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**World Cancer Research Fund** Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements Registered Charity No: 1000739 Registered Company No: 2536180 30 September 2024
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Contents**
|**Contents**||
|---|---|
|Reference and administrative information|3|
|Report of the Trustees|4-21|
|Statement of Responsibilities of the Trustees|22|
|Independent auditor's report to the members of World Cancer Research Fund|23-25|
|Statement of financial activities|26|
|Balance sheet|27|
|Statement of cash flows|28|
|Notes to the financial statements|29-40|
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Reference and administrative information**
## **WORLD CANCER RESEARCH FUND**
**CHARITY NO:**
> **CHARITY NO:** 1000739
> **COMPANY NO:** 2536180
> **REGISTERED OFFICE** 140 Pentonville Road London N1 9FW www.wcrf.org
> **TRUSTEES** Mr R Power (Chairman) Ms A Sinclair Prof A Cooper Ms A Hunter Ms S Pepper Mr G Triefus (joined May 2025) Mr F Hill (resigned October 2024)
> **PRESIDENT** Ms Marilyn Gentry
> **CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER** Ms. Rachael Hutson
> **SECRETARY** Reed Smith Corporate Services Limited
> **AUDITOR** RSM UK Audit LLP Chartered Accountants 25 Farringdon Street London EC4A 4AB
> **BANKERS** Barclays Bank Plc P.O. Box 288 Gloucestershire GL1 2EH NatWest Bank 246 Regent Street London W1B 3PB
> **SOLICITORS** Reed Smith LLP I Blossom Yard London E1 6RS Bates Wells LLP 10 Queen Street Place London EC4R 1BE
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Report of the Trustees**
## _**for the year ended 30 September 2024**_
The Trustees, who are also directors of World Cancer Research Fund for the purposes of the Companies Act, present their Report and Accounts for the year ended 30 September 2024. The Trustees have adopted the provisions of the Statement of Recommended Practice, Accounting and Reporting by Charities (Charities SORP (FRS 102)) and the Financial Reporting Standard 102 applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Charities Act 2011 and UK Generally Accepted Practice as it applies from 1 January 2019, in preparing the annual report and financial statements for the charity.
This Report of the Trustees incorporates the Strategic report and the Directors’ report required under the Companies Act 2006 (Strategic report and Directors’ report) Regulations 2013.
WCRF has a wholly owned trading subsidiary, WCRF (Trading) Ltd, which is incorporated in the UK. WCRF (Trading) Ltd ceased operations in 2015. Consolidated accounts are not produced and WCRF (Trading) produces a separate annual report and audited financial statements.
## **Strategic Report**
## **Who We Are**
World Cancer Research Fund examines how diet, weight and physical activity affect your risk of developing and surviving cancer. As part of an international network of charities, we have been funding life-saving research, influencing global public health policy and educating the public since 1982.
To date, we have invested around £160 million (FY23 £154 million) into research across our network. As part of this, we created the Global Cancer Update Programme – the world’s largest and most authoritative source of up-to-date scientific research on cancer prevention.
Every day in the UK, around 1,100 people will hear the words ‘you have cancer’, but we know that 40% of cancers are preventable. That’s why we turn our findings into easy-to-understand advice so everyone can reduce their cancer risk through informed decisions around healthy living.
While society continues searching for a cure, our prevention and survival work is helping people to live longer, happier and healthier lives – free from the devastating effects of cancer.
## **Public Benefit**
It is estimated that one in two people in the UK will develop cancer in their lifetime but around 40% of cancers in the UK could be prevented – that's 158,000 cases every year. Eating a healthy diet, being more active each day and maintaining a healthy weight are, after not smoking, the most important ways to reduce cancer risk.
We think it is vital that all research on cancer prevention is pieced together to give a clear picture on what people can do to help prevent cancer. We are proud to achieve this and provide clear, consistent, science-based messages about what people can do to reduce their cancer risk.
We confirm that we have complied with public benefit guidance from the Charity Commission (in England and Wales). In particular, the Trustees consider how planned activities will contribute to the aims and objectives set, and the effect that these will have on our beneficiaries.
## **The World Cancer Research Fund Network**
In a world dominated by funding for cancer treatments and cures, we’ve relentlessly promoted the importance of prevention. For 4 decades, we’ve been dedicated to helping healthcare professionals, policymakers and the academic community understand the role diet, weight and physical activity play in our chances of developing cancer. And to help all of us to understand how the choices we make and the environment we live in can affect our overall risk of developing the disease.
World Cancer Research Fund is a member of a network of cancer prevention charities with a global voice. For over 40 years, the World Cancer Research Fund Network (WCRF Network) has advocated the vital need for cancer prevention measures to be taken through a healthy diet, physical activity and being a healthy weight.
Our message was echoed in February 2014 when the World Health Organisation came out strongly in support of urgent implementation of effective prevention strategies to curb the disease.
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
Being a member of a network, led and unified by World Cancer Research Fund International (WCRF International), we achieve much more working together than we can alone. We access and support research around the world, share resources to influence policymaking and reach more people with our cancer prevention health information.
Collaboration means we can fund more research, share evidence, pool expertise and use our resources efficiently so you can be confident you are getting excellent value for the funds you donate to us to help prevent cancer.
We believe that it is possible to reverse the cancer burden, but it will take all of us – governments, health professionals and individuals - pulling together to make this happen.
## **Charitable Information**
World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) is a charitable company limited by guarantee and was established on 3 September 1990 (the charity was registered by the Charity Commission on 30 October 1990). It is governed by up to 10 Trustees in accordance with the Articles of Association.
## **Governance Information**
The Trustees are responsible for the overall strategic direction and management of the organisation. They are elected at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) and can hold office until the second AGM following their appointment when they are eligible for reappointment. The Trustee Board meets at least twice a year where decisions are made relating to issues affecting the charity. The Trustee Board delegates responsibility for the operations of the charity to the Executive staff:
- Marilyn Gentry – President, World Cancer Research Fund Network
- Rachael Hutson - Chief Executive Officer (CEO), World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF)
Periodically, new Trustees are recruited to ensure the charity has access to a comprehensive range of skills and on the basis of the specific needs of WCRF. New Trustees are invited to attend a board meeting prior to their appointment. New Trustees receive key documents relating to the charity and a complete induction programme. Training needs of the Trustee Board are assessed and met as necessary on an ongoing basis.
## **Senior Staff Structure**
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is responsible for the day-to-day management of the charity and reports to the President of the Network and the Board of Trustees.
WCRF has three key divisions: Communications & Engagement; Fundraising & Health Information; and Finance & Operations and each have a director, who reports to the Chief Executive Officer and manages each team’s staff and activities.
WCRF’s staff works closely with colleagues in WCRF International, and the two organisations share office space. WCRF International provides strategic direction to all members of the global network; it guides and manages the Science and Research programmes on behalf of WCRF, as well as providing support in the following areas: Finance, Human Resources, IT and general operational logistics.
Remuneration is assessed annually in accordance with WCRF’s appraisal process. The appraisal process involves objective setting for each employee and a review of performance against objectives on an annual basis. The performance against objectives is used as a basis for any variable compensation awarded. The individual salary is predominately based on the employee’s professional experience and organisational responsibilities as set out by their job description and terms of employment. Salaries are benchmarked every two to three years using Cronor Rewards and XpertHR salary surveys to ensure competitiveness in the marketplace, with the latest benchmarking project completed in May 2024.
## **Here is an overview of our main achievements for the year 1 October 2023 to 30 September 2024:**
Since inception, the WCRF Network has invested £160 million in research worldwide. As cancer is a complex disease, to understand the bigger picture, every year we invest in a variety of research projects. Some are the more traditional laboratory-based projects, while others, such as the Global Cancer Update Programme, analyse research findings from around the world and translate information into usable advice for the scientific community and our Cancer Prevention Recommendations for the general public.
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Our wider Science and Research programmes are delivered by World Cancer Research Fund International (WCRF International), funded by and for the benefit of all World Cancer Research Fund Network members, including World Cancer Research Fund in the UK.
## **Interpreting the latest research and the Global Cancer Update Programme**
World Cancer Research Fund’s Global Cancer Update Programme analyses global research on how diet, nutrition and physical activity affect cancer risk and survival.
The Global Cancer Update Programme (CUP Global), our flagship portfolio of research, was originally established as the Continuous Update Project (CUP). The work undertaken within the CUP informed the development of our groundbreaking Second and Third Expert Reports.
## **Guidance on breast cancer and colorectal cancer**
As part of our CUP Global work, we released two new reports (one on breast cancer and the other on colorectal cancer) that synthesise the latest evidence on diet, nutrition, physical activity and body weight and offer guidance for patients, carers, healthcare professionals and recommendations for future research. The reports also discuss the limitations of the existing research and make recommendations for future research to strengthen the evidence base. These are available on the WCRF website (www.wcrf.org).
The CUP Global Secretariat has been working with members of our Cancer Survivors Expert Committee and Panel to develop draft guidance for dietary and lifestyle factors where evidence is not strong enough for formal recommendations. The recommendations and guidance are outlined below.
## _**Breast cancer survivorship**_
Recommendation
- Overall, the results showed that physical activity improved quality of life. This was seen for global quality of life and specific quality of life domains (including physical and emotional functioning).
The evidence was less clear on how frequency and amount of physical activity made a difference to quality of life.
Guidance
- People should consider increasing their dietary fibre intake.
- There is no need to stop consuming soy foods
- Suggest that people who are not underweight aim to avoid gaining weight during and after treatment.
- No specific guidance about vitamin D supplements to improve outcomes after a breast cancer diagnosis.
## _**Colorectal cancer survivorship**_
Overall, the evidence was less strong and so there were no recommendations put forward by the panel but we were able to develop guidance.
Guidance
- To consider increasing the intake of wholegrains
- Increasing coffee intake
- Decreasing the intake of sugary drinks
## **CUP Global Research Dissemination**
In September 2024, we promoted the reports at the World Cancer Congress (WCC) in Geneva to a global audience, including: researchers; policymakers; cancer survivors; oncology-related healthcare; fundraising and communications professionals.
- Two oral presentations about CUP Global supporting the launch of the reports and promoting CUP Global Recommendations
- Interviews for the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), The Lancet Oncology and e-Cancer UK.
