Annual report & accounts

The trustees present their annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31^st December 2024. 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.

As the new Chair of the BT Benevolent Fund Trustee Board, I am delighted to report that the Fund had another successful year in 2024. We awarded grants of over £660,000 and helped 473 individuals, couples and families who were in financial difficulty. We helped 149 current BT employees and ended the year paying weekly grants to 114 BT pensioners on very low incomes.

The economic climate remains challenging and in particular energy costs are still high which continued to impact the most vulnerable in our society. The Fund continued to respond effectively to this crisis thanks to the high level of support from both our individual and corporate donors.

Our largest individual grant in 2024 was £5,000 for bathroom adaptations and we also awarded 35 grants of £2,500 or more. Many of these were for funeral costs, new boilers and priority debt. We currently pay weekly grants to 114 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 additional Christmas payments to all weekly grant recipients, consisting of a £200 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 £200.

In 2024 our income exceeded £1million for the 11th year in a row. Membership donations and Gift Aid made up over 69% of this and thanks must go to the CSIS CF, PORF and Openreach for their very generous contributions. Other income came from investments, Christmas card sales, one-off donations and legacies. We again ended the year with a surplus and have substantial reserves, which will help to support our work well into the future.

Whilst we saw a decline in donor numbers from 16,466 to 16,015, thankfully many existing donors increased their contributions and new donors (of which we had 781 in the year) generally donated more than those that left us, which helped our overall donor income remain reasonably flat.

This year Vivien Lantree stood down as a trustee after 5 years with the BT Benevolent Fund so I would like to thank Vivien for all her hard work and dedication during that time. As always, the whole Board has worked hard to support the Fund's objectives and my thanks go to them for all their time and effort.

The Secretariat team have worked hard again this year in support of those that come to us for help and my thanks go to them for their continued commitment and enthusiasm. We now look forward to 2025 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.

On a personal note, I was honoured to be asked to take on the role of Chair of the Trustee Board following Mark’s departure. I would like to thank Mark for his 5 years of support and sponsorship of the Fund and to extend my thanks to the whole team for their ongoing professionalism and enthusiasm and to our many wonderful donors for their continuing support. I look forward to working with the Fund’s board and wider team who go above and beyond to make sure they help as many of those who come to us as possible and I hope to be able to make a significant positive contribution myself.

Jessica Norton
Chair of Trustees