ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS

Registered charity 207076 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · Wikidata: Q1892802 · Wikipedia · also known as R S P B, THE RSPB · also registered in Scotland as SC037654 (OSCR)

To promote the conservation of biological diversity and the natural environment for the public benefit by conserving wild birds and other wildlife, and the environment on which they depend,protecting, restoring and re-creating habitats.To raise public understanding and awareness,and to provide information on,such matters.To advance education of the public in conservation of the natural environment

Objects

1) TO PROMOTE THE CONSERVATION OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT, IN PARTICULAR BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY BY:A. CONSERVING WILD BIRDS AND OTHER WILDLIFE, AND THE ENVIRONMENT ON WHICH THEY DEPEND; B. PROTECTING, RESTORING AND RE-CREATING HABITATS. AND, IN FURTHERANCE OF THAT PRIMARY OBJECTIVE, TO RAISE PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING AND PROVIDE INFORMATION ON SUCH MATTERS. 2) TO ADVANCE EDUCATION OF THE PUBLIC IN CONSERVATION OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT."

Area of benefit: NOT DEFINED

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

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

Registered contact address: Central Bedfordshire, East of England, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity reported a record total income of £195.0 million and a net movement in funds of £29.9 million for the year ended 31 March 2025. Per the trustees' report, free financial reserves stood at £40.3 million, representing 12 weeks' expenditure cover, which is within the stated policy range of 8 to 16 weeks. The charity confirmed it has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future.

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

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Crowe U.K. LLP. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Campaigns and political activity policy and procedures
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investing charity funds policy and procedures
• Investment
• Paying staff
• Risk management
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Safeguarding vulnerable beneficiaries
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Social media policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures
• Volunteer management

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

In the news

Recent coverage mentioning this charity by name (automated match; headlines belong to their publishers).

• A Passion for Birds: Dedicated to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds on Its Centenary by publishersweekly.com · 14/07/2019
• Royal Society for the Protection of Birds usgs.gov · 20/09/2016
• Paper by UGA ecologists wins inaugural award from Royal Society for the Protection of Birds news.uga.edu · 28/02/2014

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Beccy Speight — CEO (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.

UK research funding (UKRI Gateway to Research)

• Delivering a Climate Resilient City through City-University Partnership: Glasgow as a Living Lab Accelerating Novel Transformation (GALLANT) —
• AGILE: Providing rapid evidence-based solutions to the needs of environmental policy-makers. —
• "Development of time-lapse and drone imagery for population monitoring of North Atlantic seabirds" —
• Achieving bigger, better and more joined-up habitat networks: quantifying benefits and comparing scenarios —
• Managing ecosystem services to reduce poverty and vulnerability in East African coffee landscapes —
• International - Raising the value of biodiversity-friendly cocoa and carbon storage: ensuring sustainable incomes around Gola Rainforest National Park —
• Blue Opportunities from the future: knowledge and tools to inform sustainable growth for an integrated terrestrial, coastal and marine zone economy. —
• UKGravelBarriers —
• Agri-Environmental Governance Post-Brexit : Co-production of policy frameworks —
• Optimising Field Production for Food and Nature —

Property (HM Land Registry)

874 registered titles in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (692 freehold); recorded price paid £4.0m. All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Trustpilot: RSPB scores 2.0/5 from 111 reviews (source) — reviews usually concern the charity’s shops or services, not its charitable performance.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook (523,256 likes) · instagram (538K followers)

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/03/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~2.7 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 2.6 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 21.9% of total income — in the top quarter for charities its size (median 3.2%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (10/11/2026) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (23/03/2026) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (02/03/2026) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (14/05/2025) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (24/01/2024) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.
• Received assets from another charity (14/05/2021) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• Sir Andrew Thomas Cahnchair
• Catherine Thea Dugmore
• Dr Benjamin Lian Caldecott
• Dr Grace Deepa Senapathi · trustee of 1 other charity
• Emyr Lloyd Williams
• James Nicholas Lowther
• Jane Elizabeth Reeves
• John Kenneth Mason
• Simon Patrick Loftus Butcher
• Stephen Peers Aston
• Susanna Clare Dinnage
• William James Sutherland · trustee of 1 other charity

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

Operates in: Anguilla · Argentina · Ascension · Bangladesh · Brazil · British Virgin Islands · Cayman Islands · Chile · China · Cyprus · Falkland Islands · Ghana

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

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

Grants marked “Unverified read” were flagged by automated checks as possibly misread from the funder’s filed accounts. They are listed, but left out of the totals, counts and funder relationships this site computes.

Government & lottery funding

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

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 ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS PRESTON AND DISTRICT BRANCH.

• ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS PRESTON AND DISTRICT BRANCH income £657k
• ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS income £171.5m
• CORNWALL BIRD WATCHING & PRESERVATION SOCIETY income £58k
• The Bird of Prey Project income £123k
• ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS LEEDS, WAKEFIELD AND DISTRICT BRANCH income £1.4m
• CONSERVATION WITHOUT BORDERS income £29k

Side by side with its peers

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