Sailors' Society

Sailors' Society scores 78 out of 100 (4 stars — Good) on CharityCompare's Clarity Score, our independent read of its UK regulator filings. Around 77% of its spending goes to charitable activities (3-yr avg) and its accounts are late. That reflects how transparent and financially healthy it looks on paper — it does not measure the real-world impact of its work, so treat it as one factor alongside the cause you care about. CharityCompare never tells you where to donate.

The register data used for this profile lists Sailors' Society as a registered charity (charity number 237778). Verify it on the official register: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regId=237778&subId=0. Check the current entry and the identity of anyone requesting money. Registration does not verify a particular appeal; Clarity Score summarises filing transparency, not programme impact.

Sailors' Society's charity number is 237778. Check that number on the official register (Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI) or this CharityCompare profile before you donate — scammers sometimes reuse real numbers on fake appeals.

Sailors' Society scores 78 out of 100 on CharityCompare (4 stars — Good). The Clarity Score (method v1.1) sums four pillars from UK regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 pts), Financial Health (30), Financial Efficiency (20), and Community Support (10). Stars use the same bands as those labels — 90+ is 5★ Exceptional. It is not an impact ranking.

CharityCompare does not host public user reviews for Sailors' Society. Instead you get a filing-based Clarity Score, cause spend, reserves and red flags such as late accounts (2 red flags on this profile: late accounts filing; sharp income decline). For formal complaints about a charity, contact the Charity Commission, OSCR, CCNI or the Fundraising Regulator as appropriate.

Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, 77% of Sailors' Society's total spending went to charitable activities (3-yr avg across disclosed years). That is the closest official figure to "how much of your donation reaches the cause" — it is an average across all spending in the filing, not a pound-by-pound breakdown of an individual gift.

Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, fundraising costs were about 23% of total expenditure and fundraising plus separately reported governance figures amount to about 29% of expenditure (2022–2024, disclosed years); these categories can overlap, so this is not a distinct total of all administration costs at Sailors' Society. Sailors' Society's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2024 reports 4 employees paid more than £60,000, including 1 employee paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £130,001–£140,000 (1 employee). Individual salaries, including the chief executive's, are disclosed in the trustees' annual report rather than on the register.

Sailors' Society reported £1.6m total income in its 2024 accounts, based on UK regulator filings. Five-year trend: declining.

Filing status: late (last filing 2025-10-29). CharityCompare flags late or missing accounts separately from the financial score.

Sailors' Society's registered contact address is in Southampton (SO19 9FF). It tells the regulator it operates in England and Wales, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Ghana, India, with a focus on poverty relief.

The Charity Commission register does not name individual salaries. Sailors' Society's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2024 reports 4 employees paid more than £60,000, including 1 employee paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £130,001–£140,000 (1 employee). Charities normally disclose the chief executive's pay, or the pay of their highest-paid staff, in the remuneration note of the trustees' annual report and accounts.

Sailors' Society reported £1.6m total income for the year ending 31 December 2024. The largest sources were donations and legacies £1.2m (76%), trading and fundraising events £199k (13%), investments £159k (10%). Legacies (gifts in wills) contributed £622k.

The register records Sailors' Society as registered with HMRC for Gift Aid, so a UK taxpayer can usually add 25p to every £1 they give by making a Gift Aid declaration.

Sailors' Society's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2024 reports that no trustee received remuneration or other benefits from the charity.

The register lists these previous names for Sailors' Society: British and International Sailors' Society; British Sailors' Society At Home and Abroad Incorporated.

Sailors' Society was entered on the register on 17 December 1964. It is also a company registered at Companies House (company number 00086942).

We calculate a Clarity Score of 0–100 from four pillars in Sailors' Society's regulator filings: Accountability & Transparency (40 points — filing history, trustees, policies), Financial Health (30 — reserves, income trend, debt), Financial Efficiency (20 — cause spend and fundraising cost, on a graduated scale) and Community Support (10 — volunteer-to-staff ratio). An open statutory inquiry scores 0. The score measures reporting on paper, not programme impact. CharityCompare is free for donors, takes no commission on donations, and scores cannot be bought.

This profile was last updated on 6 September 2026 from the latest UK regulator data available to CharityCompare, and Sailors' Society's most recent accounts cover 2024. Scores and figures refresh whenever we re-ingest the register, so the page reflects our latest data pull rather than a one-off review.