Parkinson’s UK reports an increase in total income of £1m – from £20.9m to £21.9m in its latest accounts.

The sum puts the charity on target to raise £110m during its current five-year strategic planning period of 2010-2014. This includes income received by local groups, which also increased in 2011 to £3.9m from £3.4m the previous year.

Parkinson’s UK’s accounts, for the year ending December 2011, reveal increases in donations and membership to £9.3m (£8.1m in 2010), and though this was partly offset by slightly lower legacy income of £9.6m (2010’s was £10m), it was still on target. Total expenditure in 2011 reached £23.7m (2010 reached £22.8m).

The charity invested £4.7m in Parkinson’s research and support services in 2011. Added to its investment of £5.3m in this area in 2010, this means the charity is also on target to reach another of its goal: to invest £25m into research during 2010 to 2014.

New initiatives

A number of initiatives contributed to the successful year. The charity’s network bringing health and social care professionals together to share best practice grew by 72 per cent in 2011. Further to this, its research support network attracted more than 500 members.

It has also benefitted from putting more fundraising measures in place during 2011. These included simplifying its inbound donation system from a 16 to a four-step process; creating a number of ‘easy-to-use’ fundraising cases (resulting in £1.25m in pledges); developing a small trusts programme that consistently delivered £20,000 a month, including a single pledge of £1m; and gaining 27,000 new supporters during the year.

Parkinson’s UK also secured a £250,000 funding boost through developing a relationship with the Freemason’s Grand Charity.