- Over 100 executive summaries of the reports were handed out to conference attendees via our stand
## **Promoting CUP Global in Asia**
Professor TH Lam, WCRF International Hong Kong Ambassador, presented CUP Global survivorship work at the Chinese Anti-Cancer Conference in Xi’an in November 2024. This was for the epidemiology session and had a talk titled: The Role of Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Body Weight in Cancer Survivorship: New Reports from the World Cancer Research Fund International’s Global Cancer Update Programme. Prof TH Lam disseminated
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physical copies of the report to our network in Asia. He has also given the reports to the Chairperson and CEO of the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society.
## **Life Course Reviews**
We finalised evidence conclusions which were outstanding for review on colorectal cancer and early life anthropometry. Anthropometry ‘body fatness’ focuses on measuring and analysing various physical characteristics of the human body such as shape, size and strength.
We have completed a systematic review on breast cancer and early life anthropometry as epidemiological evidence to formulate the draft evidence conclusions. Draft evidence conclusions were presented to the CUP Global Panel to formulate recommendations for early life anthropometry and later life risk of developing breast cancer in women.
We developed a new process to objectively judge the strength of the mechanistic evidence reviewed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) for CUP Global. This has enabled the development of conclusive statements on the strength of the mechanistic evidence. Alongside the epidemiological evidence, the CUP Global Panel will consider the mechanistic evidence when deciding the recommendations for the Life Course work. From our conclusions, we have written an academic paper on colorectal cancer and early life anthropometry which is near completion.
## **Dietary and lifestyle patterns reviews**
Our Cancer Prevention Recommendations are widely used and provide a blueprint for cancer prevention. However, data were previously insufficient for recommendations on whole diet and lifestyle.
We developed globally relevant evidence-based recommendations on dietary and lifestyle patterns for preventing breast cancer and colorectal cancer and cancer overall and to consider the policy implications. This work emphasises the importance of considering the whole diet/lifestyle rather than focusing on individual foods/behaviours.
This work was presented at the World Cancer Congress 2024, at the 4[th] Nutrition and Cancer Conference in Newcastle, in The Netherlands in the Wageningen Nutrition Masterclass and to colleagues at Wereld Kanker Onderzoek Fonds (WKOF/WCRF Netherlands).
The abstracts were published in the International Journal of Cancer. As part of this we also presented an abstract titled ‘Integrating Food and Nutrition into Oncology Care Through Food is Medicine Interventions’, which highlighted the growing need to integrate food and nutrition into health care.
Dietary and lifestyle patterns have a clear role in the development of breast cancer and colorectal cancer. We have published two academic papers (one on breast cancer and the other on colorectal cancer), and dietary and lifestyle factors. Both are under review. A report is being developed for scientific, policy, civil society, and public audiences. This will summarise the recommendations and evidence, and outline policy implications.
## **Continuation CUP Global and ICL Work Programme**
Our collaborators at Imperial College London (ICL) have completed a data scanning and prioritisation exercise of the literature on modifiable factors affecting cancer. The findings from this, along with consideration of organisational priorities, led to the prioritisation of 6 new topics to be further investigated, with the view of being able to provide robust recommendations for the public. This year we developed a work plan with ICL to investigate these 6 new topics over 2025:
- Tea, coffee, sugary drinks (including artificial sweeteners), ultra-processed foods (UPFs), soy (isoflavones) and sedentary behaviour.
Tea/coffee have historically been subject to biased scientific studies that have led to public misconceptions on their association with cancer. Sedentary behaviour is not mentioned in detail in the Third Expert Report, after completing the work plan, we hope to be able to make specific public health recommendations on this topic. Therefore, there is a need to review the literature on these topics and provide robust evidence judgements.
- The expected output at the end of the year is the completion of 5 reviews and 1 review of reviews (for tea) from ICL.
In March 2025, WCRF and WCRF International began planning their strategy for the next 5 years. Part of this strategic plan is to maximise the impact of research conducted via CUP Global and translate it into public health messages.
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We will seek for the outputs from the workplan to be endorsed by global leaders via our partner organisations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), this will add to our credibility when delivering public health messages.
## **Other highlights and figures from the year:**
- Six CUP Global collaborations, with over 30 collaborators
- We updated our global cancer incidence statistics which are extensively quoted across different media.
- Provided extensive scientific support for other UK-based teams, both specifically in relation to CUP Global and on wider cancer-related issues, including checking for scientific accuracy within publications.
- Continued to collaborate with over 50 experts in the fields of epidemiology, oncology, public health and biology.
- Professor John Mathers (previous WCRF grant holder), Newcastle University presented his research that supports CUP Global at the WCRF Fundraising Legacy event in Manchester, April 2024. Professor Sarah Lewis supported the 2[nd] legacy event in Exeter in September 2024.
- 1 blog post on nutrition for mynurtiweb
- 3 University lectures including Oxford Brookes University, University College London and an Oncology Professional Care conference
Other CUP Global published papers:
- Post-diagnosis physical activity and sedentary behaviour and colorectal cancer prognosis: A Global Cancer Update Programme (CUP Global) systematic literature review and meta-analysis: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.34903\
- Post-diagnosis adiposity and colorectal cancer prognosis: A Global Cancer Update Programme (CUP Global) systematic literature review and meta-analysis: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.34905
- • Post-diagnosis dietary factors, supplement use and colorectal cancer prognosis: A Global Cancer Update Programme (CUP Global) systematic literature review and meta-analysis: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.34906
- Summary paper detailing the evidence gradings: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.34904
## **Funding new and innovative research**
Our Regular Grant Programme, managed by WCRF International and funded by World Cancer Research Fund and our network partner Wereld Kanker Onderzoek Fonds (WKOF/WCRF Netherlands), provides funding of up to £500,000 per project, enabling us to invest in varied projects worldwide; these can be Investigator Initiated Grants (IIG) or Pilot and Feasibility Grants (PFG).
In September 2024, newly-awarded grants broadened our reach to 3 new countries (Ghana, Mexico and Iceland) and, for the first time for include research into brain cancer.
## **The Regular Grant Programme 2023-24 cycle in numbers:**
- **143** outline applications from **35** different countries
- **118** applications were successful after an initial internal triage that reviewed eligibility and relevance, and these applications were reviewed by the RGP Panel at the January 2024 Panel meeting
- **49** applications (41 IIGs, 8 PFGs) proceeded to the Full Application stage and were judged by the Grant Panel
- **12** applications were shortlisted for funding (11 IIGs, 1 PFG)
- **12** grants were approved by the WCRF and WKOF boards in September 2024
- Sum of funding: £3,501,209
- Research areas: 9 Cancer Prevention, 3 Cancer Survivorship
- Research themes: 5 Host Factors/Individual Susceptibility, 7 Biological Mechanisms
- Cancer types: 4 breast, 4 general cancer, 1 haematological, 1 skin, 1 brain, 1 endometrial
- Locations: 2 Netherlands, 2 United Kingdom, 2 Australia, 1 Germany, 1 Ghana, 1 France, 1 Spain, 1 Japan, 1 Iceland
## **Regular Grant Programme 2023-24 newly awarded grants:**
- Assistant Professor Kalijn Bol, Radboud University Medical Center, Netherlands: _Dietary fibre to induce gut microbiota-mediated response to immunotherapy in melanoma (FIGURE-IM)_
- Associate Professor Kara Britt, University of Melbourne, Australia: _Mapping the impact of obesity on the normal breast_
- Dr Laure Dossus, International Agency for Research on Cancer, IARC, France: _Role of perturbations of cholesterol metabolism in breast cancer development_
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- Dr Tammy Tong, University of Oxford, United Kingdom: _ProMAP: Mapping diet to cancer through the proteome_
- Professor Roger Milne, Cancer Council Victoria, Australia: _Diet, weight and physical activity and risk of glioma: an international cohort study pooling project_
- Dr Sarah Abe, National Cancer Center Japan, Japan: _Evaluation of the 2018 WCRF/AICR cancer prevention recommendations for use in Asia using pooled data from the Asia Cohort Consortium_
- Dr Charlotte Le Cornet, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Germany: _Dietary related persistent organic pollutants (POPs) circulating concentration, BMI, endometrial and breast cancer risk_
- Dr Emma Vincent, University of Bristol, United Kingdom: _How does adiposity distribution influence risk of obesity-related cancers? – Exploring causality and mechanisms_
- Professor Reginald Annan, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana: _Metabolic Syndrome, Gut Microbiome, and Breast Cancer risk among Sub Saharan African women: The African Breast Cancer Screening (ABCS) study_
- Dr Anouk Hiensch, University Medical Centre (UMC) Utrecht (UMCU), Netherlands: _Uncovering the underlying mechanisms: Deciphering exercise's impact on cancer-related fatigue in patients with metastatic breast cancer_
- Dr Sæmundur Rögnvaldsson, University of Iceland, Iceland: _Understanding the role of obesity and nutrition in the development of multiple myeloma from its precursors_
- Dr Lorena Arribas, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute - IDIBELL, Spain: _Weight Management in obese cancer patients during curative active treatment (CANOBESE study)_
## **INSPIRE Research Challenge 2024**
Launched in 2023, the INSPIRE Research Challenge prioritises innovative, bold and creative proposals with the potential to catalyse rapid and impactful advances in cancer prevention, treatment and survivorship.
This grant call aimed at early career investigators and runs in parallel with our existing grant programmes and is open to investigators worldwide. These are smaller grants, up to a maximum grant amount of £75,000.
