Young people › what the records show · drawn as a map of connections

Young people: what the records show from outside

A body sees its own members and the people who reach them. Public records see every charity in England at once. This page sets the two side by side for young people: who else does this work, where the network is thin, how exposed the field is, and how the people it serves are written about.

1. Who else does this work

2,789 charities in England are in this field by name or by membership. 19,728 other charities, outside it, say in their own latest annual report that they serve the same people: 87.9% of all the charities that name them. By what the register records them as doing:

Register purpose	Charities outside the field naming the people
Education/training	10,938
Religious activities	6,456
General charitable purposes	6,134
Poverty relief	4,909
Disability	4,104
Health	4,066
Economic/community development, employment	3,791
Arts, culture, heritage, science	3,722
Amateur sport	2,562
Recreation	2,082
Other purposes	2,013
Environment	1,833

A charity records up to three purposes, so the rows overlap.

Among them, charities that are themselves in another of the fields on this site: 200 disability services; 163 mental health; 149 local infrastructure; 126 families with young children; 124 veterans; 102 learning disability; 86 hospice care; 86 cadets.

Of those outside the field, 27.5% show under three months’ reserves or three years of deficits, against 14.7% of the field itself.

2. Where the network is thin

54 of the 152 county and unitary areas of England record no presence of YMCA’s network: no listed place, and no member charity recording the area. The median share of residents on low incomes in those areas is 25.0%, against 24.6% across England.

Area	Share of residents on low incomes	Thin in how many of 24 fields on this site
Tower Hamlets	41.8%	9
Newham	39.7%	12
Blackpool	37.8%	13
Enfield	37.5%	10
Brent	36.9%	11
Luton	36.8%	10
Oldham	36.8%	7
Rochdale	35.1%	13
Liverpool	35.0%	7
Knowsley	34.8%	9
Bolton	33.2%	7
Salford	32.2%	7
Ealing	32.1%	11
Coventry	29.9%	7
Halton	29.5%	12

The 15 with the most residents on low incomes are shown, of 54.

Across every field on this site, the areas thin in most of them: Isles of Scilly (17 of 21), Barking and Dagenham (16 of 24), Portsmouth (16 of 24), Hartlepool (16 of 25), Rutland (16 of 25), Thurrock (16 of 25), City of London (15 of 24), Havering (15 of 24), Hillingdon (15 of 24), Lambeth (14 of 24).

What this can and cannot say. A thin area is one where the body’s own listed places and its charities’ recorded areas of operation are few for the people counted there. It does not mean nobody there gets help: section 1 is the measure of who else is at work.

3. Money and exposure

Fragile means under three months’ reserves on the latest return, or spending above income for three years running. Government-dependent means half or more of income from government grants and contracts.

Group	Charities	Fragile	Reserves (months, median)	Income change over returns (median)	Donations share (median)
The field	2,713	14.7%	3.5	67.2%	10.6%
All other charities in England	65,395	21.1%	4.4	38.8%	28.9%
The field, government-dependent	172	27.3%	2	84.7%	5.1%
The field, not dependent	2,539	13.8%	3.6	65.4%	11.8%
The field, in the most deprived third of neighbourhoods	547	21.0%	3.4	54.8%	14.7%
The field, in the least deprived third	1,034	11.2%	4.2	72.6%	9.7%

6.2% of the field is government-dependent.

4. How the people are written about

Of the 21,859 charities whose latest report names young people, 23.6% write of them beside words of lack (vulnerable, struggling, crisis, hardship, isolated) and 43.2% beside words of what they bring (skills, work, leadership, confidence, potential, independence). Across every population on this site the sector’s figures are 23.4% and 25.5%. This field’s people are written about mostly by what they bring.

5. YMCA’s members against the rest of the field

59 charities in the field are on YMCA’s own list or record its membership; 2,730 are not.

Measure	Members	Rest of the field
Fragile (share)	45.8%	14.0%
Government-dependent (share)	8.5%	6.2%
Reserves, months (median)	2.6	3.5
Income change over returns, % (median)	39.3	69.1
Donations share, % (median)	1.4	18.6
Income, £ (median)	3,183,161	60,711
No income source over 60% (share)	14.6%	14.0%
Report names the people (share)	93.2%	77.8%
Writes of what they bring (share)	90.9%	79.3%

A figure is shown only for a group of five or more; a median is of the charities with the figure on their return.

What this can and cannot say. These are counts over groups of charities and places in England, from their own returns and reports and from national statistics. They show where a field stands beside the rest of the sector; they do not rank any charity, name any, or say why.