ActionAid UK increased its income to its highest level in three years in 2020 despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, new figures show.
The charity’s latest accounts show that its income rose to £50.3m last year, up from £49.1m in 2019.
The increase in income combined with a reduction in spending meant the charity, which has a focus on supporting women and children in poverty in the global south, turned a £1.6m deficit in 2019 to a £1.3m surplus last year.
The charity said the increase in income was “driven by a very strong performance in unrestricted donations and legacies in particular”.
Income from donations and legacies was up by £700,000 on the previous year to £39.3m, including a £1.4m rise in legacy income to a record high of £3.7m.
Donations from major donors, trusts and corporate partners was up by £800,000 to £7.7m.
ActionAid UK also said that “after many years of decline”, its total number of financial supporters increased to more than 150,000.
Income from regular giving was down by just under £400,000, but the charity said the 1.3 per cent year-on-year decrease was a better result than the previous year, when it fell by 3.7 per cent.
“We also achieved net gains of supporters in both our child sponsorship and regular giving products during the time of the pandemic in our strongest performance for a number of years,” the charity’s annual report says.
“These positive results offset the impact of Covid-19 on our events income, which was still able to achieve 50 per cent of previous year’s totals without major events such as the London Marathon and Ride London taking place.
“The team achieved this by developing several new virtual events for our supporters, proving that it was possible to adapt our fundraising events programme during a national lockdown.”