## **The INSPIRE Research Challenge 2023-24 cycle in numbers:**
- **56** outline applications from **24** different countries
- **19** applications were successful after an initial internal triage that reviewed eligibility and relevance, and after approval from the INSPIRE Panel Chair, were invited for the Full Application stage
- **11** applicants were invited for virtual Video Interviews with the INSPIRE Panel
- **7** applications were shortlisted for funding
- **7** grants were approved by the WCRF and WKOF boards in September 2024
- Sum of funding: £509,665
- Research areas: 3 Cancer Prevention, 4 Cancer Survivorship
- Research exposures: 2 stress, 1 sleep, 1 physical activity, 1 pathogens, 2 combination of exposures
- Cancer types: 2 breast, 2 colorectal, 2 mixed cancer type, 1 haematological
- • Locations: 2 Netherlands, 2 France, 1 United States, 1 China, 1 Mexico
## **INSPIRE Research Challenge 2024 newly awarded grants:**
- Dr Fernanda Mesa Chávez, Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico: _Online mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention for patients with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy_
- Dr Felix Onyije, IARC, France: _Occupational night shift work and sleep imbalance and the risk of testicular germ cell tumours in men and ovarian cancer in women_
- Dr Forrest Baker, University of Arizona, United States: _Harnessing γδ T-cell Therapies with Exercise to Treat Multiple Myeloma_
- Dr Baoting He, University of Hong Kong, China: _Gut microbiota and cancer risk in East Asians: A twosample Mendelian randomization study_
- Dr Yahya Mahamat-saleh, IARC, France: _Identification of novel metabolic signatures related to stressful life events and breast cancer risk and survival_
- Dr Evertine Wesselink, Wageningen University, Netherlands: _Connecting the Dots: Examining the Relationship Between Lifestyle, Immune-related Tumour Characteristics and Colorectal Cancer Recurrence_
- Dr David van Dijk, Maastricht University, Netherlands: _Insulin resistance as driver of myosteatosis in colorectal cancer_
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## **Working with patients and the public to shape our research**
In line with our aims from last year, we have strengthened Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) in the RGP and introduced PPIE in the IRC grant calls. This included producing detailed PPIE guidelines with the help of our Lay Panel Members and for the 2024-25 grant cycle, amending the IRC application form to include a detailed question about PPIE, and recruiting two new Lay Panel Members, one for the RGP Panel and one for the IRC Panel.
## **Monitoring of active grants and ensuring strong science communications of grant outputs**
We implemented the Impact Framework to assess the impact of all active grants in our portfolio between April 2021 and July 2024. The result of this analysis is compiled in the Grant Impact Overview report, that has been shared internally. The report outlines the impact of the grants in the 5 impact indicator categories:
1. Inclusivity and reach of our work
2. Translation of our research into policy, clinical practice and CUP Global
3. Increasing public awareness, our visibility, value and contribution to the public
4. Empowering new generations of researchers within the field of nutrition and cancer
5. Continuity of our work – our funding at the core of big ideas
We have updated our grant record on the Dimensions and International Cancer Research Partnership (ICRP) databases, ensuring accurate and timely reporting of the grants we are funding. We have also made steps to synchronise our publication record between the Grant Tracker system and the Altmetric database, however, this work is still in progress due to technical setbacks.
## **Funding large, long-term studies outside of our regular funding schemes, aligning with organisational priorities and supporting the establishment of new cohorts that will power future research in cancer survivorship**
In May 2024, WCRF approved a five-year project to be carried out at the University of Southampton. The CANDO study is led by Prof Ramsey Cutress and Prof Ellen Copson and investigates how body composition (the amount of muscle and fat) influences how patients respond to cancer treatments and the side-effects they experience. This study will include measures for nutrition and lifestyle for those diagnosed with early or secondary breast cancer and undergoing different types of treatment.
This research will provide a valuable opportunity to establish and share evidence-based recommendations that optimise treatment outcomes and support long-term survivorship in breast cancer patients. Ultimately, this will allow clinicians to provide more bespoke advice and support for people living with breast cancer, improving their response to treatment and their chances of survival.
## **Supporting Early Career Researchers**
- For many years WCRF have supported early career scientists and have leveraged established monitoring initiatives and collected data on early career researchers supported through our grant programmes. In March 2024, the government announced a £45 million package to support the UKRI’s Medical Research Charities Early Career Researchers Support Fund. As WCRF was funding nine early career researchers, we successfully secured £327,769 from the Fund.
- This year we have been actively involved in establishing the Cancer Prevention Europe Early Career Network (CPE-ECN). This network aims to bring together early career scientists, health promoters, and cancer prevention advocates. Its mission is to foster collaborations and offer networking and career development opportunities for professionals focused on cancer prevention.
## **Supporting Researchers from Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)**
- WCRF is a founding member and continuous supporter of the International Collaboration on Nutrition in relation to Cancer (ICONIC), which continues to provide a grant-writing course to improve the grant-writing capabilities of researchers working in Nutrition and Cancer epidemiology-related fields in Africa. Through this work we continue our efforts to support researchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and early-career scientists.
- This year for the first time, an attendee of this grant writing course, Prof Reginald Annan, has successfully secured funding from WKOF via the RGP, marking the first time the WCRF Network have funded a study led by an African principal investigator and conducted entirely in Africa.
- To help support researchers from LMICs, we have also recruited a new Corresponding Panel Member for LMICs, Dr Calistus Wilunda from the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr Wilunda provides detailed feedback to applicants from LMICs to support them in successful future applications.
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## **Influencing at the highest level**
Our wider Policy and Public Affairs work is delivered by WCRF International, based in the UK and funded by WCRF and the other WCRF Network members. This work includes activities in the UK but also around the world.
## **Nurturing global relationships**
In 2016, World Cancer Research Fund International entered into official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO). Official relations is a privileged status granted to civil society organisations who engage with and support WHO following a strict application procedure, so we contribute to and influence the development of global public health policy relevant to cancer prevention. This year we submitted our application to renew our WHO official relations status for our continued collaboration from 2025-2027, this was approved at the WHO Executive Board meeting in February 2025.
As part of our relationship with WHO, we held eight key meetings with WHO officials working on nutrition, physical activity, cancer control and commercial determinants of health, and by actively participating in WHO Executive Board (EB) and World Health Assembly (WHA) meetings and meeting key contacts in and around official business.
At EB 154, we delivered two individual statements on social determinants of health (SDoH) and maternal, infant and youth nutrition. We signed three constituency statements (developed and signed jointly by several civil society organisations) on the follow up to the political declaration of the third high level meeting of the general assembly on the prevention and control of NCDs, universal health coverage (UHC), the WHO’s draft 14[th] general programme of work. We also signed two joint statements on wellbeing and health promotion and social determinants of health.
At WHA 77, we co-signed three constituency statements on UHC, on the follow up to the political declaration of the third high level meeting of the general assembly on the prevention and control of NCDs and on social determinants of health. We also delivered 3 individual statements on social determinants of health, health promotion and wellbeing, and maternal, infant and youth nutrition.
We developed a mission briefing for the first time for all Member States outlining our policy asks, which was warmly received by member states for its clarity and conciseness. We were also able to share a draft of our forthcoming Policy Blueprint for cancer prevention which garnered warm initial reactions.
We also attended and promoted the launch of the WHO EURO’s report on Commercial determinants of health (CDOH) in Brussels which we contributed two case studies, and we supported the dissemination of other WHO products across our social media channels and monthly newsletter.
We have also increased our focus on directly engaging with Member States to influence their work on cancer prevention. At the WHA, we met with representatives from Mexico, Slovenia and France. Later in the year, we met with Canada, Brazil, Argentina, United States and Ireland.
## **Expanding our Policy portfolio**
We have continued to strengthen our existing policy work and expand our policy portfolio into new areas. We have also developed several collaborations thanks to our policy work with international organisations.
## _European Code Against Cancer (ECAC)_
The PPA team continues to contribute to the ECAC Lifestyles Working Group to develop policy recommendations to accompany the code, which will be launched in October 2025.
## _Alcohol_
We have expanded our policy portfolio more formally into alcohol and launched an alcohol policy section on our website. We developed a policy position on Alcohol and Cancer Risk which was reviewed by international experts from WHO and civil society. We have met with key International and UK alcohol stakeholders including WHO, Movendi International, the CEO of Alcohol Action UK, Alcohol Balance and Fresh Balance. We also supported European Awareness Week on Alcohol related harm through social media engagement. Our Alcohol and Cancer Risk policy position was launched at the World Cancer Congress (WCC) 2024 in a rapid-fire presentation and a strong social media dissemination plan. It was also shared with key stakeholders and through our online channels. It has been downloaded over two thousand times. The new policy position was also covered in a podcast with alcohol focussed NGO Movendi International.
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## _Ultra processed foods (UPFs)_
Recognising the increasing interest in UPFs, we developed a comprehensive organisational position, collating evidence on the links to cancer, including policy recommendations. We joined the Soil Association’s civil society interest group to exchange insights and published a blog about UPF and myths. An FAQs was created to guide website content. We also joined the UK Chief Medical Officer’s funders forum to discuss research investments in UPFs and were interviewed by TIME magazine on promoting healthier food choices.
## _Policy research collaborations_
Building on our CO-CREATE project success, we’ve supported various policy research initiatives. We advised the EU-funded Healthy W8 Consortium on food-based dietary guidelines and contributed to the Food Systems Countdown Initiative’s Dashboard using our NOURISHING framework. We also reported our progress on increasing numbers in our NOURISHING databases part of our commitment to the Global Nutrition Report’s (GNR) Nutrition Accountability Framework, which meet and exceeded our committed target. We have also participated in a meeting of the advisory group for a Cochrane systematic review of social and economic policy intervention and their impact on food insecurity. Estonian policymakers reproduced our nutrition policy snapshot in their national Public Health yearbook.
## _Policy Blueprint for Cancer Prevention_
This new project was under development throughout 2024 and launched in January 2025 – a new advocacy tool that organises our policy recommendations against our cancer prevention recommendations. The new resource has been through several rounds of expert review by our trusted contacts and our Policy Advisory Group.
## **Meeting and engaging with Policymakers in the UK**
Alongside the international policy work, we have expanded our UK policy and public affairs activities. This has seen a significant increase in engagement in obesity and health policy spaces and increased engagement with policymakers.
We attended the New Statesman Future of Health Conference, with sessions on Labour party health missions, NHS reform in England, health inequalities, innovation and in the life science sector – all of which were helpful introductions to policies of the Labour party. We responded to the Autumn Budget statement on social media guided by the Association of Medical Research Charities and supported a brand advertising project review with Obesity Health Alliance (OHA) and BiteBack 2030.
As part of Cancer Prevention Action Week (CPAW), we contacted all UK Parliamentarians as well politicians in devolved administrations with a two-page briefing, a social media toolkit and other resources encouraging them to support the campaign. We had a very good response to the campaign with support on social media from:
- 15 MPs including Health Secretary Victoria Atkins MP and Labour Shadow Public Health Minister Preet Gill MP
- 5 MSPs (Scottish Parliament) Labour Shadow Mental Health Minister Paul Sweeney
- 2 MLAs (NI Assembly)
- 4 MS’s (Welsh Senedd), with one MS securing media coverage in his local paper
- Conservative MSP Alexander Stewart submitted a motion to the Scottish Parliament on CPAW which has been signed by 30 MSPs
We also met with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity to learn about their work and future priorities, and we made a submission of written evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee inquiry on Food, diet and obesity to outline our position on UPFs.
