Judith Moran, winning third sector CEO of the year in 2017. Photo: Courtesy of QSA.
QSA outlines urgent need for donations
‘These are deeply challenging times for many charities.’
An unprecedented intervention by Quaker Social Action (QSA) has highlighted declining support for UK charities amid rising poverty levels.
Judith Moran, director of QSA, made a personal appeal to Friends for financial support as the charity strives to adapt in challenging times. In twenty-five years at the charity, she had never made a personal and direct appeal for financial support, she said. ‘But I feel called to do so now. These are deeply challenging times for many charities, the waters are choppy, and steering our boat at QSA is no easy task. I have absolute confidence that we will navigate the storm, but this won’t be possible without your support.’
The move comes as charities across the UK are struggling to cope. Fewer people than ever are giving to charities, according to new research from the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). Only fifty per cent of people, down from fifty-eight per cent in 2019, were donating in 2024, according to the UK Giving Report 2025 – equivalent to approximately four million fewer donors. The largest decreases in donors were in the north west, the north east and London. The number of young donors had also dropped by a third since 2017, with only thirty-six per cent of sixteen- to twenty-four-year-olds saying they donated or sponsored in the past twelve months – down from fifty-five per cent.
Meanwhile, poverty figures have continued to rise with official figures last month showing that a record 4.5 million children were living in poverty in the UK, in the year to April 2024 – the third year running that child poverty has increased. The figures also reveal that an extra 100,000 children were living below the breadline. The research shows that 300,000 more children were reliant on food banks, with an increase in children in ‘food insecure families’, meaning they struggled to afford regular and healthy meals. Just under a third of UK children (twenty-eight per cent) were experiencing ‘material deprivation’. The figures were the last for the period when the past Conservative government was in power, but a leading thinktank, Resolution Foundation, has found that living standards for lower-income households are on track to fall further by the end of the decade, as a result of the chancellor Rachel Reeve’s spring statement last month. Before the statement, Britain Yearly Meeting signed a joint faith letter calling on the government to commit to, and finance, an ambitious strategy to tackle child poverty.
According to QSA, more than one in five people in the UK live in poverty, and the proportion of those in the deepest destitution is rising. ‘We want to continue to be there for people struggling with funeral poverty; for people unable to cook for their family as they’re squeezed in a hotel room waiting for their asylum claim to be processed; for those who are isolated and on the streets, desperate for the connection and good conversation that our mobile library team can offer,’ QSA said.
