Mind vs Samaritans — mental health charity comparison
In short: Mind: Mental-health information, campaigning and local partnerships. Samaritans: Emotional support coordinated across a branch network. 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 | MIND (THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH) | SAMARITANS |
|---|---|---|
| Registered work and operating model | Mental-health information, campaigning and local partnerships. | Emotional support coordinated across a branch network. |
| What to consider | The register explicitly distinguishes the national charity from independent local Minds. A national financial rating does not evaluate every local provider, and local-service results should retain their own organisational identity. | The register describes a coordinating body and a network across the UK and Ireland. Contact volumes indicate use of the service; they do not establish a count of lives saved. Check whether any reported figure covers the network or this entity. |
| Access and practical checks | Check whether you need national information or a local Mind service. Verify the local organisation’s registration, service area and access criteria separately. | Use Samaritans’ official contact page for current ways to reach support. Check branch-specific arrangements before planning an in-person visit. |
| Sourced result or evidence gap | 116,000: Support and information helpline queries answered. 2024/25, Mind support and information helplines. Queries are service contacts, not necessarily unique people or independently measured improvements in wellbeing. Do not compare with network-wide totals without checking scope. | Over 3.3 million: Calls for help answered across contact channels. Calendar 2024, reported in the 2024/25 annual report, Samaritans service contacts including phone, email, chat and letters. The report uses calls for help to include multiple contact channels. This is not a count of unique people or lives saved; contacts can repeat. |
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.
| Metric | MIND (THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH) | SAMARITANS |
|---|---|---|
| Latest accounts year in our snapshot | 2025 | 2025 |
| Financial snapshot refreshed | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 |
| Ratio reporting window | 3-yr avg | 3-yr avg |
| Overall score | 77/100 (4★) | 90/100 (5★) |
| Accountability & Finance | 100/100 | 100/100 |
| Spend on charitable activities | 60% of expenditure | 77% of expenditure |
| Fundraising efficiency | £2.1 total income per £1 fundraising (2023–2025, disclosed years) | £4.1 total income per £1 fundraising (2023–2025, disclosed years) |
| Latest income | £64m | £28m |
| Fundraising spend | 40% of expenditure | 23% of expenditure |
| Reserves | 3 months | 5 months |
| Accounts filing | On time | On time |
| Data confidence | high | high |
| Charity number | 219830 | 219432 |
MIND (THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH) on the register · SAMARITANS on the register
Considering Mind
- Mental-health information, campaigning and local partnerships.
- Check whether you need national information or a local Mind service. Verify the local organisation’s registration, service area and access criteria separately.
Considering Samaritans
- Emotional support coordinated across a branch network.
- Use Samaritans’ official contact page for current ways to reach support. Check branch-specific arrangements before planning an in-person visit.
Common questions
Mind or Samaritans: which should I support?
There is no universal winner. Mental-health information, campaigning and local partnerships. Emotional support coordinated across a branch network. 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.