Once the UK General Election was called, we developed our “Policy Priorities to prevent cancer”, which outlined our key asks across five priority areas, including making cancer prevention a priority for government, improve the nation’s diet and get everyone moving more. This was shared across our digital platforms and with supporters. Copies were also sent to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and Minister for State on Prevention and Public Health.
We also met with our CUP Global Panel Chair, Lord Krebs to discuss the latest obesity policy developments as well as how disseminate our research to policy makers. For the first time we attended the Labour Party Conference and attended a range of fringe events on a range of issues including healthy and sustainable diets, forthcoming Labour Health mission and met a range of stakeholders including the Public Health and Prevention Minister Andrew Gwynne MP.
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We attend regular meetings and undertake other activities with:
- OHA policy and public affairs groups, including contributing to the development of their obesity treatment position statement
- Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA)
- Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) Public Affairs Working Group and Heads of Policy Group
- UK Working Group on NCDs
- Children’s Food Campaign
- One Cancer Voice, supporting advocacy activities to call for a national cancer plan
We responded to four government consultations:
- Government consultation on Low and No Alcohol
- Scottish Government’s MUP consultation
- Contributed to the OHA response to the Advertising Standards Authority consultation on less healthy food.
- National Planning Policy Framework
We have co-signed 7 letters to the chancellor and PM by the OHA, AHA, Biteback 2030, Sustain and Food Active, and supported initiatives such as Sugar Awareness Week. We contributed to the House of Lords POST Science briefing on Diet and Cancer.
## **Communicating healthy lifestyle messages**
Our communications, health education programmes and campaigns aim to enable a better understanding of the links between diet, weight, physical activity and cancer. We aim to encourage behaviour change to reduce the occurrence of preventable cancers and to support people living with and beyond cancer to live well after their diagnosis. We do this by offering high-quality evidence-based information and services to empower people to make healthy choices.
Our team of health information experts has continued to support cross-charity projects, ensuring all our content is upto-date and in line with our Cancer Prevention Recommendations.
Our projects cover the areas of cancer prevention, ensuring that as many people as possible not only know that 40% of cancers can be prevented but also what they can do to reduce their risk. We also support people living with and beyond cancer, providing practical guidance on diet and exercise. We connect with the public directly and with health professionals so that they can give the most up-to-date information to their patients.
## **Reaching people with our publications**
Each year we try to increase the reach of our healthy living publications so we can support more people to reduce their risk of developing a preventable cancer or live well after a cancer diagnosis.
This year, we sent out 3% more free healthy living publications, 62,431 copies compared to 61,616 in 2022-23. Health professional orders remain key to our health information dissemination. Since our publications became free to order in small quantities in 2021, we have gradually increased the size of the bulk orders we send at no cost to health professionals. This is in recognition of the valuable role they play in getting our health messages and practical tips out to the general public. We also know that few professionals have a publications budget and we want to avoid creating barriers to using our information.
## **Helping people living with and beyond cancer**
In May 2023, we launched a pilot for our Cancer and Nutrition Helpline with the aim of helping more people living with and beyond cancer to cope with the side-effects of treatment or of their cancer itself. Helpline enquiries are answered by freelance Oncology Specialist Dietitians.
We aimed to support 1,100 people through the Cancer & Nutrition Helpline in its pilot year, May 2023 to May 2024. Sadly we did not reach that target, the helpline was operational for 212 hours and received 192 enquiries – 169 emails and 23 calls. However 88% of helpline users rated their experience of the helpline ‘excellent’ and 12% rated it ‘good’ and these ratings were echoed in the highly appreciative comments we received.
This feedback, and feedback from oncology professionals, demonstrated that the helpline is meeting a clear need for reliable nutritional information for people living with cancer, a group who often face long waits to see a specialist dietitian or who cannot access this support at all. No changes are needed to its operating model, but we are now scaling up our marketing of the helpline, particularly to oncology staff, as signposting by healthcare professionals is the most common way that helpline users hear about the service.
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## **Engaging with healthcare professionals**
We provide education and information for professionals who are either supporting people to reduce their cancer risk or to live well during and beyond cancer treatment. This work is important to improve their clinical practice and update their research knowledge. Their trusted role also makes them a valuable conduit to reaching the general public and people living with cancer with our information and services.
By using healthcare professional conferences to encourage sign-ups to our health professional membership package, we have been able to further develop greater awareness of WCRF’s support for professionals and build our reputation with relevant professional groups.
Building on the success of our first conference speaking slot in 2023, we invested in a high-profile presence at Oncology Professional Care, a 2-day conference in London, and delivered a talk which attracted over a hundred delegates from a wide range of oncology roles. WCRF staff outlined key findings from our new reports on breast cancer and colorectal cancer survivorship and an Oncology Specialist Dietitian gave practical insight on how nutritional advice for cancer patients can vary throughout their cancer journey. At this conference, we gained 160 sign-ups to our professionals’ network, distributed over 1,000 health resources and had numerous productive conversations. Many professionals had heard of WCRF, but not of the extent of our offer.
We also exhibited at Nursing in Practice, London; NHS Oncology South Forum and the Nutrition Society Winter Conference.
To provide nutrition education to health professionals and raise awareness of the support we offer, we delivered a webinar on nutrition and cancer myths in partnership with MyNutriWeb, watched by 654 professionals, and ran an online session attended by 43 professionals and members of the public as part of London Global Cancer Week. This featured a panel of Oncology Specialist Dietitians and people living beyond cancer as well as a demonstration of one of our recipes. We also ran five cancer prevention workshops, attended by 278 professionals, with all attendees reporting increased confidence in cancer prevention and dietary knowledge.
## **Enabling behaviour change**
902 people signed up for Activ8, our eight-week behaviour change email support programme. Now in its second year, Activ8 aims to inspire and support subscribers to build healthy habits to help lower their risk of cancer. In our most recent analysis, at the end of the 8-week programme, 93% of those who completed our feedback survey said they had been able to stick to their original behaviour change goal. 89% were able to follow our advice over the 8 weeks and 90% said that Activ8 had made them more aware of WCRF’s Cancer Prevention Recommendations.
## **Providing information to different communities**
Funded by Love Hope Strength Foundation, we produced a Bengali translation of one of our most popular cancer prevention resources, 5 simple steps to a healthier you. We chose this booklet to translate into Bengali because its brevity makes it suitable for readers with lower health literacy. Our original plan was to disseminate the translated booklet in the North East of England, the region with the highest number of cancer cases, with Bengali chosen as the most used South Asian language in the North East. However, our dissemination work with contacts from the Nutrition Society Special Interest Group on Diet and Health for Ethnic Minority Groups presented a number of opportunities to reach Bengali speakers via existing community events in the North West and South Coast. This work is ongoing.
## **Collaborating with key players to educate the next generation of medical and healthcare professionals**
WCRF has a strategic partnership with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Cancer and Nutrition Collaboration focused on more widely delivering consistent, credible information and training about the links between cancer and diet.
Supported by NIHR, we are embarking on work with Lincoln Medical School to address the lack of nutrition content in the undergraduate medical curriculum. This builds on the Association for Nutrition (AfN) Undergraduate Curriculum in Nutrition for Medical Doctors, launched in 2021, and will involve the development of learning materials for lectures and independent study.
- This year, we successfully achieved AfN Content Assurance for a new stand-alone educational resource, a webinar on our Cancer Prevention Recommendations accompanied by assessment questions. This confirms that it has been designed to help medical schools incorporate the AfN Curriculum into their own core curriculum. We are one of the first organisations to gain this accreditation.
- We also presented our research and health information work to 15 charities at an NIHR workshop. The charities are now meeting regularly to share information and WCRF has brought in Cancer Care Map who
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specialise in mapping support for cancer patients across the UK. Taking part in this charities group has also provided us with contacts who are happy to promote our living with cancer services to their audiences.
- A similar gain has arisen from our involvement in the Collaboration’s Professionals workstream that focuses on the sharing of knowledge between oncology professionals and developing standards of practice. While our joint work with the Specialist Oncology Group of the British Dietetic Association goes from strength to strength, we are now building links with the UK Oncology Nursing Society and are keen to extend our collaboration with allied health professionals such as Speech and Language Therapists working with head and neck cancer patients.
## **Working with the Media to reach the public and raise awareness**
The media here in the UK and also around the world, play a key part in helping us to raise awareness of charity and our messages. Our dedicated Press and Communications team have relationships with a number of national news outlets and we are often called upon for quotes on relevant stories on cancer prevention and related statistics.
There were 8,969 pieces of press and broadcast media coverage in the period October 2023 - September 2024, around 10% down compared to the previous year. However, this picked up over the 6-month period April-September 2024, with more than 5,400 articles – a 3% increase in coverage compared to April - Sept 2023.
The team secured press coverage through press releases of WCRF network-funded research, providing expert quotes from WCRF to external stories and pitching feature stories.
Highlights included:
- Two front pages in The Guardian about the need for public-facing awareness campaigns on cancer risk.
- We released an extended media briefing for the CUP Global colorectal cancer survivorship papers. The Press Association, the Independent, the Evening Standard, MailOnline, The Express, The Mirror, along with many regional outlets covered this story.
- A press release on the publication of two studies that showed a healthy lifestyle can offset the effects of ‘bad genes’ and lengthen lifespan by up to five years. This received widespread pickup in the Guardian, Daily Mail, the Independent and across regional media.
- A press release on the link between type 2 diabetes and breast, bowel and pancreatic cancer was picked up by the Independent, Radio 4, The Standard, and widespread regional coverage.
- A World Health Organization (WHO) report exposed the tactics of powerful companies. WCRF contributed an expert quote, which was covered by the Guardian and MailOnline. We also contributed an expert comment to another WHO study on exercise, which was picked up by MailOnline, The Independent, the Express & Star, and 150+ regional outlets.
- By developing a relationship with the media team there, we proactively secured a full-length article in the MailOnline on healthy eating.
The team continues to develop strong relationships with journalists across major media outlets, including the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Press Association, and Time magazine. Our aim is to continue to develop these partnerships to proactively place more content in these outlets over the 2024/25 period.
## **Engaging the public with Cancer Prevention Action Week**
Held in February 2024, the theme of Cancer Prevention Action Week 2024 was ‘Make Your Move’. Our key message was that even small amounts of physical activity throughout the day can reduce the risk of cancer.
