CHARITY PROJECTS

Registered charity 326568 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · Wikidata: Q1114459 · Wikipedia · also known as COMIC RELIEF, SPORT RELIEF · also registered in Scotland as SC039730 (OSCR)

The principal activities of Comic Relief, the operating name of the charity, are to raise funds and awareness, and to distribute money in the form of grants and social investments for specific charitable purposes, in support of our vision of a just world free from poverty and our mission of driving change through the power of entertainment.

Objects

A) THE RELIEF OF POVERTY; B) THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION BY MEANS OF THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE ARTS FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT; C) THE PROVISION OF FACILITIES FOR RECREATION OR OTHER LEISURE TIME OCCUPATIONS IN THE INTERESTS OF SOCIAL WELFARE PROVIDED THAT SUCH FACILITIES ARE FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT; AND D) THE PROMOTION OF ANY OTHER CHARITABLE PURPOSE FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC.

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: General Charitable Purposes · The Prevention Or Relief Of Poverty · Overseas Aid/famine Relief · Grant history (this charity is a funder) · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Tower Hamlets, London, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity reported a net movement in funds of £2.6m for the year, with total reserves standing at £111.0m. The trustees confirmed that the charity has sufficient reserves to cover its costs over the next 12 months and identified no material uncertainties regarding its ability 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 Sayer Vincent 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).

• Sport Relief: Getting London women into work, one ball game at a time bbc.com · 12/06/2026
• Sport Relief bbc.co.uk · 03/06/2026
• Comic Relief, Greggs Foundation and Global's Make Some Noise to benefit from major coronavirus charity match-funding scheme gov.uk · 26/09/2020
• Comic Relief, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and The Clothworkers Foundation re-launch Tech vs Abuse comicrelief.com · 25/04/2019
• Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Comic Relief launch £2.4m technology fund civilsociety.co.uk · 24/01/2019
• Comic Relief and Paul Hamlyn Foundation announce new Tech for Good funding round comicrelief.com · 22/01/2019
• Who’s Moving: Comic Relief, Marie Curie, Target Ovarian Cancer and more civilsociety.co.uk · 15/01/2018
• Finnley's idea inspires Sibford School to dress up for Sport Relief banburyguardian.co.uk · 15/03/2016

Corporate structure

• Registered company of the charity Companies House 01806414

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Samir Patel — Chief Executive (source)
• Matt Hyde — Vice Chair (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.

Company officers (Companies House)

Current officers of the charity’s own company per the Companies House register, cross-checked against the Charity Commission trustee list by name. A director not on the trustee list is usually a timing or naming difference between the two registers — check both records before drawing conclusions.

• HUGHES, Sarah Joan, Dr — director, appointed 22/04/2026on trustee list
• HOTHI, Mandeep — director, appointed 27/03/2026on trustee list
• WILLIAMS, Robert Vincent — director, appointed 16/01/2026on trustee list
• AFTAB, Fazilat Jan — director, appointed 03/03/2025on trustee list
• LINGER, Elliott John — director, appointed 03/03/2025on trustee list
• PHAHLE, Yolisa Sandra — director, appointed 03/03/2025on trustee list
• BURGESS, Hanah Munzer — director, appointed 17/02/2025on trustee list
• THOMAS, Philip Owain — director, appointed 22/01/2025on trustee list
• NOHR, Marc Alan — director, appointed 23/07/2024on trustee list
• ALPS, Teresa Margaret — director, appointed 23/07/2024on trustee list
• BLACK, Sue — director, appointed 06/12/2023on trustee list
• CAMPBELL, Fiona — director, appointed 11/09/2020on trustee list
• ONALO, Jacqueline Wedube — director, appointed 27/02/2019on trustee list
• HYDE, Matthew Thomas — director, appointed 27/02/2019not on trustee list
• MORLEY, Rupert Oliver Henry — director, appointed 28/11/2018on trustee list

Official officers record.

Property (HM Land Registry)

6 registered titles in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (0 freehold). All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook (1,012,882 followers) · instagram (208K followers)

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/07/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~9.9 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 4.6 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 26.4% of total income — in the top quarter for charities its size (median 3.7%) (benchmarks).

Register events

• Received assets from another charity (11/08/2025) — per the register’s event history; asset transfers typically record mergers or reorganisations.

Trustees · trustee networks

• PHILIP THOMASchair
• Dr SUE BLACK · trustee of 1 other charity
• Dr Sarah Joan Hughes
• Elliott John Linger · trustee of 1 other charity
• FIONA CAMPBELL
• Fazilat Aftab
• Hanah Burgess
• Jacqueline Onalo · trustee of 1 other charity
• MARC NOHR · trustee of 1 other charity
• Mandeep Hothi
• Matt Hyde
• RUPERT OLIVER HENRY MORLEY
• Robert Vincent Williams
• Teresa Alps
• Yolisa Phahle

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

Operates in: Northern Ireland · Scotland

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 GET KIDS GOING.

• GET KIDS GOING income £1.8m
• THE COMMUNITY OF RECONCILIATION AND FELLOWSHIP income £152k
• COMMUNITY NEEDS FOUNDATION income £48k
• EACH COUNSELLING AND SUPPORT income £2.2m
• PORTRAITS OF RECOVERY income £191k
• MISSION REMISSION income £101k

Side by side with its peers

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