How to Find Charities in a Specific Area Using the Register of Charities

Updated

Use the Search by constituency tool on the Register of Charities when you want to find smaller, locally based charities in England and Wales. It matches charities by the postcode, parliamentary constituency, or local authority area of their named contact. For national or international charities, or charities providing key services, use the main advanced search instead — the constituency search is not designed to surface those.

What the Register of Charities covers

The Register of Charities is run by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. For each registered charity it shows:

  • What the charity does
  • Trustee information
  • Finance information, such as income and expenditure
  • Any actions the Charity Commission has taken against the charity

You can export up to 10,000 records from the register.

How to search by area

  1. Go to the Register of Charities and open Search by constituency.
  2. Enter one of the following:
    • The postcode of the charity's named contact
    • The parliamentary constituency of the named contact
    • The local authority area of the named contact
  3. Review the results.

The search works because many charities operate in small local areas, and for charities that work in limited areas the named contact will often live in or close to that area. That makes the contact's location a useful proxy for where the charity operates.

What this search will and won't find

You want to find Best tool
Small local charities tied to a specific area Search by constituency
Major national charities Main advanced search
International charities Main advanced search
Charities providing key services Main advanced search

The Register itself notes an important limitation: this search will not identify all the charities that operate in your area. Treat it as a way to surface locally based organisations, not as a complete list of everything active in a place.

Other ways to explore the register

  • Register of merged charities — view charities that have notified the Charity Commission they merged or transferred their assets to another charity.
  • Register datasets — researchers and others can download all publicly available data on the Register of Charities using the "View the dataset" link. The Commission publishes three main types of data, including the full register dataset.
  • Top 10 lists — view top 10 charities by income, expenditure, or other criteria.
  • Sector data — a graphical representation of data about the charity sector.
  • API — the Charity Commission for England and Wales API lets you retrieve information about charities. The data returned is live and real-time. A Beta API service is available.

Practical notes

  • If you are looking for a charity you already know by name, the main register search is the faster route.
  • If your goal is area-based research across many charities, the downloadable dataset or the API will be more complete than the constituency search alone.
  • Log in to online services is available from the register homepage if you need account-based functions.