During Cancer Prevention Action Week 2024, the media team proactively galvanised support with over 100 organisations across the UK actively promoting the campaign. We received a good response across different social media channels, including high profile individuals extensively sharing the campaign (including Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York). 15 MPs and 5 MSPs shared or mentioned the campaign on social media. Engagement on all platforms was up by over 200% on the previous year and link clicks on posts increased by over 500%. We had over 30 radio interviews across the UK including with the Press Association, ITN Business Hub, BBC Radio and Sky News.
## **Bringing together our websites and branding**
Following a brand refresh last year, 2024 saw us develop a new website that consolidated the websites of WCRF and WCRF International into one, reducing overlapping content and hopefully increasing our brand awareness.
The project involved a complete redesign and overhaul of the Information Architecture – structuring the site in a way that works best for its users. We amalgamated a combined 1,600 pages across the site and took the opportunity
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to carry out a substantial rewrite of our Health Information content, as well as ensuring that our Research and Policy content is represented in a meaningful and helpful way for all stakeholders. The new site went live in November 2024.
## **Making digital channels work for us**
Websites and social media are key information providers and influencers and it’s important that we don’t fall behind in these areas, they give us a platform to disseminate our healthy lifestyles messages, share information on our life saving research and to encourage supporters to give.
During 2024, we have been undergoing a project to improve our email marketing with the help of an external consultant. We carried out a survey with more than 1,100 of our eNews subscribers to help understand what we’re doing well and where we can improve. Based on the feedback, we’re now overhauling our automated journeys and planning more targeted campaigns over the next 12 months, based on subscribers’ preferences.
Social media is an important tool for our public reach and in 2024, we have been developing our presence on social media channels and embracing regular paid activity in support of our products. These included promotions for Activ8, the Cancer & Nutrition (C&N) Helpline, Cook Through Cancer and online cookery classes, HP webinars and workshops, fundraising events for sign-ups (e.g. challenge and running events, skydiving, lottery), general brand awareness. Testing took place for some of the programmes to ascertain which content (imagery and supporting text) had the greatest click-through/conversions.
During the year, we grew our total social media followers to 61,500 – an increase of 3,500, compared with the figure as of 30 September 2023, representing a 6.5% increase. This figure has been achieved in spite of challenges with X, where we have seen our audience flatline.
Conversely, our audiences (and engagement) on LinkedIn and Instagram have gone from strength to strength, with increases of 28% and 18% respectively.
We have supported various campaigns and promotions with both longer-form and short-form video outputs that we’ve shared via social media channels and on the website. Including: C&N Helpline TV advert, CPAW 24 – production of a series of short videos with social media influencer (Kate Oakley) on exercise snacking, responding to the media interest in coffee and colorectal cancer research (interviews with researchers) and shorter videos for social media: mocktail recipes, activity tips, HI booklet and events promo, awareness days.
## **Engaging and supporting our supporters**
Getting to know our loyal supporters better and diversifying our supporter base has been a key strategic objective for us in 2023/24. We know that growing loyalty and increasing the lifetime value of our supporters will be key to us being able to achieve the £15m target by 2030.
We have continued to focus on building meaningful relationships where we can and this has been particularly evident in our growing legacy, in memory, digital and community fundraising income streams.
However, the fundraising environment continues to provide us with challenges. Across the sector we understand that fewer people are giving to charity due to the continuing cost of living crisis and global conflict and humanitarian emergencies remain high on the media agenda impacting the causes that people choose to give to. The next generation of supporter is supporting charities in a different way, with less disposable income available to them, they are more inclined to hand raise in support, than give financially.
We must continue to respond to the changes in the environment with a view on the future if we want to create sustainable income growth. We need to develop new ways of fundraising, being bolder in our messaging and tapping into the risk of cancer as a global crisis if we want to compete in the UK fundraising market. While investment may be necessary to achieve our income growth goals we also continue to focus on the return on investment of our fundraising activities.
However, we continue to enjoy great loyalty from our existing and older supporters and so provide opportunities for them to be more deeply engaged in our work and meet them face-to-face at events across the UK.
As always thanks to the incredible generosity of our supporters we have raised £12.4 million this year, to invest into our cancer prevention and survivorship research and health education programmes.
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## **Direct Marketing**
Direct marketing is an important tool for us as a charity, increasing awareness of our Recommendations, raising vital funds for our cause and explaining how donations are used. We continue with our wider aim for DM campaigns to provide healthy living messages and advice to our supporters and the public. This provides cancer prevention information as directly as possible and helps readers to better understand the links between diet, weight, exercise and the risk of cancer, whilst raising vital funds and increasing our brand awareness.
## **Making connections with trusts, foundations and the commercial sector**
We have seen income growth of 92% year on year in Trusts, despite the trust and foundation landscape being a challenging environment, with large grant-giving bodies closing or taking a break from funding while reviewing their strategies.
Our Trusts team secured 110 donations during the year. Here are some highlights:
- A £47k grant from Walk the Walk towards our Cook Through Cancer programme to provide specific classes for people living with breast cancer
- A £25k grant from the Basil Samuel Trust towards our Cancer and Nutrition Helpline – a final gift as they are winding up
- £10k from PF Charitable Trust was towards the second year of our research at the University of Leeds, which is looking to understand the impact of diet in the response to chemotherapy in women with triple negative breast cancer
- A £7k grant from the Biswas Foundation towards our research at Aberdeen University into stomach cancer in India
We hosted our first corporate breakfast at 100 Queen’s Gate Hotel in Kensington in April. We had 26 attendees from 13 companies who came to find out more about our work and in particular our Cancer and Nutrition Helpline. We are still in the process of cultivating some of the relationships developed as a result of this event and in the coming year, we will focus more on converting these relationships and already have proposals to the value of £600k pending response for 2024/25. Examples of significant gifts received this year include £11k from Sapiens and £5,5k from Merch Traffic as a result of the support from Robert Smith of The Cure and the sale of Bunny Lake design cards and t-shirts.
## **Meeting our supporters face to face**
We held a Supporter Engagement event in Manchester in April 2024 and our second in Exeter in September both focussing on long-term donors. Both events were well responded to and allowed us to showcase our work past and present, as well as our ambitions for the future and underlined the importance of gifts in Wills to make this happen. Due to the age of many of our supporters, we received a lot of acknowledgements saying that they would have liked to attend but were unable to. We are working on a follow-up newsletter to showcase and present the contents from the day to maximise income and secure longer-term support of our work.
Our Head of Legacy and In-Memory Development went to Glasgow to meet and visit Janis and her family, who have supported WCRF in memory of her partner, Ian. Ian’s story has featured in our supporter magazine, Healthy You, and in a campaign for gifts in Wills. This has resonated with our audience and already led to more than 100 existing supporters contacting us about supporting us with a gift in their Will.
## **Working with supporters taking part in events**
The London Marathon continues to be a great income generator for us, achieving £76k against a target of £67k. With the London Marathon making changes to the way they allocate Golden Bond places so that every charity has a reduced allocation and very limited scope or opportunity to buy more, we can only grow this income stream through ‘own place’ runners which will rely on our brand awareness and strategic recruitment processes. It is therefore imperative that we respond by diversifying our portfolio. We are trialling different events such as; the Paris, Berlin or Chicago Marathons and other UK runs and challenges.
Our community fundraising income has grown this year thanks to a modest mailing to community groups and churches asking for their support and a great response to our Christmas card mailing which went to 7,500 people. We sold a record-breaking 1,650 packs of cards and raised £6k.
## **Creating new fundraising products to appeal to new audiences**
We continue to build on the successes of last year’s digital fundraising challenges. We held our second Walk100 Facebook fundraiser in February 2024 and raised £48k.
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We took a much bolder approach to our Facebook Challenges this Summer and ran a test of propositions. We trialled Dump the Junk and Run 50km in August, running ads simultaneously throughout July.
Overwhelmingly the Run 50km challenge outperformed Dump the Junk in terms of income and raised £48k against the £11k raised by Dump the Junk. Dump the Junk performed well in terms of recruiting leads with over 6.6k people joining the Facebook group.
This test has been very helpful and the learnings we have will help us as we further develop this income stream. We need to use much bolder language and messaging to engage a new audience and create some differentiation in what is an increasingly competitive market.
## **Securing longer-term, restricted funding to ensure a sustainable future for WCRF**
As a team we work collaboratively across the organisation so that we can help our supporters fully understand the impact of their donations.
This year we have supported our colleagues in the Health Information team to develop their programmes so that we can increase our reach with our work. We have secured significant gifts (noted below) to increase the reach of our Cook through Cancer classes and Cancer and Nutrition Helpline. We hope to develop the strategies for these programmes even further so that we can support more people living with and beyond cancer and secure multi-year gifts to provide sustainability and opportunities for development.
We have also been working with the Research team to develop a case for support for a large multi-year programme of research together with the University of Southampton Hospital, the CANDO programme will transform care for people with breast cancer and spans 5 years. Costing just under £1.2M this is the first time we have been able to go out to companies with a project of this size to ask for multi-year funding.
Looking forward we will need to consider how we can develop our Health Information programmes and package our research work so that we can secure larger sums from Corporates and Trusts and Foundations.
## **Supporting our Supporters**
Our Supporter Care team, who respond to enquiries and feedback from supporters, the general public and health professionals every day, continue to go from strength to strength. Their remit is to build meaningful, long-term relationships with our supporters as well as working closely to support other departments with initiatives and on-going projects. They are the ‘voice’ of WCRF on the telephones. This year they answered 9,682 telephone calls and also responded to and followed up on 2,600 email queries.
## **Future Plans**
In March 2020, we developed a Theory of Change model to propel us through the next 3-5 years. This was created to help us to understand ourselves better and to ensure we are more able to focus resources on the most important activities. Little did we know at that point that the world would change so dramatically due to the pandemic.
Luckily we were not adversely affected by the pandemic but our plans and strategies did need to change. We reviewed our Theory of Change and associated strategy documents that accompany it each year with a more in-depth review in 2023, where the Theory of Change was found to still be valid. The accompanying strategies were updated to remove items that had been achieved and to add any new opportunities that had arisen.
Starting in March 2025, we will be kicking off a new strategic planning cycle to update the Theory of Change and to set our strategic plans for the next 3 years.
## **In summary**
This year saw WCRF experience another year of steady progress from both a programme and financial perspective. Alongside our network affiliates, we were able to fund all the grants that our Grant Panel deemed fundable, as well as invest further in our CUP Global programme and our other science and policy programmes. We also realised some long-term goals by partnering with Southampton University on the CANDO project which has the potential to improve outcomes for breast cancer patients across the country and by launching our Cancer and Nutrition helpline which can help people living with cancer improve their quality of life and their ability to enjoy food. Financially, we kept a sound bottom line, increased our income and also invested in new technologies that should help bring in more money in the future.
