For every £1 Diabetes UK received — Just 6½ p was committed to New Research

What fundraisers may not realise Only 6½p in every £1 Diabetes UK received in 2025 was committed to new research from its core funds, ie. excluding Steve Morgan Foundation Its own new-research commitments have almost halved since 2023 — down around 53% in just 2 years. Diabetes UK spent £12.1m raising money — more than 4 times what it committed from core funds to new research. Diabetes UK represents itself as a charity speaking for more than 4.6 million people but relies on a lived-experience committee capped at just 30 selected members. Ordinary supporters give up control of unrestricted donations. Wealthy institutional funders can ringfence millions around the priorities they choose. The £50m “gift” for a cure is not without strings: if funded research makes money, some of that can flow back to the donating Foundation.

Every year, people with their own personal connection to diabetes choose to run marathons, organise coffee mornings, hold collections, complete sponsored challenges and leave money in their wills for Diabetes UK. Most are likely to assume that their money will go towards funding diabetes research or directly helping people living with the condition.

Diabetes UK’s 2025 figures show a complicated reality and much wider use of fundraisers’ donations that’s not necessarily transparent to those individuals.

In 2025 the charity’s accounts show they received £43.84 million and spent £42.2 million with donations and legacies bringing in £32.3 million – almost three quarters of the charity’s income for the year.

Where the money came from

2025	Amount
Donations and legacies	£32.27 million
Charitable activities	£7.45 million
Trading activities	£3.98 million
Investment income	£0.14 million
Total income	£43.84 million

But, when it comes to where this is spent, the equivalent of just 6½p for every £1 of Diabetes UK’s total income was committed to new research from its core funds.

It does make you wonder whether there’ll ever be a cure? And it’s particularly noticeable that the charity’s core investment in research is falling, when considered separately to the Steve Morgan “gift” of £50 million for a cure.

Read our article What Diabetes UK doesn’t make clear about the £50 Million Fund for a Cure

How research investment has fallen

	Diabetes UK Total Income by year	Diabetes UK funded new research
2021	£37.7 million	Over £6.6 million
2022	£37.9 million	Over £6.2 million
2023	£42.7 million	£7.3 million
2024	£38.4 million	£3.93 million
2025	£43.84 million	£3.4 million approx.

Diabetes UK’s own new-research commitments fell from £7.3m in 2023 to approximately £3.4m in 2025 — a fall of around 53%.

So, if the spend on new research is not the main use of funds, where does it go?

The accounts are not clear on this from the perspective of a fundraiser looking to understand where their fundraising money will be spent and the likely impact it will have.

Diabetes UK chose to change how they categorise funds in 2024 and the newer, broader categories make it harder to compare particular areas of expenditure with earlier years or identify from the headline figures how much is being spent on individual activities. For example, the category “Our offer for all” now includes professional education, helpline, research, campaigning, technology programmes, lumping together very different activities without properly explaining them – what is meant by technology programmes? Who is professional education for? -  which makes analysis and understanding more difficult.

Diabetes UK expenditure in 2025

Category	What it includes	Amount
“Our offer for all”	Helpline, Learning Zone, support services, research and other core activity	£14.7 million
Raising funds	Fundraising activity, staff costs & related support costs	£12.1 million
Curing and preventing diabetes	Includes Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge research and other cure/prevention activity	£6.9 million
Supporting people to live well with diabetes	Support, care and related programmes	£6.3 million
Tackling stigma and inequality	Work addressing stigma, inequality and access	£2.2 million
Total expenditure		£42.2 million

Note: The accounts also report £820,233 in total remuneration for the CEO and Executive Team.

This means 28.6% (£12.1 million) of all expenditure was classified as the cost of raising funds — more than 4 times the amount committed to new research from Diabetes UK’s core funds in 2025. For fundraisers, that is a significant proportion of spending going towards generating future income rather than directly supporting those living with the condition now.

Of course fundraising does have a cost, but what’s reasonable? And how does it compare to other medical-focused charities?

Fundraising for medical charities comparison

Accounting between charities is not perfectly like-for-like, but these figures are indicative rather than directly comparable because charities classify research expenditure differently.

Charity		Research for each £1 of annual income (approximate)	Research expenditure	Annual income
Cancer Research UK		60p	£416m	£696m
British Heart Foundation		55p	£98.9m	£181m*
Alzheimer’s Research UK		50p	£30.8m	£61.95m
Breakthrough T1D UK		46p	£3.68m Direct research funding	£8.02m
Diabetes UK	Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge	8.2p	£3.59m	£43.8m
	Diabetes UK-funded	6½ p	£2.86m New research

*BHF presents this income figure net of retail costs.

The difference is stark, but not simply that Diabetes UK is smaller than the cancer and heart charities. It takes a broader approach to its charity remit with different emphasis on who receives funding and its priorities.

Cancer Research UK is unmistakably research-led. The British Heart Foundation combines major research expenditure with substantial patient information and support. Breakthrough T1D is explicitly research focused.

Let's take a look at the wider picture of Diabetes UK's spending...

