29 Jan 2021 - Diarmuid McDonnell
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Foundations and dissolutions of charitable organisations
2020 Summary
Using publicly available data collected on 28 January 2021, we examined the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on numbers of charities registered and de-registered for the following jurisdictions:
- England and Wales
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
- Australia (registrations only)
- New Zealand
- United States of America
- Canada
We assess the impact of the pandemic by examining the cumulative number of registrations and de-registrations for 2020, compared to what we expect based on trends for 2015-2019. This tells us whether a) there was a drop-off in the number of new charities being registered and b) an increase in charities ceasing to exist.
More information on our methodology can be found here: [LINK]
Table of Contents
NOTE: In some cases data for the latest month will be incomplete, due to the timing of the data collection. For example, we do not have December 2020 figures for the USA yet.
England and Wales
Registrations
The number of new charities registered in England and Wales throughout 2020 is very close to what we would expect based on previous years. Typically we expect c. 5600 new charities to be registered - in 2020 there were 5708.
Figure 1. Cumulative registrations of charities - England and Wales
De-registrations
De-registrations are a different story: there were 1500 fewer charities de-registered in 2020 than we would expect (c. 3800 vs c. 5300).
Figure 2. Cumulative de-registrations of charities - England and Wales
Scotland
Registrations
The number of new charities registered in Scotland throughout 2020 is also very close to what we would expect based on previous years.
Figure 3. Monthly registrations of charities - Scotland
De-registrations
There were c. 350 fewer charities de-registered in 2020 than we would expect (about a 40% decrease).
Figure 4. Cumulative de-registrations of charities - Scotland
Northern Ireland
Figures for Northern Ireland should be interpreted cautiously, for three reasons:
- The sector is small compared to the other UK jurisdictions: monthly figures are low and hence display much more variability i.e., it is more difficult to establish what is a typical number of registrations for a given month.
- The regulator is still undertaking work to register charities already in existence; that is, CCNI is calling charities forward in order to register with them. Thus monthly figures include new organisations being formed, and existing charities formalising their registration with the regulator. More information on the regulator’s work on this task here.
- The regulator’s ability and capacity to register and remove charities (as well as execute a number of other core functions) has been considerably hampered by a recent court ruling - information here.
For these reasons we are reluctant to draw firm conclusions - hopefully these figures will either be revised or clarified at a future date.
Registrations
Figure 5. Cumulative registrations of charities - Northern Ireland
De-registrations
Figure 6. Cumulative de-registrations of charities - Northern Ireland
Australia
Registrations
The total number of registrations is below what we would expect, though not by a large degree.
Figure 7. Cumulative registrations of charities - Australia
New Zealand
Registrations
Similar to the UK jurisdictions, there has been no noticeable drop in the number of new charities registered in 2020.
Figure 8. Cumulative registrations of charities - New Zealand
De-registrations
The number of de-registrations is lower than expected by a factor of 3 (c. 400 vs c. 1600).
Figure 9. Cumulative de-registrations of charities - New Zealand
Canada
Registrations
In Canada we see the first noticeble drop in new charities being registered (c. 50% fewer than expected).
Figure 10. Cumulative registrations of charities - Canada
De-registrations
However de-registrations have largely kept pace with expectations, through a significant caveat is the lack of data from April-September 2020.
Figure 11. Cumulative de-registrations of charities - Canada
United States of America
Registrations
The number of registrations has remained in line with expectations.
Figure 12. Cumulative registrations of charities - USA
De-registrations
In contrast to all other jurisdictions, the number of de-registrations is higher than expected (c. 30000 vs c. 23000). However this difference is almost entirely driven by de-registrations in May 2020, which were c. 10000 higher than expected. Note also that the data download does not contain many records for November and December 2020 yet.
Figure 13. Cumulative de-registrations of charities - USA
Conclusion
A synotpic review of the evidence presented above suggests that the coronavirus pandemic has not stymied charitable activity to a great extent:
- New charities have been formed at largely the expected rate in most jurisdictions analysed.
- Far fewer organisations have ceased to exist or be charitable than expected in nearly all jurisdictions analysed.
However this would be a misleading conclusion. While the rate of formation of new organisations is encouraging, the lower than expected level of de-registration is almost certainly an artefact of a) reduced regulatory capacity to process de-registration applications and to conduct proactive removals of organisations from official registers; and b) the ability of charities to put operations on hold and claim support from government funding schemes (e.g., UK’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme). Therefore many de-registrations have been “put on ice”, with the prophesised culling of organisations likely to materialise in 2021.
We will continue to collect and analyse charity registers throughout 2021 to track emerging trends and to capture revisions to 2020 data (e.g., yet-to-be processed 2020 de-registration applications).