There is a higher concentration of charities in wealthy areas than in less affluent regions, research has found.
The latest Third Sector Trends research found 3.6 voluntary organisations per 1,000 people in richer regions such as southeast England, compared with 2.6 in less well-off northeast areas.
In southeast England, 6% of voluntary organisations operate in the poorest neighbourhoods, compared to 35% in the wealthiest, the report says.
By contrast, in northeast England, 28% of sector organisations are set up in the poorest areas while 15% are stationed in the most affluent.
The research also found that a reliance on regular volunteers was higher in wealthier regions.
In the southeast, 87% of charities expect volunteers to be available “very regularly” and 80% expect them to work unsupervised compared to 81% and 71%, respectively in the northeast.
Charities in most regions reported difficulties in recruiting staff, an average of between 42% and 44%, besides London which reported 34%.
The prior Third Sector Trends report, published in December 2025, revealed “substantive” declines in trustee and volunteer numbers at small charities.
Volunteers as beneficiaries in deprived regions
Community Foundation North East commissioned the research, which gathered 8,680 responses across England and Wales.
The new report states: “Areas do not become wealthy because they have a higher proportion of voluntary organisations.
“It is the other way around, because they are affluent, there is a higher proportion of third sector organisations (TSOs) as there is a stronger impetus locally to engage in voluntarism due to the local population’s higher levels of social capital, wealth and productive free time.”
The report states that many service users are also volunteers in more deprived regions.
In northeast England, which has more lower-income areas, 74% of TSOs reported that many service users are volunteers, compared to 63% in the southeast.
Some 38% of TSOs nationally said that volunteering has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, the northwest worst off, with 44% reporting this.
Additionally, many large TSOs reported withdrawing from delivering public contracts due to a reduction in government funding.
The report states: “This could, potentially, upset the financial dynamics of the third sector now that many larger TSOs are losing interest in, or have already withdrawn from delivering public services.”