We thank our staff and our supporters for their tremendous dedication and flexibility and look forward to achieving more successes next year.
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## **FINANCIAL INFORMATION**
## **Management of risk**
The Trustees have approved, implemented and regularly reviewed WCRF’s risk management plan, which is operated by staff on a day-to-day basis. Senior staff, heads of department and Trustees work together to revise the risk management plan annually, identifying emerging risks, prioritising them in terms of potential impact and likelihood of occurrence.
The risk management plan covers governance, financial, operational, IT, and other risks. Internal control procedures are in place to provide assurance against identified risks in order to uphold the integrity and reputation of the charity. These include: a 3-year Strategic Plan reviewed periodically through the year annual operational plans and budgets which are approved by the Trustees; regular review by the Trustees of financial results, variance from budgets and financial targets; risk management, segregation of duties, policies and procedures. Additionally, Trustees are kept up to date with any changes in governance requirements to ensure they are fully informed of best practice.
During the financial year, we identified the potential impact of economic recession and rising cost of living as a major risk to WCRF. As a result, we reviewed our annual budget compared to actual performance, strategic plans and the reserves policy during the year to ensure we can maintain our research funding projects over a long-term period. Prompt financial reporting procedures were followed in order to respond to shifts in the economic environment.
## **Financial Review**
## **Income**
Total income in 2023/2024 increased by £2,040,025 to £12,679,739 ( _2022/2023: £10,639,714_ . Legacies were £2,769,761 _(2022/2023: £2,156,119)_ an increase of £613,642. Donations from individual donors increased by £425,567 to £5,608,567 ( _2022/2023: £5,183,000_ ).
Our headline KPIs for the year were to raise £11,177,213 in income and to fund over £1 million in research grants, both of these were exceeded.
Investment income consists solely of interest earned on cash held in interest-bearing accounts.
Trading activities, if any, represent revenue produced by WCRF’s wholly owned subsidiary, WCRF (Trading) Ltd. The company did not trade during the year.
## **Expenditure**
In financial year 2023/2024, total expenditures increased by £464,732 to £11,569,496 ( _2022/2023: £11,104,765_ ).
Expenditure on raising funds increased by £221,564 to £2,959,561 ( _2022/2023: £2,737,997_ ). Charitable expenditure on research increased by £76,294 to £3,939,791 ( _2022/2023: £3,863,497_ ). Charitable expenditure on information and education increased by £166,874 to £4,670,144 ( _2022/2023: £4,503,270_ ).
## **Net Income**
Net movement in funds in 2023/2024 was a profit of £1,108,597, an increase of £1,517,180 ( _2022/2023: (£408,583)_ ).
## **Investment Policy**
Currently WCRF holds no investments. All reserves are held in cash, split between easy access accounts and higher interest longer term accounts.
## **Reserves**
WCRF is a dynamic organisation relying almost entirely on voluntary giving. We need to hold adequate reserves to react both to challenging economic shortfalls and unexpected opportunities to fund research and support the educational programmes. A review of the policy and reserves is conducted each year by the trustees to ensure adequate reserves are maintained based on the annual budget and actual results. The Trustees may from time to time spend reserves on additional programme activities based on the reserve policy having been met or exceeded.
In the interest of prudent management, WCRF aims to maintain a minimum reserve at one half the total annual expenditures. By holding a reserve, WCRF would be able to continue its work during periods of reduced income that may result from an economic downturn or a recession. WCRF will maintain its free reserves (free reserves include investments, debtors and cash in the bank less creditors) by providing a goal in the annual budget.
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As of 30 September 2024, unrestricted reserves increased by £1,100569 to £7,086,618 _(2022/2023: £5,948,433)_ . Free reserves at 30 September 2024 are £5,597,096 _(2022/2023: £5,597,096)._ This equates to 7 months of the current year's expenditure ( _2022/2023_ : 6 months).
In June 2023, the landlords of the WCRF office at 140 Pentonville Road went into administration. In early 2024, the office was offered for sale by the administrators at a purchase price of “offers over £4,000,000 excluding VAT”. In May 2024, we were advised by the agent acting for the sale that they would accept lower offers due to no interest in the property. At the WCRF Board meeting in May 2024, the Trustees asked management to negotiate to try to purchase the property.
After protracted negotiations and legal discussions, we purchased the property on 8[th] January 2025 for the reasonable price of £3,200,000 plus £640,000 in VAT paid from free reserves. The purchase has been secured on a 999-year leasehold.
In September 2024, the Board of Trustees approved the budget for financial year 2024/2025 which did not include a surplus meaning the total free reserves were planned to remain at £7,086,618. The minimum reserve target of 6 months of the budget year’s expenditure equates to approximately £5.5 million. WCRF UK’s goal of a minimum of 6 months of expenditures in reserve can be met by monitoring expenses if revenue targets fall short. As of 30 September 2024, total reserves were £7,086,618 ( _2022/2023: £5,978,022)._ These reserves have been reduced by our January property purchase however we now have a fixed asset that if, ever needed, could be used as collateral for any line of credit.
## **Going Concern**
The financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis. The financial position of WCRF, its surplus for the year and cash flows are set out and demonstrate the overall net cash position of WCRF and its reserves position. The Trustees believe that WCRF is well placed to manage the business risks successfully. WCRF was not adversely impacted by recent economic uncertainty, increased inflation and cost of living increases. However, management is monitoring current fundraising activities, programme spending, and staff needs and making adjustments as necessary. In addition, the financial forecast for the 2024/2025 financial year and budget planning for the year 2025/2026 take into consideration the possibility of declining revenues due to inflation and/or economic turndown. The Trustees have a reasonable expectation that the charitable company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, they continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the annual report and accounts.
## **In summary**
Despite continued uncertain economic conditions, WCRF experienced another year of steady progress. WCRF will continue to strive to maximize fundraising opportunities, monitor expenditures and fund our vital work in cancer research to benefit the public.
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Disclosure of information to auditor**
The Trustees who held office at the date of approval of this Trustees’ Report confirm that so far as they are aware, there is no relevant audit information of which WCRF’s auditor is unaware, and each Trustee has taken all steps that ought to have been taken as Trustee to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the auditor is aware of that information.
Pursuant to section 487 of the Companies Act 2006, the auditors will be deemed to be reappointed and RSM UK Audit LLP will therefore continue in office.
The Board approves the Trustees’ report and Strategic Report in its capacity as company directors, signed on its behalf by
Roderick Power Trustee 28 May 2025
140 Pentonville Road London N1 9FW
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Statement of responsibilities of the Trustees of World Cancer Research Fund**
The trustees (who are also directors of World Cancer Research Fund for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the Trustees' Report (incorporating the strategic report and directors’ report) and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102: _The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland_ (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).
Company law requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company and of the income and expenditure, of the charitable company for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the trustees are required to:
- select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
- observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;
- make judgments and accounting estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
- state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements, and
- prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charitable company will continue in business.
The trustees are responsible for maintaining proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charitable company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
In so far as the trustees are aware:
- there is no relevant audit information of which the charitable company's auditors are unaware; and
- the trustees have taken all steps that they ought to have taken to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the auditors are aware of that information.
The trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the charitable company's website. Legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Independent auditor’s report to the members of World Cancer Research Fund**
## **Opinion**
We have audited the financial statements of World Cancer Research Fund (the ‘charitable company’) for the year ended 30 September 2024 which comprise the Statement of Financial Activities, the Balance Sheet, the Statement of Cash Flows and notes to the financial statements, including significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including FRS 102 “The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland” (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).
In our opinion the financial statements:
- give a true and fair view of the state of the charitable company’s affairs as at 30 September 2024 and of its incoming resources and application of resources, including its income and expenditure, for the year then ended;
- have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and
- have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.
## **Basis for opinion**
We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the charitable company in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.
## **Conclusions relating to going concern**
In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.
Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.
Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.
## **Other information**
The other information comprises the information included in the Trustees’ Report other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. The trustees are responsible for the other information contained within the Trustees’ Report. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.
Our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the course of the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.
We have nothing to report in this regard.
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006**
In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:
- the information given in the Trustees’ Report, which includes the Directors’ Report and the Strategic Report prepared for the purposes of company law, for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and
- the Directors’ Report and the Strategic Report included within the Trustees’ Report have been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.
## **Matters on which we are required to report by exception**
In the light of the knowledge and understanding of the charitable company and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the Directors’ Report or the Strategic Report included within the Trustees’ Report.
We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters where the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:
- adequate accounting records have not been kept, or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us; or
- the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; or
- certain disclosures of trustees’ remuneration specified by law are not made; or
- we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit.
## **Responsibilities of trustees**
As explained more fully in the Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities set out on page 22, the trustees (who are also the directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law) are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.
In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charitable company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.
## **Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements**
Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.
## **The extent to which the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud**
Irregularities are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. The objectives of our audit are to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence regarding compliance with laws and regulations that have a direct effect on the determination of material amounts and disclosures in the financial statements, to perform audit procedures to help identify instances of non-compliance with other laws and regulations that may have a material effect on the financial statements, and to respond appropriately to identified or suspected non-compliance with laws and regulations identified during the audit.
In relation to fraud, the objectives of our audit are to identify and assess the risk of material misstatement of the financial statements due to fraud, to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence regarding the assessed risks of material misstatement due to fraud through designing and implementing appropriate responses and to respond appropriately to fraud or suspected fraud identified during the audit.
However, it is the primary responsibility of management, with the oversight of those charged with governance, to ensure that the entity's operations are conducted in accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations and for the prevention and detection of fraud.
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
In identifying and assessing risks of material misstatement in respect of irregularities, including fraud, the audit engagement team:
- obtained an understanding of the nature of the sector, including the legal and regulatory frameworks that the charitable company operates in and how the charitable company is complying with the legal and regulatory frameworks;
- inquired of management, and those charged with governance, about their own identification and assessment of the risks of irregularities, including any known actual, suspected or alleged instances of fraud;
- discussed matters about non-compliance with laws and regulations and how fraud might occur including assessment of how and where the financial statements may be susceptible to fraud.
