WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR

Registered charity 1060963 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also registered in Scotland as SC049019 (OSCR)

When You Wish Upon a Star aims to grant the 'Wishes' of children from the age of 4 to 16 years who are living with a life threatening or terminal illness

Causes: The Advancement Of Health Or Saving Of Lives · Other Charitable Purposes · website · Get email alerts

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity reported a deficit of over £400,000 for the year ended 31 December 2025, which the trustees attribute to a planned organisational restructure and investment in core operations. Despite this deficit, the charity maintains free reserves of £930,959, which the management committee report describes as a healthy level equivalent to approximately eight months of operating costs. The trustees confirm the charity is in a sustainable position to continue as a going concern.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by UHY Hacker Young. Discloses 5 of 6 completeness components.

What the charity says about itself (2025)

From its own voluntary annual review / impact report — the charity’s account of its work, distinct from the statutory accounts analysed above.

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — When You Wish Upon A Star (matched by registered charity number).

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Paul Smith — Chair of Trustees (source)
• Barbara White — Founder (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram · linkedin

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/12/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~7.5 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 4.8 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 60.0% of total income — above the 90th percentile for charities its size (median 5.2%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (07/11/2018) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• Paul Smithchair · trustee of 1 other charity
• BARBARA SUSAN WHITE OBE
• Benjamin John Alcraft
• Christopher Bailey
• David Arthur Michael Lindley
• Louise Field
• Mandy Dawn Sims
• Paul Furbey

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Scotland · Spain · Throughout England And Wales · United States

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION UK.

• MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION UK income £11.9m
• THE GENIES WISH CHARITY income £324k
• PURPLE HEART WISHES income £114k
• WISHES 4 KIDS income £249k
• THE DREAM FACTORY income £174k
• RAYS OF SUNSHINE income £2.6m

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.