Annual report & accounts

The trustees present their annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31^st December 2025. These have been prepared in accordance with the accounting policies set out in Note 1 to the accounts and comply with the charity’s constitution, the Charities Act 2011 and Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

I am pleased to report that in 2025 the BT Benevolent Fund was able to award grants totalling £740,000 to current and former BT employees who were in financial difficulty. This was an 11.7% increase compared to 2024 and in all we helped 455 people, 129 of whom were current employees.

The economic climate remains challenging for many with energy costs in particular remaining high and this always impacts the most vulnerable in our society. The Fund was able to respond effectively to this situation by increasing our weekly grant payments and broadening the scope of our help, which was made possible due to the high level of support from both our individual and corporate donors.

Our largest individual grant in 2025 was £8,000 for bathroom adaptations and we also awarded 37 grants of £2,500 or more. Many of these were for funeral costs, new boilers and priority debt. We currently pay weekly grants to 105 former BT people on very low incomes and are in regular contact with them, so we know what a huge difference these payments make and how grateful they are for our support. We also made two additional Christmas payments to all weekly grant recipients, consisting of a £250 winter fuel payment, funded in part from the donation received from the Civil Service Insurance Society Charity Fund (CSIS CF), and a Christmas bonus payment of £250.

In 2025 our income exceeded £1million for the 12th year in a row. Individual donations, legacies and Gift Aid made up over 76% of this and thanks must go to the CSIS CF, PORF and Openreach for their very generous contributions. Other income came from investment returns and Christmas card sales. We again ended the year with a significant surplus and have substantial reserves which will help to support our work well into the future.

As is the case for most small charities recruiting and retaining regular donors remains challenging, but whilst we saw a continuing decline in donor numbers from 16,015 to 15,633, thankfully many existing donors increased their contributions and new donors (of which we had 601) generally donated more than those that left us, so this helped to increase our individual donor income. We also continue to work with BT to raise awareness of the Fund and the work it does in order to attract new donors.

The Fund’s Trustee Board has remained unchanged throughout 2025 and the Board remains engaged and committed and has worked in support of the Fund's operations and kept future challenges firmly in focus when deciding on strategic issues. The Secretariat team have also worked extremely hard again this year in support of those that come to us for help and I would like to extend my thanks to the whole team for their ongoing professionalism and enthusiasm and to our many wonderful donors for their continuing support.

We now look forward to 2026 where our focus will be on growing our donor base and most importantly, continuing to provide financial help and support to our BT colleagues, past and present.

Jessica Norton
Chair of Trustees