THE KARUNA TRUST

Registered charity 327461 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · Wikidata: Q132471661

Karuna works alongside the most excluded people in South Asia, overcoming discrimination with locally-led education, gender equality and sustainable livelihood projects.

Objects

(1) THE RELIEF OF POVERTY (2) THE ADVANCEMENT OF EDUCATION (3) THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE BUDDHIST RELIGION (4) THE ADVANCEMENT OF OTHER CHARITABLE PURPOSES ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

Area of benefit: ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD

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 · Education/training · The Advancement Of Health Or Saving Of Lives · Disability · The Prevention Or Relief Of Poverty · Overseas Aid/famine Relief · Grant history (this charity is a funder) · website · Get email alerts

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

Financial health, per its FY2026 accounts

The accounts state that the charity recorded a surplus of £39,021 for the year ended 31 March 2026, resulting in total unrestricted reserves of £944,085. This figure is significantly above the trustees' stated policy target of maintaining an operating reserve equivalent to four months' costs, which was approximately £700,000 at year-end. The trustees confirm that the charity has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future.

Automated summary of the FY2026 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Bishop Fleming Audit Limited. Discloses 5 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
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• 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.

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — Karuna Trust (matched by registered charity number).

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Louise Thomas — Chief Executive Officer (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.

Property (HM Land Registry)

1 registered title in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (1 freehold); recorded price paid £285k. All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/03/2026)

Reported reserves equal ~4.0 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.7 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: 39.2% of total income — above the 90th percentile for charities its size (median 5.3%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• Peter David Whitechair · trustee of 1 other charity
• Carolyn Olga Milosevic · trustee of 1 other charity
• Dishir Thakkar · trustee of 2 other charities
• Rachel Lesley Green · trustee of 1 other charity
• Sundeep Kaur Grewal · trustee of 1 other charity

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

Operates in: Bangladesh · India · Nepal

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 KARUNA ACTION.

• KARUNA ACTION income £359k
• PURSUE income £47k
• KARIM FOUNDATION TRUST income £41k
• THE RONA TRUST income £641k
• TRIRATNA SARANA income £1.6m
• JUNNURAIN EDUCATION & CULTURAL TRUST income £52k

Side by side with its peers

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