STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Registered charity 1184011 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as SOS

Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK) is an educational charity created by students and staff at NUS in response to the climate emergency and ecological crisis. We support students to learn, act and lead for sustainability.

Causes: General Charitable Purposes · Education/training · Environment/conservation/heritage · website · Get email alerts

Latest income
£4.0m
Latest spending
£2.9m
Registered
2019
Accounts read
FY2025

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that unrestricted reserves of £137,540 were held at year-end, which is below the charity's stated policy target of three months of unrestricted costs. The trustees attribute this shortfall to planned investment in transformational growth and have stated a focus for the coming year to ensure reserves meet the policy target.

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

What the accounts disclose

Largest income source: Grants and donations (72% of income)
“Grants and donations accounted for 72% of the income (£2,853,931)” — page 27
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Reserves position: below the charity's own stated reserves policy (held: £138k; policy: three months of unrestricted reserves available)
“At the year-end we had £137,540 in unrestricted reserves. This equates to 44 days’ worth of unrestricted costs, meaning that our reserves policy target has not been met.” — page 27
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.
Related-party transaction: Miss E de Saram is a trustee of the Charity.
“During the year, the Charity paid £1,361 to Miss E de Saram for project management services. Miss E de Saram is a trustee of the Charity.” — page 57
Per its FY2025 accounts as filed with the Charity Commission.

Accounts audited by Murray Smith LLP. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — Students Organising for Sustainability UK (matched by registered charity number).

Leadership, per the charity’s website

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

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 30/09/2025)

Total income
£4.0m
Total spending
£2.9m
Cost of raising funds
£100k
Reserves (reported)
£138k
Employees
63

Reported reserves equal ~0.6 months of spending — in the bottom quarter for charities its size (median 4.8 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Donations and legacies (72% 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: 2.5% of total income — below the median for charities its size (5.2%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

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

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

Income and spending

Financial year endIncomeSpending
30/09/2025£4.0m£2.9m
30/09/2024£2.5m£2.5m
30/09/2023£2.7m£2.1m
30/09/2022£1.8m£1.4m
30/09/2021£1.4m£1.1m

Common questions

Is STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY financially healthy?

Per its FY2025 accounts: The accounts state that unrestricted reserves of £137,540 were held at year-end, which is below the charity's stated policy target of three months of unrestricted costs. The trustees attribute this shortfall to planned investment in transformational growth and have stated a focus for the coming year to ensure reserves meet the policy target. Its FY2025 accounts were audited by Murray Smith LLP.

Who funds STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY?

Funders whose own accounts filings name STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY as a grant recipient include FRIENDS PROVIDENT CHARITABLE FOUNDATION, THE BLAGRAVE TRUST, THE RETA LILA HOWARD FOUNDATION, THE J J CHARITABLE TRUST, GOWER STREET.

Known funders

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

FunderYearAmountPurpose (as stated by the funder)
FRIENDS PROVIDENT CHARITABLE FOUNDATIONFY2024£174kProject Funding
THE BLAGRAVE TRUSTFY2022£43kInvesting in better youth policy
THE RETA LILA HOWARD FOUNDATIONFY2024£30k
THE J J CHARITABLE TRUSTFY2024£25kTo develop a ‘tracked changes’ re-write of the Economics A-Level curriculum and towards its PR and influencing campaign on wider UK educational reform for susta
GOWER STREETFY2022£25kClimate and Environmental Action Education
THE J J CHARITABLE TRUSTFY2024£25kTo deliver engagement with senior decision-makers and regulators in university education to embed sustainability in university courses in the UK and globally.
THE J J CHARITABLE TRUSTFY2023£20kFor the 1.5 Degrees league table.
THE AURORA TRUSTFY2022£15kTowards phase 2 of SOS’s work.
THE OAKDALE TRUSTFY2025£2k

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

FunderDateAmountPurpose
The National Lottery Community Fund13/11/2025£20kRENEW – empowering neurodivergent young people through nature and community
Farming The Future16/12/2024£50kBack the Future
Farming The Future28/06/2024£8kYouth Voices in a Just Transition
The National Lottery Heritage Fund06/03/2024£210k"Wilding Campuses Pilot"
UK government01/04/2023£7kNEIRF2102CLAIM3
UK government01/04/2023£15kNEIRF2102CLAIM4
UK government01/04/2023£15kNEIRF2102CLAIM5
UK government01/04/2022£25kNEIRF2102CLAIM1b STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY UK
UK government01/04/2022£23kNEIRF2102CLAIM2 STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY UK
Farming The Future07/12/2021£91kHow Farming Can Cool the Planet

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 SOAS STUDENTS' UNION.

Side by side with its peers

CharityIncomeTop pay bandStaff >£60kReserves vs policyFundraising costGoing concern
STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY£4.0m——below—no doubt
SOAS STUDENTS' UNION FY2025£1.3m—0unclear0.0%no doubt
SUMATRAN ORANGUTAN SOCIETY FY2025£1.1m—0above17.0%no doubt
SOS CHILDREN'S VILLAGES UK FY2025£6.8m——unclear—no doubt
SOS EDUCATION ORGANISATION FY2025£128k—0unclear—no doubt
NUS STUDENTS' UNION CHARITABLE SERVICES FY2025£3.9m——unclear—no doubt

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