Cancer research vs patient support — where does your money go?
In short: Cancer research charity: Cancer research and public information. Patient support charity: Support and navigation for people affected by cancer. Match the work to your purpose, then compare dated accounts and evidence.
Data from Charity Commission register, last updated .
This comparison brings together registered purposes, source-checked interpretation and the accounts held by CharityCompare. The organisations may use different reporting periods and definitions. Read the source notes before comparing totals or treating a financial score as an assessment of programme results.
Key differences
| What to compare | CANCER RESEARCH UK | MACMILLAN CANCER SUPPORT |
|---|---|---|
| Registered work and operating model | Cancer research and public information. | Support and navigation for people affected by cancer. |
| What to consider | Research operates over long timeframes. Funding commitments, completed studies and changes in clinical practice are different measures; do not attribute a national survival trend to one organisation without supporting evaluation. | Its activities focus on helping people affected by cancer get support and influencing care. Assess reach alongside people’s experience of accessing that support; contact counts alone do not establish improved health or finances. |
| Access and practical checks | Use the charity’s cancer-information and research pages for its remit. A research funding charity is not a route to routine clinical treatment. | Use Macmillan’s official support finder to check the service and location you need. Advice, professional support and financial assistance can have different access routes. |
| Sourced result or evidence gap | £403 million: Spending on new and ongoing research. 2024/25, Research spending defined in the annual report. A financial input, not a clinical outcome. Includes earlier commitments paid in the year and excludes £7 million of externally funded Scotland Institute research. It differs from new commitments of £419 million. | More than 260 per day: People supported by the Support Line, daily average. 2024, Macmillan Support Line. The charity reports an average daily service figure. It is not an annual count of unique people or a measured health outcome. |
What the latest filings show
Figures from the accounts held in our dated dataset; the live register may contain newer filings. Ratios can span multiple years, as labelled. Clarity scores use our methodology.
These snapshots have different latest accounts years. Compare the same period in the full profiles before drawing a conclusion from a financial difference.
| Metric | CANCER RESEARCH UK | MACMILLAN CANCER SUPPORT |
|---|---|---|
| Latest accounts year in our snapshot | 2025 | 2024 |
| Financial snapshot refreshed | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 |
| Ratio reporting window | 3-yr avg | 3-yr avg |
| Overall score | 83/100 (4★) | 75/100 (4★) |
| Accountability & Finance | 100/100 | 100/100 |
| Spend on charitable activities | 64% of expenditure | 69% of expenditure |
| Fundraising efficiency | £5.8 total income per £1 fundraising (2023–2025, disclosed years) | £3.1 total income per £1 fundraising (2022–2024, disclosed years) |
| Latest income | £735m | £246m |
| Fundraising spend | 18% of expenditure | 31% of expenditure |
| Reserves | 6 months | 2 months |
| Accounts filing | On time | On time |
| Data confidence | high | high |
| Charity number | 1089464 | 261017 |
CANCER RESEARCH UK on the register · MACMILLAN CANCER SUPPORT on the register
Considering Cancer research charity
- Cancer research and public information.
- Use the charity’s cancer-information and research pages for its remit. A research funding charity is not a route to routine clinical treatment.
Considering Patient support charity
- Support and navigation for people affected by cancer.
- Use Macmillan’s official support finder to check the service and location you need. Advice, professional support and financial assistance can have different access routes.
Common questions
Cancer research charity or Patient support charity: which should I support?
There is no universal winner. Cancer research and public information. Support and navigation for people affected by cancer. Check the programme that interests you, the accounts period and the evidence behind any result. A financial rating is not an impact assessment.
Can I compare the headline results directly?
Only if the definitions, population, geography and reporting periods match. Research expenditure, service contacts and lasting outcomes measure different things. The source notes explain any figures included here.
How we score charities +
The Clarity Score is a 100-point rating from UK regulator filings (Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR and CCNI). Four pillars — Accountability & Transparency (40), Financial Health (30), Financial Efficiency (20), and Community Support (10) — each scored on a continuous scale, not pass/fail cutoffs. A statutory inquiry sets the score to 0 automatically.
Accountability & Transparency
Scored from filings
40 points — filing history (15), trustee oversight (15, scaling up to a board of three or more), declared policies (10).
Financial Health
Scored from filings
30 points — reserves (15, full marks 3–24 months, tapering on both sides), income stability (10), liabilities to assets (5, scaling down as debt rises).
Financial Efficiency
Scored from filings
20 points — program expense ratio and fundraising cost, each on a graduated scale (not a single cutoff). Kept at 20% of the total: financial-ratio scoring alone is not a reliable effectiveness signal (see "why not just an overhead ratio?" below).
Community Support
Scored from filings
10 points — volunteer-to-staff ratio from Charity Commission workforce data, scaling continuously up to a 2:1 ratio.
Overall score
Sum of all pillar points. Display stars use the same bands as the labels: 90–100 → 5★ Exceptional; 75–89 → 4★ Good; 60–74 → 3★ Needs improvement; 1–59 → 2★ Poor; 0 → not rated.