Shelter vs Crisis — homelessness charity comparison
In short: Shelter: Housing and homelessness support and campaigning. Crisis: Services and campaigning to end homelessness. 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 | SHELTER, NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR HOMELESS PEOPLE LIMITED | CRISIS UK |
|---|---|---|
| Registered work and operating model | Housing and homelessness support and campaigning. | Services and campaigning to end homelessness. |
| What to consider | Assess practical support separately from policy and campaigning work. This is Shelter, registration 263710; Centrepoint is a different organisation with a different registration and accounts. | The register describes education, employment, housing and wellbeing services for people experiencing homelessness. Assess lasting housing outcomes alongside participation; an appointment or training place is not the same as a sustained tenancy. |
| Access and practical checks | Use Shelter’s official website to find the appropriate service for your nation and circumstances. Do not assume an office address identifies a walk-in accommodation service. | Check the relevant Crisis service’s location, referral route and eligibility. The national organisation’s registration does not establish that every service operates in every town. |
| Sourced result or evidence gap | No programme outcome has been source-checked for this profile. This is a gap in our coverage, not evidence of no impact. | No programme outcome has been source-checked for this profile. This is a gap in our coverage, not evidence of no impact. |
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 | SHELTER, NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR HOMELESS PEOPLE LIMITED | CRISIS UK |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 66/100 (3★) | 77/100 (4★) |
| Accountability & Finance | 100/100 | 100/100 |
| Spend on charitable activities | 59% of expenditure | 64% of expenditure |
| Fundraising efficiency | £2.7 total income per £1 fundraising (2023–2025, disclosed years) | £3.1 total income per £1 fundraising (2023–2025, disclosed years) |
| Latest income | £77m | £67m |
| Fundraising spend | 35% of expenditure | 32% of expenditure |
| Reserves | 1 month | 2 months |
| Accounts filing | On time | On time |
| Data confidence | high | high |
| Charity number | 263710 | 1082947 |
SHELTER, NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR HOMELESS PEOPLE LIMITED on the register · CRISIS UK on the register
Considering Shelter
- Housing and homelessness support and campaigning.
- Use Shelter’s official website to find the appropriate service for your nation and circumstances. Do not assume an office address identifies a walk-in accommodation service.
Considering Crisis
- Services and campaigning to end homelessness.
- Check the relevant Crisis service’s location, referral route and eligibility. The national organisation’s registration does not establish that every service operates in every town.
Common questions
Shelter or Crisis: which should I support?
There is no universal winner. Housing and homelessness support and campaigning. Services and campaigning to end homelessness. 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.