Diabetes UK charitable model

The charity has a broad approach to charitable activities it supports, showing very different uses of the same fundraising pound.

Diabetes UK’s charity spending includes:

• research
• professional education
• campaigning
• NHS-system change
• political influence
• professional conferences
• stigma work
• inequality programmes  
• development of advocates

Many of these do not provide direct support to a person living with diabetes today but are future-looking and fundraisers may not realise that the funds they raised are being spent for these purposes.

Why is a patient charity training NHS Healthcare Professionals?

One of the clearest examples of Diabetes UK’s wider approach to its role as a diabetes charity is professional education.

The reasoning is understandable: better-informed clinicians can improve patient care. But it remains reasonable to ask why educating NHS staff has become such a substantial function of a patient charity, and how much of the cost is ultimately supported by ordinary fundraising.

The NHS, universities, Royal Colleges, professional organisations and employers already have established responsibilities for continuing professional development.

Is it right that someone taking part in a sponsored Wellness Walk, for example, is helping to fund another training infrastructure for NHS staff, especially when similar education already exists elsewhere?

Companies including Abbott, Lilly and Dexcom have also helped fund Diabetes UK’s professional education platform, although Diabetes UK states that they have not developed or provided any input into the content.

However, there are separately other channels that provide HCPs with training directly sponsored by medtech companies like Abbott and the strategy used follows one developed by Diabetes UK.

Novo Nordisk and the Clinical Champions Strategy Diabetes UK launched its Clinical Champions programme in 2014 with funding from Novo Nordisk. It recruits healthcare professionals from across the NHS — including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dietitians, psychologists and service leads — through an application process. Participants receive leadership development, coaching and peer support designed not simply to improve clinical knowledge, but to help them influence services and become “catalysts for change” across diabetes care. The programme has run in repeated cohorts for more than a decade, building a national network of Clinical Champions. Diabetes UK reported 105 Champions by 2019 and 125 by 2020, with alumni going on to influential roles across NHS trusts, diabetes services and wider health systems. Diabetes UK says it controls the programme and that sponsors do not select participants or determine its content. The strategic significance is broader than ordinary sponsorship of a training course. Pharmaceutical funding has helped support a programme that identifies clinicians with leadership potential, brings them into a national network and equips them to influence how diabetes services operate. Novo Nordisk itself has described the Champions as “advocates for change”. But does Diabetes UK make it sufficiently clear that unrestricted donations from ordinary fundraisers contribute to an organisation that deliberately seeks to influence NHS services, healthcare policy and wider system change?

Does Diabetes UK represent the interests of PWD?

Diabetes UK is regularly consulted and forms relationships with government, the NHS, companies and other organisations as a leading voice for people living with diabetes.

And yet, with more than 4.6 million people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK the charity has only a paid membership of around 80,000, equivalent to just 1.7% of that population. 

It is also noticeable that the last time Diabetes UK carried out a large-scale, open consultation with the wider diabetes community was almost a decade ago. In 2017 it ran what it described as the “UK’s biggest conversation about diabetes”, with more than 9,000 people sharing their experiences and priorities for the future. Since then, Diabetes UK has continued to consult smaller advisory groups, research steering groups and selected communities on particular issues, but there has not been another comparable nationwide exercise asking people with diabetes as a whole what they want the charity’s priorities to be.

Diabetes UK also promotes the fact that its online forum receives more than half a million visits a year. But visits are not the same as people actively participating. Its own website indicates that around 23,000 people are part of that forum community, equivalent to roughly 0.5% of the diagnosed diabetes population, and some members are relatives or carers rather than people with diabetes themselves.

Diabetes UK may represent the interests of people with diabetes as part of its charitable mission, but that should not be confused with being a membership organisation in which most people with diabetes have chosen to join or directly participate. If it is speaking to government, the NHS and industry on behalf of millions of people, it is reasonable to ask how regularly those millions are actually being asked what they want.

You raise the money. Diabetes UK chooses the priorities

Unless a donation is legally restricted to a particular purpose, the person fundraising does not normally control how it will be used. £1,000 raised “for Diabetes UK” does not necessarily mean £1,000 for research or direct support. It goes into the charity’s wider resources, which also fund running costs and other activities.

The priorities and strategies for using those funds are set by Diabetes UK’s trustees, with senior executives managing the organisation day to day.

Within the charity’s legal purposes, they have considerable discretion over where, when and how much is spent. Those priorities extend well beyond research and direct support for people living with diabetes. Diabetes UK also spends money on professional education, campaigning, NHS-system change, political influence, professional conferences, stigma and inequality programmes, and developing advocates.

That is very different from the arrangement with the Steve Morgan Foundation. Its £50 million is ringfenced for a defined type 1 diabetes research programme, with detailed restrictions on how the money can be used and many general administration costs excluded.

The contrast is clear: ordinary unrestricted supporters hand over both their money and control over how it is used, while a major institutional funder can negotiate exactly what its money is for.

If you look to make a donation there’s no mention of how a standard donor could make a restricted donation either.

Do fundraisers understand this? And do Diabetes UK’s priorities reflect those of the wider diabetes community?

