Where England's local charities are, and where NAVCA's members are

The Charity Commission’s register records where every charity works. NAVCA publishes a map of its members — the councils for voluntary service, volunteer centres and other local organisations whose job is to support small charities and community groups. This puts the two side by side, council area by council area.

What the register can see, and what it cannot

NAVCA says: “Our members support over 165,000 small charities and community groups across England”. The register records 109,450 charities in England that work only in named council areas, 79,693 of them with an income under £100,000. Most of the rest will be groups the register cannot see: too small to have to register, or never registered — the part of the sector NAVCA’s own work on its true size is about. This page can count only the part that is on the register.

Where NAVCA's members are

England’s counties and unitary authorities, split into five equal groups by the published measure of deprivation — the share of each area’s neighbourhoods in the most deprived tenth nationally.

NAVCA members show more often where deprivation is highest. One is present in 31 of the 31 most deprived areas and 27 of the 30 least deprived. That is a finding about where NAVCA members are, not about how much help anybody gets.

By kind of council

Every county and unitary authority, by the kind of council it is. London boroughs and metropolitan boroughs are the big cities and their conurbations; counties are mostly rural and small-town England; the unitary councils are a mix, many of them cities.

See the areas where no NAVCA member shows, and what that does not mean →

The members themselves

NAVCA’s member map shows 195 members. 169 distinct charities on the register stand behind them. The typical one — the median — reported income of £887,472 in its latest accounts: the whole charity’s income, including everything it runs for its council and others.

What this is for

Two readers, and they want different things.

• Somebody running a small charity or group. The member list is searchable here by the question they arrive with — I need help, I want volunteers — rather than by a postcode.
• Somebody arguing about local support for the voluntary sector. This counts where the members are against where the registered local charities are, council area by council area, rather than asserting either.