As a result of these procedures we consider the most significant laws and regulations that have a direct impact on the financial statements are FRS 102, Charities SORP (FRS 102), Companies Act 2006, Charities Act 2011, the charitable company’s governing document, tax legislation and Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act 2016. We performed audit procedures to detect non- compliances which may have a material impact on the financial statements which included reviewing the financial statements including the Trustees’ Report, remaining alert to new or unusual transactions which may not be in accordance with the governing documents.
The most significant laws and regulations that have an indirect impact on financial statements are those in relation to the General Data Protection Regulations. We performed audit procedures to inquire of management whether the charitable company is in compliance with these laws and regulations.
The audit engagement team identified the risk of management override of controls and the recognition of legacy income as the areas where the financial statements were most susceptible to material misstatement due to fraud. Audit procedures performed included but were not limited to testing journal entries and other adjustments, evaluating the business rationale in relation to significant, unusual transactions and transactions entered into outside the normal course of business and challenging judgments and estimates.
A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at http://www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor’s report.
## **Use of our report**
This report is made solely to the charitable company’s members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charitable company’s members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charitable company and the charitable company’s members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.
NICHOLAS SLADDEN (Senior Statutory Auditor) For and on behalf of RSM UK AUDIT LLP, Statutory Auditor Chartered Accountants 25 Farringdon Street London EC4A 4AB
_Date_ 16 June 2025
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Statement of Financial Activities (incorporating income and expenditure account)** _**for the year ended 30 September 2024**_
|**Income and endowments from:**
Donations, legacies,
grants and other income
3
Investment income
**Total income**
**Expenditure on:**
Raising funds
4
Charitable activities
5
**Total expenditure**
**Net losses on investments**
11
**Currency (loss)/gain**
**Net surplus/ (deficit)**
**Transfer to Unrestricted**
Fund balances brought forward at
1 October 2023
**Fund balances carried forward at**
**30 September 2024**
21|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**2024**
**Total**
**£**
**12,193,040**
**264,189**
**12,457,229**
**2,959,561**
**8,510,970**
**11,470,531**
**-**
**(1,646)**
**985,052**
**115,118**
**5,948,433**
**7,048,603**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**2024**
**Total**
**£**
**222,510**
**-**
**222,510**
**-**
**98,965**
**98,965**
**-**
**-**
**123,545**
**(115,118)**
**29,589**
**38,016**|**Total funds**
**2024**
**Total**
**£**
**12,415,550**
**264,189**
**12,679,739**
**2,959,561**
**8,609,935**
**11,569,496**
**-**
**(1,646)**
**1,108,597**
**-**
**5,978,022**
**7,086,619**|Total funds
2023
Total
£
10,472,772
166,942|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|||||10,639,714|
|||||2,737,997
8,366,768|
|||||11,104,765
**-**
56,468|
|||||(408,583)
-
6,386,605|
|||||5,978,022|
WCRF has not recognised gains or losses other than the net movement of funds in the year.
The notes on pages 29 of 40 form part of these financial statements.
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Balance sheet** _**at 30 September 2024**_
|||**2024**|2023|
|---|---|---|---|
|||**£**|£|
|**Fixed assets:**||||
|Tangible assets|10|**266,918**|351,337|
|Investments|11|-|-|
|Total fixed assets||**266,918**|351,337|
|**Current assets:**||||
|Debtors|12|**2,697,143**|2,313,899|
|Cash at bank and in hand||**8,958,024**|8,423,022|
|Total current assets||**11,655,167**|10,736,921|
|**Liabilities:**||||
|Creditors: amounts falling due within one year|13|**(2,596,270)**|(2,377,107)|
|Net current assets||**9,058,897**|8,359,814|
|Total assets less current liabilities||**9,325,815**|8,711,151|
|**Creditors:**amounts falling due after one year|14|**(2,239,197)**|(2,733,129)|
|**Total net assets at 30 September**||**7,086,618**|5,978,022|
|**The funds of the charity:**||||
|**Unrestricted funds**|20|**7,048,603**|5,948,433|
|**Restricted funds**|21|**38,015**|29,589|
|**Total funds**||**7,086,618**|5,978,022|
These financial statements were approved by the Board of Trustees on 28 May 2025 and were signed on its behalf by:
Roderick Power _Trustee_
The notes on pages 29 to 40 form part of these financial statements.
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Statement of Cash Flows**
## _**For the year ended 30 September 2024**_
|**Cash flows from operating activities:**
**Net cash provided by/ (used in) operating activities**
**Cash flows from investing activities:**
Dividends and interest from investments
Purchase of equipment
**Net cash provided by/(used in) investing activities**
**Change in cash and cash equivalents in the reporting period**
**Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the reporting period**
**Reconciliation of net Income/(Expenditure) to net cash flow**
Net expenditure for the reporting period
Depreciation charges
Dividends and interest from investments
Loss on sale of fixed assets
(Increase) in debtors
(Decrease) in creditors
**Net cash provided by investing activities**
**Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the reporting period**|**2024**
**£**
**282,992**
**264,189**
**(12,178)**
**252,011**
**535,003**
**8,423,022**
**8,958,025**
**1,108,597**
**96,597**
**(264,189)**
**-**
**(383,244)**
**(274,769)**
**282,992**|2023
£
(1,930,872)
166,921
(29,801)|
|---|---|---|
|||137,120
(1,793,752)
10,216,774|
|||8,423,022|
|||(408,583)
102,254
(166,921)
940
(1,248,788)
(209,774)|
|||(1,930,872)|
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements**
World Cancer Research Fund (“WCRF”) is a charitable company limited by guarantee, and incorporated in England and Wales, Charity registration number 1000739, Company registration number 2536180. The registered office is 140 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9FW.
## **1 Accounting policies**
The following accounting policies have been applied consistently in dealing with items which are considered material in relation to the financial statements of WCRF.
## _**Basis of preparation**_
The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost accounting convention in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting and Reporting by Charities (Charities SORP second edition effective 1 January 2019 (FRS 102)) and the Financial Reporting Standard 102 applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Charities Act 2011 and UK Generally Accepted Practice as it applies from 1 January 2019.
## _**Functional and presentation currency**_
These consolidated financial statements are presented in British Pound, which is the Company’s functional currency. All amounts have been rounded to the nearest pound, unless otherwise indicated.
## _**Going concern**_
The financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis. The financial position of WCRF, its surplus for the year and cash flows are set out and demonstrate the overall net cash position of WCRF and its reserves position. Due to the charity’s structure, future plans and strong cash position, the Trustees believe that WCRF is well placed to manage the business risks successfully. Management monitor current fundraising activities, programme spending, staff needs. Much of the income from individual donations comes from direct marketing and legacies, both of which show trends that can be monitored, should those trends show cause for concern, management make adjustments as necessary.
In addition, the financial forecast for the 2024/2025 financial year takes into consideration the possibility of declining revenues due to inflation and/or economic turndown by being conservative with income estimates and associated spending. Budget planning for the year 2025/2026 will follow a similar path. The Trustees have a reasonable expectation that the charitable company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, they continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the annual report and accounts.
## _**Company status**_
WCRF is a company limited by guarantee and the Trustees are named on page 3. In the event of WCRF being wound up, the liability in respect of the guarantee is limited to £1 per founding member.
## _**Fund accounting**_
Unrestricted funds are funds which are available for use at the discretion of the Trustees in furtherance of the general objectives of WCRF and which have not been designated for any other purpose. Restricted funds consist of grants or donations made for specific research and education projects.
## _**Income**_
## _**Donations**_
Donations are included in full in the SOFA when WCRF is entitled to the donation, its receipt if probable and the amount is measurable with sufficient reliability.
## _**Gift aid income recognition policy**_
Gift aid claims are filed approximately every other month and income is recognised in the year the original donations were received.
## _**Legacy income**_
Legacies are included in the SOFA when WCRF is legally entitled to the income, it is probable that WCRF will receive the income and the amount can be measured with sufficient reliability. Entitlement is the earlier of notification of a quantifiable impending distribution or the legacy being received. Legal and administrative costs for managing legacy income are budgeted each year and are kept to a minimum by having an in house Legacy management team.
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements** _**(continued)**_
**1 Accounting policies** _(continued)_
## _**Investment income and interest**_
Investment income and interest is accrued monthly in the SOFA.
## _**Liabilities**_
Liabilities are recognised on an accrual basis.
## _**Value added tax**_
WCRF is not registered for VAT purposes and all costs and expenditure are inclusive of VAT where applicable.
## _**Expenditures**_
Expenditures are accounted for on an accruals basis and are listed under headings that aggregate all the costs related to that activity. Direct costs are attributed directly to the activities listed. Support costs are allocated on a basis consistent with the use of the resources and include human resources, premises and other costs.
Human resource costs include salaries, payroll taxes, pension, employee benefits and recruitment expenses. Premises costs are office rent, building maintenance, utilities, telephone, and insurance. Other costs include travel, dues & subscriptions, taxes and fees and a contribution to WCRF International (see note 19).
Grants are awarded in line with WCRF’s objectives and policies and are accounted for on a payable basis. Grant expense and the related liability are recognized in the year the recipient is entitled to the irrevocable use of the funds.
## _**Tangible Fixed Assets and Depreciation**_
Tangible fixed assets with a cost of more than £2,000 are capitalised and included at initially at cost and are depreciated over their estimated useful life. Tangible fixed asset purchases of less than £2,000 are written off to the Statement of Financial Activities.
Depreciation is provided to write-off the cost less the estimated residual value of machinery and equipment, and fixtures and fittings by equal instalments over its estimated useful life of five years, except for computers which are written off over three years. Leasehold improvements are depreciated over the life of the lease, which is ten years.
## _**Cash and liquid resources**_
Cash, for the purpose of the cash flow statement comprises cash in hand and deposits repayable on demand less overdrafts payable on demand. Liquid resources are current asset investments which are disposable without curtailing or disrupting the business and are either readily convertible into known amounts of cash at or close to their carrying values or traded in an active market.
## _**Financial instruments**_
WCRF has applied the provisions of Section 11 'Basic Financial Instruments' and Section 12 'Other Financial Instruments issues' of FRS 102 to all its financial instruments. Financial instruments are recognised in the balance sheet when WCRF becomes party to the contractual provisions of the instrument and are valued at fair value through profit or loss.
## _**Basic financial assets**_
Basic financial assets, which include debtors and cash and bank balances, are initially measured at transaction price including transaction costs and are subsequently carried at amortised cost using the effective interest method unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the transaction is measured at the present value of the future receipts discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial asset classified as receivable within one year are not amortised.
