Common questions about The Black Country Living Museum Trust's rating, finances, and Charity Commission status.
Is The Black Country Living Museum Trust a good charity? +
The Black Country Living Museum Trust scores 64 out of 100 (3 stars — Needs improvement) on CharityCompare's Clarity Score, our independent read of its UK regulator filings. Around 70% of its spending goes to charitable activities (3-yr avg) and its accounts are up to date. 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.
Is The Black Country Living Museum Trust a legitimate charity? +
The register data used for this profile lists The Black Country Living Museum Trust as a registered charity (charity number 504481). Verify it on the official register: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regId=504481&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.
What is The Black Country Living Museum Trust's charity number? +
The Black Country Living Museum Trust's charity number is 504481. 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.
What is The Black Country Living Museum Trust's charity rating? +
The Black Country Living Museum Trust scores 64 out of 100 on CharityCompare (3 stars — Needs improvement). 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.
Does The Black Country Living Museum Trust have reviews and complaints? +
CharityCompare does not host public user reviews for The Black Country Living Museum Trust. Instead you get a filing-based Clarity Score, cause spend, reserves and red flags such as late accounts (one red flag on this profile: high fundraising costs). For formal complaints about a charity, contact the Charity Commission, OSCR, CCNI or the Fundraising Regulator as appropriate.
How much of my donation reaches The Black Country Living Museum Trust? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, 70% of The Black Country Living Museum Trust'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.
What are The Black Country Living Museum Trust's overheads? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, fundraising costs were about 30% of total expenditure and fundraising plus separately reported governance figures amount to about 30% of expenditure (2023–2025, disclosed years); these categories can overlap, so this is not a distinct total of all administration costs at The Black Country Living Museum Trust. The Black Country Living Museum Trust's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2025 reports 3 employees paid more than £60,000, including 1 employee paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £110,001–£120,000 (1 employee). Individual salaries, including the chief executive's, are disclosed in the trustees' annual report rather than on the register.
How much income does The Black Country Living Museum Trust receive? +
The Black Country Living Museum Trust reported £11m total income in its 2025 accounts, based on UK regulator filings. Five-year trend: declining.
Are The Black Country Living Museum Trust's accounts up to date? +
Filing status: up to date (last filing 2026-08-13). CharityCompare flags late or missing accounts separately from the financial score.
Where is The Black Country Living Museum Trust based? +
The Black Country Living Museum Trust's registered contact address is in Dudley (DY1 4SQ). It tells the regulator it operates in Birmingham City, Coventry City, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall, with a focus on heritage.
How much is The Black Country Living Museum Trust's chief executive paid? +
The Charity Commission register does not name individual salaries. The Black Country Living Museum Trust's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2025 reports 3 employees paid more than £60,000, including 1 employee paid more than £100,000. The highest reported pay band is £110,001–£120,000 (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.
Where does The Black Country Living Museum Trust's money come from? +
The Black Country Living Museum Trust reported £11m total income for the year ending 31 December 2025. The largest sources were charitable activities £6.4m (59%), trading and fundraising events £4m (37%), donations and legacies £324k (3%). Legacies (gifts in wills) contributed £55k.
Can I claim Gift Aid on a donation to The Black Country Living Museum Trust? +
The register records The Black Country Living Museum Trust 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.
Are The Black Country Living Museum Trust's trustees paid? +
The Black Country Living Museum Trust's annual return for the year ending 31 December 2025 reports that no trustee received remuneration or other benefits from the charity.
What was The Black Country Living Museum Trust previously called? +
The register lists this previous name for The Black Country Living Museum Trust: The Black Country Museum Trust Limited.
When was The Black Country Living Museum Trust registered as a charity? +
The Black Country Living Museum Trust was entered on the register on 10 October 1975. It is also a company registered at Companies House (company number 01226321).
How does CharityCompare score The Black Country Living Museum Trust? +
We calculate a Clarity Score of 0–100 from four pillars in The Black Country Living Museum Trust'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.
How often is this page updated? +
This profile was last updated on 6 September 2026 from the latest UK regulator data available to CharityCompare, and The Black Country Living Museum Trust's most recent accounts cover 2025. Scores and figures refresh whenever we re-ingest the register, so the page reflects our latest data pull rather than a one-off review.