Médecins Sans Frontières, the medical aid charity, increased its income by 23 per cent in the year to December 2014, to just over £44m, mainly as a result of increased donations to tackle the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

Almost all income came from donations, grants and legacies, according to its annual accounts, filed recently. The charity did not receive any government funding. The charity’s restricted donations rose from £5.3m to £9.3m, the majority of which came on the back of the Ebola crisis (pictured).

The charity said it continued to fundraise in a way intended to grow long-term loyalty.

“In 2014 MSF UK maintained our commitment to send relevant and interesting information to our supporters, providing reports on how funds are spent,” the charity said in its accounts. “This is part of our supporter promise, which includes commitments not to share personal data of our supporters with other organisations not to send constant fundraising appeals to our donors. The increase of spontaneous giving is due to the increased media coverage of MSF’s work.”

The charity also sharply increased its fundraising expenditure, from £2.5m to £3.9m. It said reasons for this included “implementing a programme to increase supporter loyalty across all donor segments and preparing for major emergencies through integrated campaigns”.

The charity still had a very low fundraising ratio, at 9.5 pence per pound raised.

The charity had 138 full-time equivalent staff, almost unchanged from the previous year, and the highest paid employee earned less than £70,000.

Victoria Hawkins was appointed as the charity’s executive director half way through the year.