media agencies, creative agencies, face-to-face fundraisers and call centres. Age UK only works with organisations that align with our values. Contracts are in place with all our third-party agencies, and we require strict adherence to applicable laws. We monitor our third-party agencies regularly. Age UK has used third-party fundraising agencies this year to deliver face-to-face regular giving recruitment at private sites and for inbound telephone responses to our adverts and appeals. We did not carry out any outbound telemarketing within this financial year.

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How we monitor fundraising

Age UK uses a variety of fundraising channels to engage our diverse range of supporters to and provide updates on the impact of their donations. We also gratefully receive donations of clothes and goods to our shops. All fundraising activity is subject to approval processes that are supported by our Fundraising Compliance Manager and Legal Team. Our third-party fundraisers are monitored by call listening, mystery shopping and site observations. The performance of fundraising campaigns and our third-party suppliers is regularly reviewed and is overseen by a quality and compliance assurance process. We consistently seek feedback from supporters and internal and external stakeholders to deliver a high standard of performance and compliance.

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Protecting the privacy and data of our supporters

We remain committed to protecting and respecting the privacy of our supporters. We continue to work closely with partners across the Age UK network to ensure that all individuals’ data is captured, stored, and used compliantly and with the utmost care. Privacy by design, and the best interests of those we serve, are at the heart of this work. We have focused on strengthening the existing collaboration and processes with our suppliers and agencies in respect of personal data. We have continued to adjust our privacy policy to better reflect the nature, scope, context, and purposes of processing that the organisation undertakes. The full version of our privacy policy can be found here.

In March 2025, one of our suppliers lost a quantity of paper forms containing personal data which was destroyed in transit to another supplier. Around 1,500 supporters were impacted. All supporters affected were informed as were the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and other regulators for the breach of the Data Protection Act 2018. The supplier no longer holds any data for Age UK. Our procedures for physical data transfer have been reviewed and strengthened. Age UK is committed to the security of our supporters’ personal data. Learning from this incident has informed further improvements to ensure the protection of data processed or held by third party suppliers. 

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Addressing people's concerns

During 2024/25, we received 369 complaints regarding our fundraising activity (excluding lotteries and raffles which is now accounted for under ‘trading’). This was a small percentage of the 100,000 people who supported Age UK’s fundraising throughout the year. This represents an increase of 57 complaints compared to the previous year. This total includes 77 interactions from concerned donors following a printing error on Gift Aid confirmation letters in November 2024. We acted swiftly to address the issue and communicate with those affected. We take all feedback seriously and welcome complaints as an opportunity to improve. Every comment helps shape the way we fundraise and ensures we maintain the trust and support of our donors.

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Protecting vulnerable people

Our policy on fundraising with people in vulnerable circumstances is followed by all our fundraisers. Our Fundraising Compliance Manager reviews key fundraising materials, third party and practices and provides ongoing training to our fundraisers, and third parties who are fundraising on our behalf, to ensure protecting vulnerable people is a priority across all activities front of mind across all activities. In addition, we incorporate the Chartered Institute of Fundraising’s 'Treating donors fairly' guidance into our fundraising. 

 

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Discover the impact we've made together

Learn more about what we achieved in 2024/25, thanks to our supporters, in our annual report.

Read the report (PDF, 6 MB) See past reports

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