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Key third sector statistics

Volunteering

• Half of all people volunteer, formally or informally, at least once a month.¹
• The number of people regularly volunteering in England and Wales rose from 18.4 million in 2001 to 20.4 million in 2005.²
• Formal volunteering³ in Great Britain is worth about £38 billion per year.⁴

Charitable giving

• In 2005, 78%, or about four in five, of the population had given money to charity in the previous four weeks, giving on average £15.⁵
• It is estimated that the UK adult population donated a total of £8.9 billion to charity in 2005/06, almost 1% of GDP.⁶

Social enterprise

Social enterprises are businesses set up to meet social or environmental goals, who mainly reinvest their profits into the business.

• The total turnover of social enterprises is estimated at £27 billion, or 1.3% of the total turnover of all businesses with employees. Their contribution to GDP is estimated to be £8.4 billion.⁷
• The Government created the Community Interest Company – the first new legal form of company for 100 years – for start-up social enterprises in 2005. Since then more than 1,000 have been created in less than two years.

Civic renewal (including civic activism, consultation and participation)

Action to bring about civic renewal covers a range of activity, and can include being involved in a group that makes decisions on local services (such as being a school governor), but it can also include taking part in surveys or signing petitions that aim to improve local services.

• In 2005, 47%, or almost half, of the population of England had carried out at least one form of civic renewal activity in the previous 12 months, and 7% had done so at least once a month in that time.⁸

Ethical consumerism

• The sale of Fairtrade-marked food in the UK grew by over 640% between 1999 and 2004, and in 2004 the ethical consumption market was worth £25.8 billion.⁹
• 62% of the UK population chose a particular product or service on the basis of the company's reputation for social and environmental responsibility in 2004. ¹⁰

A growing third sector

• In 2004/05, the UK's charity sector had a total income of about £27.6 billion, an increase of over £800 million from the previous year. This represents about 2% of the UK's GDP.¹¹
• The number of registered charities rose from around 120,000 in 1995 to more than 164,000 in 2005, and there are also hundreds of thousands of small community groups.¹²
• There are around 55,000 social enterprises, and indications that the numbers are rising.¹³
• Research in 2003/04 found that 56% of third sector organisations reported an increase in activity in the previous year, and 67% of them expected activity to grow in the next three years.¹⁴

Increasing Government support for the third sector

• Since 2004, the Government has invested more than £350 million in the capacity of the third sector to respond to people's needs through specific programmes.
• The Government has invested more than £100 million in youth volunteering.
• Over £18 million in investment has been set out to support and develop the social enterprise sector over the next three to four years.
• The Government has also invested in local community organisations, most recently though an £80 million fund to provide direct funding and a £30 million fund to enable local organisations to run underused local authority assets.
• Gift Aid is now worth around £750 million a year to charities, up from around £100 million in 1997.
• 99% of local authority areas are now covered by a Local Compact – an agreement between Government and the voluntary and community sector to improve their relationship for the benefit of the communities they serve.

Total public funding (from local and central government) reported by the voluntary and community sector has doubled from less than £5 billion in 1996/97 to more than £10 billion in 2004/05.¹⁵

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Notes

1. Communities and Local Government,  2005 Citizenship Survey: active communities topic report [PDF, external website], 2006
2. Home Office, Early findings from the 2005 Home Office Citizenship Survey [PDF, external website], 2005
3. ‘Formal volunteering’ means unpaid help given to groups, clubs or organisations to benefit others or the environment.
4. The figure must be treated as a broad estimate since such calculations are sensitive to the underlying assumptions. The calculation uses estimates of the hours spent on formal volunteering in combination with the size of the population and average (employee) wage, and uses information from the  2005 Citizenship Survey [PDF, external website], the 2006 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings [external website] and the Office of National Statistics [external website].
5. Communities and Local Government,  2005 Citizenship Survey: active communities topic report [PDF, external website], 2006
6. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Charities Aid Foundation, UK Giving 2005/06: Results of the 2005/06 survey of individual charitable giving in the UK [PDF, external website], 2006
7. DTI research cited in the Cabinet Office's Social enterprise action plan: scaling new heights, 2006
8. Communities and Local Government,  2005 Citizenship Survey: active communities topic report [PDF, external website], 2006
9. The Co-operative Bank and the Future Foundation, The Ethical Consumerism Report 2005 [PDF, external website]
10. The Co-operative Bank and the Future Foundation, The Ethical Consumerism Report 2005 [PDF, external website]
11. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, The UK Voluntary Sector Almanac 2007 [external website]
12. Estimates vary, but usually range between 200,000 and 500,000
13. DTI research cited in the Cabinet Office's Social enterprise action plan: scaling new heights, 2006
14. The Cabinet Office, News from the Panel (No. 2) – Activities and change in resources [PDF 153KB, 12 pages], August 2006
15. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, The UK Voluntary Sector Almanac 2007 [external website]