Helping charities tell the story of their impact

Good impact reporting supports trust and confidence in both the organisation itself and the wider charity sector. It helps the public to understand the myriad contributions charities make in their day-to-day lives. Meanwhile, donors and supporters are given confidence that funds are being used effectively to further charitable purposes. And beneficiaries see how charities respond and listen to their experiences.  

For the charities themselves, impact reporting should be much more than a compliance exercise. It can be a fundraising tool, a way to engage with different audiences, strengthen accountability, or even an opportunity for trustees and staff to ask what is working well and what can be improved. 

What has changed under the new SORP

The 2026 Charities SORP introduces a more proportionate tiered reporting structure and makes changes to the Trustees’ Annual Report. Among these changes is a stronger expectation that charities explain their impact: what they have achieved and what difference their work has made for beneficiaries and wider society. 

This matters because impact reporting has often been something charities have chosen to do well, rather than something that is expected of them. The new requirements recognise that the difference charities make is not an optional extra. It is an important part of accountability, transparency and the compact between the public and charity sector.

Impact reporting is the ultimate proof of public benefit. 

We will not tell charities how to tell their story

Trustees, staff, volunteers and beneficiaries know their charities best. They understand the needs they are trying to meet, the context they operate in, and the evidence that best explains their work. So the Commission does not want to restrict charities by prescribing how to report impact. 

Some charities will find their impact is best explained through numbers and outputs: people supported, meals provided, trees planted, grants awarded, and so on. Others will know their most powerful evidence is in the form of stories, testimony, new partnerships. Many will use a mixture of qualitative and quantitative evidence, combining the tangible with the intangible. The key thing is that the reporting helps readers understand the difference made and that charities can credibly prove their contribution. 

Umbrella bodies and charity coalitions can play a valuable role. Organisations such as the Almshouse Association, and representative bodies working across particular causes or places, can help charities identify common outcomes. They can support the sharing of good practice and, where appropriate, tell a collective story about impact across a part of the sector. That collective evidence can be especially helpful where individual charities are small, volunteer-led or focused on a local community. 

How the Commission will support the sector

Our role is to support charities to meet their legal duties and to help the public better understand the sector. We already make information available through the public register and through analysis of annual returns. That annual return analysis helps show the scale, finances, structure and activity of the sector, and it will continue to be an important part of how we explain the charity sector’s contribution. 

But we know we can do more. We want to do a better job of sharing charities’ impact stories on the public register, in a way that can be understood by the public, funders, researchers, government and other charities. 

We have a long-term vision for a system in which charities can describe their impact in ways that work for them, while making that information more visible, useful and comparable where appropriate. That will require collaboration with stakeholders across government, academia, funders, umbrella bodies and the sector itself. 

That is why we have commissioned independent research over the next nine months to speak to charities and others about what support is needed, what information would be useful, and how our systems could better enable charities to report impact in the way they want. Whether the answer is clearer guidance, changes to our online forms, improvements to the public register, better use of annual return data, or a combination of these, we are listening. We have an opportunity together to ensure that charities enable better public policy and decision making at all levels.  

A conversation we want charities to shape

We consider this the start of a conversation about impact reporting, with charities playing an active part in shaping what comes next. The goal is not to create reporting for reporting’s sake. It is to help charities tell their story, help the public understand the difference charities make, and help trustees use impact information to make good decisions. 

Charities exist to make a difference. Together, we can show how truly remarkable the impact of our sector is.