SWIRE CHINESE LANGUAGE FOUNDATION

Registered charity 1171995 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register

Funding schools to establish centres for teaching Chinese at primary and secondary levels.

Causes: Education/training · Grant history (this charity is a funder) · website · Get email alerts

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that unrestricted reserves decreased significantly to £1,041,333 from £2,614,118 in the prior year, driven by a substantial reduction in donor funding from John Swire & Sons Limited. The charity remains entirely dependent on this single funder for its operations and has a stated policy to maintain reserves to cover commitments, which the funder supports. While the charity is winding down its core ten-year programme by 2026, it maintains a going concern basis with no material uncertainties identified by the auditors.

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

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Dixon Wilson Audit Services LLP. Discloses 5 of 6 completeness components.

Funders the charity credits

Named as funders/supporters on the charity’s own website (the charity’s claim, distinct from accounts-verified grants).

• Swire Group — “As the result of a ten-year initiative funded by the Swire Group , we have expanded the learning of Mandarin Chinese in British state school…” (source page)
• John Swire & Sons Ltd. — “The establishment of the Centre for the Learning and Teaching of Chinese at the University of Oxford in the 2025/26 academic year, funded by…” (source page)

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/07/2024)

Reported reserves equal ~11.2 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 7.1 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Donations and legacies (87% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 0.4% of total income — below the median for charities its size (2.9%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• Dr HANS CHRISTIAN TOENNESEN
• Dr Kristine Black-Hawkins
• John Bruce Rae-Smith
• PETER EDWARD FOOTE WATSON
• Professor Jane Duckett · trustee of 1 other charity
• SAMUEL COMPTON SWIRE · trustee of 3 other charities

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

Operates in: Northern Ireland · Scotland · Throughout England And Wales

Income and spending

Common questions

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 JOHN SWIRE 1989 CHARITABLE TRUST.

• JOHN SWIRE 1989 CHARITABLE TRUST income £3.3m
• THE SWIRE CHARITABLE TRUST income £7.3m
• SWIRE 2765 income £9.5m
• LONDON MANDARIN SCHOOL income £209k
• THE SINO-BRITISH FELLOWSHIP TRUST income £532k
• KESWICK FOUNDATION LIMITED income £5.1m

Side by side with its peers

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