Donations from Comic Relief’s trading subsidiary fell by £1m last year, financial documents show.
Comic Relief Ltd, which manages the charity’s events, intellectual property and corporate support, donated £4.4m to Comic Relief in 2021/22, down from £5.4m the previous year.
Comic Relief Ltd donates its taxable profits to the charity each year.
The figure is included in Comic Relief Ltd’s accounts for the year to the end of June 2022, published overnight with Companies House.
Comic Relief’s most recent Red Nose Day fundraiser raised £42.8m on the night in March 2022, down about £9m compared with 2021. The trading profits are added to this total several months after the event.
The total amount raised by Red Nose Day, originally biannual events but now held once a year, has fallen for the past four events in a row.
Samir Patel, chief executive of Comic Relief, told Third Sector in January that, while Red Nose Days still had “incredible brand power”, changing media consumption meant the ability to raise money from “linear TV is not what it once was”.
He said the charity’s five-year strategy would “bring the brand into the future”.
The Comic Relief Ltd accounts also show that its total turnover was down from £6.9m to £5.7m in 2021/22. Its overhead costs also fell, by £200,000.