Common questions about The Leonardo Trust's rating, finances, and Charity Commission status.
Is The Leonardo Trust a good charity? +
The Leonardo Trust scores 62 out of 100 (3 stars — Needs improvement) on CharityCompare's Clarity Score, our independent read of its UK regulator filings. Around 97% of its spending goes to charitable activities (latest year) 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 Leonardo Trust a legitimate charity? +
The register data used for this profile lists The Leonardo Trust as a registered charity (charity number 1086045). Verify it on the official register: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-details/?regId=1086045&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 Leonardo Trust's charity number? +
The Leonardo Trust's charity number is 1086045. 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 Leonardo Trust's charity rating? +
The Leonardo Trust scores 62 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 Leonardo Trust have reviews and complaints? +
CharityCompare does not host public user reviews for The Leonardo 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: very high reserves). 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 Leonardo Trust? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, 97% of The Leonardo Trust's total spending went to charitable activities. 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 Leonardo Trust's overheads? +
Across the recent disclosed accounts used for this score, fundraising costs were about 3% of total expenditure and fundraising plus separately reported governance figures amount to about 4% of expenditure (2025); these categories can overlap, so this is not a distinct total of all administration costs at The Leonardo Trust. The Leonardo Trust's annual return for the year ending 31 March 2025 reports no employees paid more than £60,000. Individual salaries, including the chief executive's, are disclosed in the trustees' annual report rather than on the register.
How much income does The Leonardo Trust receive? +
The Leonardo Trust reported £11m total income in its 2025 accounts, based on UK regulator filings. Five-year trend: check comparability.
Are The Leonardo Trust's accounts up to date? +
Filing status: up to date (last filing 2026-01-23). CharityCompare flags late or missing accounts separately from the financial score.
Where is The Leonardo Trust based? +
The Leonardo Trust's registered contact address is in Bournemouth (BH17 7BX). It tells the regulator it operates in Dorset, Bournemouth, Poole, with a focus on poverty relief.
How much is The Leonardo Trust's chief executive paid? +
The Charity Commission register does not name individual salaries. The Leonardo Trust's annual return for the year ending 31 March 2025 reports no employees paid more than £60,000. 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 Leonardo Trust's money come from? +
The Leonardo Trust reported £11m total income for the year ending 31 March 2025. The largest sources were donations and legacies £11m (97%), investments £265k (2%), other income £15k (0%). Legacies (gifts in wills) contributed £11m.
Can I claim Gift Aid on a donation to The Leonardo Trust? +
The register records The Leonardo 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 Leonardo Trust's trustees paid? +
The Leonardo Trust's annual return for the year ending 31 March 2025 reports that no trustee received remuneration or other benefits from the charity.
When was The Leonardo Trust registered as a charity? +
The Leonardo Trust was entered on the register on 5 April 2001.
How does CharityCompare score The Leonardo Trust? +
We calculate a Clarity Score of 0–100 from four pillars in The Leonardo 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 Leonardo 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.