Armed Forces Charity Donations

If a random sample of members of the public were asked to list the public sector areas they thought the Government should be particularly funding, it’s unlikely that defence would be high up on their list.

Despite what has been going on in Israel, Syria and the Ukraine, many people do not see the need for increased defence spending.

However, donations to Armed Forces charities have traditionally been high. For example, the Royal British Legion received £147.1 million in 2023, although this was some £6.4 million lower than the previous year.

But Armed Forces charities fare poorly when compared with animal charities. In 2023, Help for Heroes received £12.5 million in legacies, compared with £32.4 million left to the Donkey Sanctuary in donors’ Wills and £83.9 million to the RSPCA.

This preference for animal charities is not new. As long ago as 2008, the Data Partnership ran a survey entitled “Which of the following causes would you consider donating to?” 233,000 said they would consider giving to animal charities, only marginally behind children (262,000) and cancer (280,000). By contrast, only 15,400 said they would give to homelessness and 7,000 to the elderly.

A more recent analysis by NCVO’s UK Civil Society Almanac shows that small charities are particularly hard hit by reductions in public donations. The latter fell from 54% of small charities’ income in 2020-21 to 25% of their income in 2021-22.

At the end of the day, it is of course every person’s choice what size of charity or cause they donate to – or, indeed, whether they donate at all. But perhaps we all need to re-assess our giving and consider whether animals, however much they deserve our generosity, are so much more important than ex-service people or the homeless.