Have people with diabetes had a say in these priorities?

Diabetes UK’s last large-scale consultation with the diabetes community was nearly a decade ago, in 2017, through its Future of Diabetes exercise, when more than 9,000 people contributed their experiences and hopes for the future.

The priorities identified included better emotional and psychological support, greater access to healthcare professionals who understand diabetes, better access to technology and treatment, improved information and education, better support at work and school, and hope through research and prevention.

Since then, Diabetes UK has expanded significantly into professional education, inequality programmes, stigma campaigning, NHS-system work and policy influence.

Its lived-experience structures are not drawn randomly from the wider diabetes population. Members apply and are selected, and the Diabetes Lived Experience Advisory Committee is capped at a maximum of 30 people. Some members also have extensive existing advocacy histories emphasising the limited views considered by the charity.

In 2023, for example, the Chair of the DLEA was AL, a long-standing diabetes advocate who had already participated in industry-linked diabetes networks and represented patient perspectives in national policy discussions. AL is also a moderator on the Diabetes UK Forum.

Diabetes UK publishes the full names and professional roles of members of its Healthcare Professional Advisory Committee, yet does not publish a full membership list for its Diabetes Lived Experience Advisory Committee. That is notable because the DLEA is used to inform strategy and has direct access to the CEO and Executive Team.

For an organisation speaking on behalf of more than 4.6 million people diagnosed with diabetes, a maximum of 30 selected lived-experience representatives is a very limited pool.

If that group is being used to represent lived experience across the organisation, the same level of transparency about who those representatives are would seem reasonable. It is the wider population whose condition gives Diabetes UK much of its authority, and whose families and supporters provide much of its fundraising power.

From supporting people to changing the system

With its broader approach, Diabetes UK is increasingly engaging with government, NHS organisations, healthcare professionals, professional leaders and patient advocates. It campaigns on access and policy, organises professional conferences and seeks to influence how diabetes services are designed.

This means Diabetes UK is no longer simply helping people to navigate the diabetes system. It is increasingly trying to shape that system itself and this represents a very different use of charitable money.

Diabetes UK knows how to mobilise its audience

Diabetes UK is very good at asking people affected by diabetes to act. It asks them to fundraise, campaign, tell their stories, become advocates, contact politicians and contribute lived experience to consultations and public campaigns.

But taking part is not the same as being asked what the charity’s priorities should be.

There is an underlying assumption that sharing a story, joining a campaign or contributing lived experience also signals support for the wider agenda Diabetes UK chooses to pursue. In most cases, those people have not been asked to make that choice, and this should be concerning.

Diabetes UK often speaks on behalf of the wider diabetes community when dealing with government, industry and other organisations. That community involvement helps give the charity authority to do so, but as Diabetes UK changes its structure, aims and ambitions, the people it speaks for seem increasingly removed from deciding what those should be.

5 Questions every fundraiser should ask

Before organising another sponsored event or leaving a substantial legacy, every supporter should be able to obtain clear answers to five questions.

1.    How much of my money funds new independent research?

2.    How much provides direct support to people living with diabetes?

3.    How much is spent raising more money and maintaining the organisation?

4.    How much supports professional education, campaigning and policy activity?

5.   When were people with diabetes last asked for what would really make a difference to their day-to-day experience of living with diabetes and what should the priorities be?

Fundraisers should know what they’re raising money for

This article is not about questioning the value of the work that Diabetes UK does in funding research, operating a helpline, providing information and supporting people living with diabetes. But those activities are only part of what the modern Diabetes UK does. And the broader approach is currently unclear to those out there in all weathers putting their boots on the ground, running kit on, diving in or taking a walk to stretch their legs and chat with other like-minded people in the name of Diabetes UK.

While some supporters may strongly support the priorities now being followed by Diabetes UK, others may not.

And that is the point.

People with diabetes provide the stories

They provide the legitimacy

They provide much of the fundraising power

They provide tens of millions of pounds through donations and legacies.

The question is whether the same audience is being given enough influence over what the organisation chooses to do with the money, attention and political authority raised by the community it says it represents.

Notes

How we calculated these figures

The 6½p figure is based on the £2.86 million Diabetes UK committed to 16 new projects through its core research funding schemes in 2025, divided by its total income of £43.84 million. It excludes a separately reported £540,973 contribution to a jointly funded strategic research project, bringing Diabetes UK's own identifiable new research commitments to approximately £3.4 million, or 7.8p per £1 received.

The figures represent commitments to new research, not total research expenditure, which also includes payments towards projects approved in earlier years. Funding from the Steve Morgan Foundation's Grand Challenge is excluded from these core-funding comparisons.

These figures are supported by Diabetes UK's own 2025 Funding Outcomes, page 7.

The 53% decline in new research commitments is calculated using Diabetes UK's own identifiable new research commitments, including contributions to jointly funded strategic projects. These fell from £7.3 million in 2023 to approximately £3.4 million in 2025, a decline of around 53%. The 2025 figure includes £2.86 million committed through core research funding schemes and £540,973 towards a jointly funded strategic project.