The top performing charity in this month’s review of the Charity Finance 250 Index is Heart of England Forest, which reported a 171% rise in income to £23.3m in the year to 31 March 2020. The increase resulted from a neartripling of legacy income to £20.7m from the estate of the charity’s founder, publishing entrepreneur Felix Dennis, who died in 2014.

In the year under review, the charity purchased 595 acres of new land and established a further 170 acres of new woodland, taking it a step closer to the founder’s vision of creating “30,000 acres of contiguous forest in the heart of England to benefit the environment, wildlife and people for hundreds of years to come.”