GLOBAL CHANGE DATA LAB

Registered charity 1186433 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as GCDL

Global Change Data Lab is an educational charity with a focus on large global problems and international development. The charity's flagship project is the web publication Our World in Data, where we focus on communicating data and research to make progress against the world's largest problems.

Causes: Education/training · website · Get email alerts

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that unrestricted reserves stood at £5,162,515, with a general reserve of £1,680,000 held in line with the charity's policy target. The charity reported a net income of £1,513,344 for the year, supported by significant unrestricted grants and donations, while maintaining a positive cash position of £3,957,112.

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

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Wenn Townsend. Discloses 5 of 6 completeness components.

Year-over-year changes

• Top pay band moved from £130,001 - £140,000 (FY2024) to £100,001 - £110,000 (FY2025).

Comparing this charity’s FY2024 and FY2025 accounts as analysed by this site.

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Hetan Shah — Chair of the Board (source)
• Dr. Max Roser — Executive Co-Director (source)
• Dr. Esteban Ortiz-Ospina — Executive Co-Director (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.

Funders the charity credits

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

• Quadrature Climate Foundation — “Global Change Data Lab is supported by donations from several thousand readers of the web publication Our World in Data , as well as grants …” (source page)
• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — “Global Change Data Lab is supported by donations from several thousand readers of the web publication Our World in Data , as well as grants …” (source page)
• World Health Organization — “In the past we have also received support from the World Health Organization , the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdo…” (source page)
• Department of Health and Social Care — “In the past we have also received support from the World Health Organization , the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdo…” (source page)

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

Reported reserves equal ~19.6 months of spending — in the top quarter for charities its size (median 4.8 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Donations and legacies (97% 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: 0.0% of total income — below the median for charities its size (5.2%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• Hetan Shahchair
• Dr Claire Helen Melamed · trustee of 1 other charity
• Michael Iain Blastland
• Rachel Glennerster · trustee of 1 other charity
• Sir Andrew William Dilnot CBE

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

Operates in: Throughout England

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 ACTION CHANGE.

• ACTION CHANGE income £163k
• GLOBAL GOALS CENTRE income £152k
• The Global Returns Project Limited income £1.9m
• THE GLOBAL DIVERSITY FOUNDATION income £1.1m
• THE CENTRE FOR GLOBAL STUDIES income £95k
• GLOBAL LINK (LANCASTER) income £416k

Side by side with its peers

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