Two giants of the charity world have recently released new annual reports, and we’ve been quick to take a look. Cancer Research UK (see profile) – the country’s biggest charity and historically our top performer – has fallen from first place. It still earns an enviable 88% for its impressive annual report – but why has it stopped telling us about risks the charity faces over the coming years?

Similarly gargantuan both in terms of its size and Quality of Reporting score is the National Trust (see profile) which has been experimenting this year with an online version of its annual report. Once again, this champion of the country's heritage remains one of the most transparent charities on our books with its new report earning a Quality of Reporting score of 89%.

Two new and much smaller charities we have profiled for the first time this year are Feed My People ( see profile) and Muslim Hands (see profile). Both are international humanitarian charities with religious motivations for their work, but neither charity’s annual report was anything to write home about.

Feed My People’s below-par production scored 62% for Quality of Reporting. But it fared significantly better than Muslim Hands which scored a mere 42%. Its brief report does little to inspire confidence in the charity’s organization, and misses out basic information on the charity’s finances and future plans.

Another new charity we’ve profiled recently is the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution (see profile), an outfit that runs 17 care homes for elderly Freemasons, which scored 62% for a rather humdrum report. The transparency score of Friends of the Elderly (see profile), which also run care homes, took a tumble this year, and its sound (if unexciting) report would have benefitted from more financial commentary.

But it was good to see Nightingale House (see profile) remains Top Ranked for the second year running. This luxurious Jewish care home, whose lavish facilities once led Ian Hislop to joke that he was considering converting to Judaism in his old age, clearly pays equal attention to its annual report.
 

 

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