Annual report shows stable financial health
Cancer Research UK raised a total income of £582m last year, a decrease of £74m from the previous year, according to uits annual report.
The reduction in income was largely due to the temporary closure of Cancer Research UK shops and postponement or cancellation of fundraising events due to national and regional restrictions.
The charity initially expected to see a reduction in income of £300m over three years (2020-2023) but following better than anticipated performance over the past year, now expects that figure to be £250m.
Cost saving measures, coupled with supporters continuing to give generously, means the charity is in a stronger position than it predicted.
However, the ongoing uncertainty as the country continues to emerge from the pandemic means the charity will be approaching the next two years cautiously.
Due to the impact of the pandemic on its income, CRUK was forced to cut its expenditure. The charity has reshaped its research model and reduced research spending to £320m in 2021/22, down from the roughly £370m it had spent annually in the previous two years.
Increasing research expenditure is the charity’s top priority if its financial performance is better than expected in future years.
It predicts it will return to year-on-year growth in fundraising income from 2022/23 onwards. Even after the cuts made to research spending, Cancer Research UK will remain the largest charitable funder of cancer research in the world and stay at the forefront of the global fight against cancer. against cancer.
Michelle Mitchell, chief executive at Cancer Research UK said: “COVID-19 has disrupted cancer care, our life-saving research and us as a charity. With one in two people getting cancer in their lifetime, and tens of thousands of people left undiagnosed or waiting for tests and treatment due to the pandemic, this disruption comes at a time when we have never been more needed.
“We were forced to take difficult emergency measures at the start of the pandemic to ensure our financial stability and buy us the time to put a plan in place for how we would recover from the pandemic. This agility, unity and the collective strength displayed by our wonderful staff, supporters and volunteers throughout this time, has been admirable.
“I remain cautiously optimistic for the future. The past year proves the value of investing in the long term in the highest quality discovery science and medical research, and what can be achieved through collaboration. Even in a year dominated by the pandemic, we have taken some giant strides, including the launch of Cancer Grand Challenges, our major new partnership with the US National Cancer Institute.
"Our researchers at the Francis Crick Institute played a pivotal role in the fight against COVID-19 – from contributing to our understanding of the virus, to repurposing their facilities to create testing and vaccination centres. Just as science is our route out of the pandemic, science is our route out of beating cancer.
“We can say confidently that we have solid foundations from which to transform how we prevent, diagnose and treat cancer through live-saving research, and have plenty to celebrate from the past year and to look forward to in the years ahead. I firmly believe that we will remember this as a tough few years in a much longer history at the forefront of the global fight against cancer.
"Our determination to beat cancer hasn’t faltered and we are more focussed than ever on our ambition of seeing three in four people survive their cancer by 2034.”
