Our income
Vital funds
Thank you to everyone who supported Samaritans this year, making it possible for us to be there day and night.
Championing our supporters
This year, understanding our supporters’ needs has been at the heart of our fundraising strategy. To do this, we’ve listened to feedback from more than 4,200 supporters and worked with them on the development of our products, events, campaigns and more. This has made the way we fundraise more engaging and relevant to current and potential donors, which will help us to sustain our income during the uncertain years ahead.
Despite the global pandemic still impacting how we were able to fundraise this year, the extraordinary commitment of new and existing supporters allowed us to raise £27.4 million. This helped us stay open at a time when people needed us most.
"When I was at my lowest, I finally reached out to Samaritans and they gave me the tools and support (alongside my amazing family and close friends) to start rebuilding my life. I decided to run the London Marathon 2022 to try and support a worthwhile charity that is also close to many people I love."
Kelly
Power in our partnerships
The phenomenal organisations who support and work with us continue to make a significant impact on our work. Pears Foundation continued to offer vital support, including through a joint scheme with DCMS that enabled us to provide grants to many Samaritans branches. We welcomed some fantastic new collaborations, who join our existing partners in ensuring we can be here 24/7. Fundraising highlights included Ardonagh and Phoenix Group who, in their first year of working with us, raised £95,000 and £340,000 respectively.
Our partnerships and collaborations also help us to reach more people. For instance, last year we launched Better Phone Friend with connectivity company Three. The campaign encouraged people to consider how they might become better listeners, and provided tips to help. Together, we reached over 2.2 million people. And Barclays helped us reach millions by advertising our helpline number on over 2,500 ATM screens across the country.
£5/€6
the cost to answer a call for help
4,939
people trained through our suicide prevention and wellbeing training programme
£15M
raised in generous donations
177,000
employees reached through our relationships with business
32,000
fabulous fundraisers signed up to do events and challenges
218
grants to branches thanks to Pears Foundation
Pears Foundation: a funder case study
All of Samaritans’ supporters play a vital role in helping us be here when we’re needed most. Pears Foundation are a great example of how ongoing support can help us be here for more people – today and in the future.
Pears Foundation has been supporting Samaritans for many years. When the pandemic hit, they responded to our Emergency Appeal with a donation of £50,000 on top of their core grant. But their support didn’t stop there. They kept talking to us about the challenges we were facing across the charity, as branches were working hard to remain open during the pandemic.
"We greatly value our relationship with the Pears Foundation, who have been loyal supporters for over a decade. They stepped up their support in the pandemic as many people did, supporting our core work and working with DCMS to support our branches in England. They went further by using their own funds to enable us to extend support to branches in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland. Financial support is vital in enabling us to be there when it matters, but supporters like Pears offer so much more than this, they offer strategic support, helpful challenge and backing as partners in working towards our vision that fewer people die by suicide."
Julie Bentley, CEO
To help us address these challenges, they included Samaritans as one of the organisations they supported through the DCMS Community Match Funding programme. Providing a donation of £1,230,000 over two years, this enabled us to make 192 grants across branches in England. Pears Foundation extended their own funding to support branches in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland, allowing us to make a further 26 grants.
The grants helped cover the extra costs associated with keeping open during the pandemic, such as extra cleaning and protective equipment. It also helped branches update and improve their technology, making it possible for more volunteers to be on shift at the same time, and increase capacity to answer more calls for help in the future. And as social distancing restrictions were lifted, the funding helped cover costs for advertising and outreach to help branches get back out into local communities.
Financial information
Income (total £27.4m)
This chart shows Samaritans’ charitable income in 2021/22. Thanks to the £27.4 million you helped us raise this year, Samaritans volunteers were able to answer a call for help every ten seconds.
Expenditure (total £27.7m)
This chart shows Samaritans’ expenditure in 2021/22. This year we spent almost 80 pence in every pound across our four strategic priority areas, and just over 20 pence in every pound was invested in fundraising to help us raise enough income next year and beyond.
This chart shows Samaritans’ expenditure in 2021/22. This year we spent almost 80 pence in every pound across our four strategic priority areas, and just over 20 pence in every pound was invested in fundraising to help us raise enough income next year and beyond.
