Legacy income at Macmillan Cancer Support has broken the £100m mark for the first time in the charity’s history, according to recently filed financial data.
Macmillan’s 2024 annual report and accounts, published yesterday, show that £106m was gifted to the charity through gifts in wills last year, up from £92.5m in 2023.
Legacies, which remain Macmillan’s largest income stream, generated 43% of the charity’s total annual income and were the main driver behind the 6% income growth last year.
The charity’s accounts state that its investment in legacy fundraising “is clearly having an impact, and we saw exceptional growth in 2024 in part due to a substantial reduction in the backlog of probate processing via HM Courts and Tribunal Service”.
“With legacies continuing to perform strongly year on year, there’s been an increased reliance on this income stream since 2019, when it accounted for only 34% of our total income.”
Surplus after multiple deficits
After recording operating deficits for the previous three financial years, Macmillan ended 2024 with a surplus of £21.1m, which it attributed to “a stronger year on fundraising than expected, combined with some lower-than-anticipated spend”.
The accounts show that despite “the continuing challenging fundraising landscape felt throughout 2024”, Macmillan raised £240m from the public last year, representing 98% of its total income.
Overall, the charity recorded a total income of £246m (2023: £233m), representing its highest income year since 2017, and spent a total of £226m (2023: £265m).
Its charitable expenditure fell by £34.5m to £150m last year due to “a reduction in grant expenditure of £20.8m to support the future strategic direction to move towards supporting communities, system change and social investments, with the remaining decrease coming from planned reductions to bring our expenditure in line with our income”.
Macmillan’s flagship fundraising event, Macmillan Coffee Morning, raised £17.1m in 2024, an increase from £16.8m in 2023.
The charity’s challenge events fundraising portfolio, including Mighty Hikes, exceeded £30m for the first time in its history and achieved £31.2m.
Downsizing predicted to save £27m a year
After consultations that took place across 2024, Macmillan reduced its headcount by over a quarter. Of the more than 1,000 members of staff who were impacted by the change proposals, 239 took voluntary redundancy.
“New roles were created, aligned to our new strategy, which enabled us to find alternative roles for 831 colleagues who were impacted, minimising redundancies where possible,” the accounts read.
“However, unfortunately, we made 174 of our valued colleagues redundant. Combined, these changes resulted in reducing the size of our organisation by 26%.”
The accounts note that Macmillan had to make “some difficult decisions”, adding that its new strategy and a challenging financial climate “meant we had to change what we do and how we do it”.
“In doing so, we achieved a far more stable financial position that will allow us to build for the future,” they read.
“We committed to doing fewer things better, and during the year we sadly had to say goodbye to a number of talented and dedicated colleagues.”
The accounts say “the transition delivered headcount reductions of £4.6m, after allowing for redundancy and termination costs of £7.6m, and will deliver substantial annual cost savings in the future of £27m a year moving forward”.
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