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements** _**(continued)**_
## **1 Accounting policies** _(continued)_
## _**Basic financial liabilities**_
Basic financial liabilities, including creditors are initially recognised at transaction price unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the debt instrument is measured at the present value of the future receipts discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial liabilities classified as payable within one year are not amortised.
Trade creditors are obligations to pay for goods and services that have been acquired in the ordinary course of operations from suppliers. Amounts payable are classified as current liabilities if payment is due within one year or less. If not, they are presented as non-current liabilities. Trade creditors are recognised initially at transaction price and subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method.
## _**Foreign currencies**_
Transactions in foreign currencies are recorded using the rate of exchange ruling at the date of the transaction. Monetary assets and liabilities denominated in foreign currencies are translated using the contracted rate or the rate of exchange ruling at the balance sheet date and the gains or losses on translation are included in the SOFA
## _**Termination benefits**_
Termination benefits are payable when employment is terminated and recognised when management is committed to incurring these costs.
## _**Pension costs**_
WCRF operates a defined contribution pension scheme. The assets of the scheme are held separately in an independently administered fund. The amount charged to the SOFA represents the contributions payable to the scheme in respect of the accounting period.
## _**Taxation**_
WCRF is considered to pass the tests set out in Paragraph 1 Schedule 6 Finance Act 2010 and therefore it meets the definition of a charitable company for UK corporation tax purposes. Accordingly, the charity is potentially exempt from taxation in respect of income or capital gains received within categories covered by Chapter 3 Part 11 Corporation Tax Act 2010 or Section 256 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, to the extent that such income or gains are applied exclusively to charitable purposes. The trading subsidiary, WCRF (Trading) Ltd, ceased trading operations in 2015. If operations resume in the future, the subsidiary will donate its profits by way of gift aid to WCRF. Consequently, WCRF UK has no liability to tax and no deferred tax.
## **2 Key judgements and estimations**
Estimates and judgements are continually evaluated and are based on historical experience and other factors, including expectations of future events that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances.
## _**Legacy income**_
The preparation of the financial statements requires judgements, estimations and assumptions to be made that affect the reported values of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses. The nature of estimation and judgement means that actual outcomes could differ from expectation. Significant areas of estimation and judgement include accrued legacy income, which is estimated based on the best information available at the balance sheet date. Management’s estimate is prudent in respect of illiquid asset to be accrued.
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World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements** _**(continued)**_
- **3 Donations, legacies, grants and other income**
|Donations
Legacy income
Committed giving
Gift Aid
Grants from affiliates
Grant revenue
Other income|**Unrestricted**
**Funds**
**£**
**5,492,501**
**2,772,208**
**1,300,738**
**1,155,850**
**1,133,004**
**338,729**
**9**
**12,193,039**|**Restricted**
**Funds**
**£**
**116,066**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**106,444**
**-**
**222,510**|**2024**
2023
**Total**
Total
£
£
**5,608,567**
5,183,000
**2,772,208**
2,156,119
**1,300,738**
1,271,088
**1,155,850**
773,919
**1,133,004**
1,030,612
**445,173**
55,816
**9**
2,218
**12,415,549**
10,472,772|
|---|---|---|---|
Restricted income in 2024 is £222,510 _(FY23:£84,316)._
## **4 Expenditure on raising funds**
|Fundraising actvities
Direct mail fundraising
Human resources
Premises
Other|**Direct**
**costs**
**£**
**260,850**
**1,658,916**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**1,**~~**919,766**~~|**Support**
**costs**
**£**
**-**
**-**
**719,068**
**140,676**
**180,051**
**1,**~~**039,795**~~|**2024**
**Total**
**£**
**260,850**
**1,658,916**
**719,068**
**140,676**
**180,051**
**2,**~~**959,561**~~|2023
Total
£
177,074
1,681,069
614,995
131,439
133,420|2023
Total
£
177,074
1,681,069
614,995
131,439
133,420|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**1,**|**1,**~~**0**~~|**2,**|2,|~~737,997~~|
32
Docusign Envelope ID: 479A2F2D-82E7-4DF3-A82B-32D5B52D772E
World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements** _**(continued)**_
|**5**
**Expenditure on charitable activities**
**Direct**
**costs**
**£**
Research:
Research grants*
**2,122,909**
Other direct costs
**218,160**
Human resources
**-**
Premises
**-**
Other
**-**
**2,**~~**341,069**~~
Information & education:
Programme grants to affiliates
**389,354**
Publications
**1,992,176**
Consulting fees
**439,319**
Other direct costs
**337,232**
Human resources
**-**
Premises
**-**
Other
**-**
**3,158,081**
Total costs of charitable activities
**5,499,150**
*includes grant refunds|**Support**
**costs**
**£**
**-**
**-**
**1,122,535**
**222,773**
**253,414**
**1,**~~**598,722**~~
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**1,035,459**
**224,018**
**252,586**
**1,512,063**
**3,110,785**|**2024**
**Total**
**£**
**2,122,909**
**218,160**
**1,122,535**
**222,773**
**253,414**
**3,**~~**939,791**~~
**389,354**
**1,992,176**
**439,319**
**337,232**
**1,035,459**
**224,018**
**252,586**
**4,670,144**
**8,609,935**|2023
Total
£
2,204,847
267,260
976,799
208,126
206,465|2023
Total
£
2,204,847
267,260
976,799
208,126
206,465|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||||3,~~863,497~~||
||||373,051
2,064,071
389,890
290,928
973,742
208,199
203,390||
||||4,503,271||
||||8,366,768||
||||||
Expenditure on charitable activities was £8,609,935 (2023: £8,366,768) of which £8,510,970 (2023: £8,144,602) was unrestricted and £98,965 (2023: £222,166) was restricted.
33
Docusign Envelope ID: 479A2F2D-82E7-4DF3-A82B-32D5B52D772E
World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements** _**(continued)**_
## **6 Grants and grants payable**
The below grants were awarded in the year to 30 September 2024 to institutions:
|||**2024**|
|---|---|---|
|||**£**|
|University of Iceland|Can we prevent multiple myeloma through lifestyle and
nutrition?
|**340,297**|
|University of Oxford|ProMAP: Mapping diet to cancer through the proteome
|**317,552**|
|University of Bristol|How does adiposity distribution influence risk of obesity-related
caners? - Exploring causality and mechanisms
|**288,578**|
|The CANDO Programme
Southampton University|Nutrition, body composition, metabolic health and clinical
outcomes in breast cancer
|**251,486**|
||Collaborative project between IARC and WCRF International:||
|IARC|Evaluation of biological mechanisms linking diet, lifestyle and
|**77,756**|
||cancer within the new phase of the CUP||
|Instituto Technologico y de Estudios
Superiores de Monterrey|Online mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention for
patients with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy
|**75,000**|
|University of Hong Kong|Gut microbiota and cancer risk in East Asians: A two-sample
Mendelian randomization study
|**75,000**|
|National Institute for Health and Care
Research|NIHR Cancer and Nutrition Collaboration
|**67,827**|
|Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute|Weight Management in obese cancer patients during curative
active treatment (CANOBESE study)
|**60,000**|
|Union for International Cancer Control|Partnership for Advocacy Support
|**39,325**|
|International Union of Nutritional Sciences
(IUNS)|International Collaboration on Nutrition in relation to Cancer
(ICONIC)
|**4,471**|
||Total research grants
|**1,597,292**|
|Imperial College London|Global Cancer Update Programme
|**526,407**|
||Grant Refunds
|**(790)**|
||Total grants
|**2,122,909**|
34
Docusign Envelope ID: 479A2F2D-82E7-4DF3-A82B-32D5B52D772E
World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements** _**(continued)**_
- _**6**_ **Grants and grants payable** _**(continued)**_
|**7**
**Support costs**
Beginning grants payable
New grant funding
Grant adjustment
Grant payments
Ending grants payable
Due within one year (note 13)
Due after one year (note 14)
**Fundraising**
Human resources
**719,068**
Premises
**140,676**
Other
**180,051**
**1,039,795**|**Information**
**& education**
**1,035,459**
**224,018**
**252,586**
**1,512,063**|**Research**
**1,122,535**
**222,773**
**253,414**
**1,598,722**||**2024**
**£**
**4,384,893**
**2,057,893**
**(22,005)**
**(2,128,806)**|2023
£
4,088,982
1,562,790
-
(1,266,879)
4,384,893
1,651,764
2,733,129
2023
£
2,565,536
547,764
543,275|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||||**4,291,975**||
|||||**2,052,778**
**2,239,197**
**2024**
**£**
**2,877,062**
**587,467**
**686,051**
**4,150,580**||
||||||3,656,575|
## **7 Support costs**
Support costs are allocated based upon time spent on each function – fundraising, information & education and research. Each employee’s position is reviewed and job responsibilities are allocated by the amount of time spent on each function.
Governance costs - audit fees of £44,000 _(2023: £45,833)_ include fees in respect of WCRF Trading Ltd of £3,1 _(2023: £3,100)_ and board meeting expenses of £25,745 _(2023: £_ 11,535 _)_ are included in Other above.
35
Docusign Envelope ID: 479A2F2D-82E7-4DF3-A82B-32D5B52D772E
World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **8 Operating costs**
|
**Human resources**
**Net expenditure is stated after charging:**
Depreciation and other amounts written off tangible fixed assets:
Owned
Hire of plant and machinery
Hire of other assets - office lease
Hire of other assets - office equipment leases
_Auditor's remuneration:_
Audit of these financial statements
Audit of financial statements of subsidiaries
Salaries
Social security costs
Pension costs - defined contribution scheme||**2024**
**£**
**96,597**
**15,359**
**364,292**
**43,761**|2023
£
100,163
7,592
323,062
38,987|
|---|---|---|---|
|||**2024**
**£**
**40,869**
**3,131**|2023
£
42,733
3,100|
|||**44,000**|45,833|
|||**2024**
**2,469,869**
**253,851**
**113,804**|2023
2,167,474
234,917
98,044
2,500,436|
|||**2,837,524**||
## **9 Human resources**
The average number of persons employed during the year, analysed by category, was as follows:
|Fundraising
Research
Education
Administration
Total|**2024**
2023
**15**
10
**15**
15
**15**
15
**9**
12|
|---|---|
||**54**
52|
The emoluments in excess of £60,000, excluding pension contributions, of staff employed by the group were within the following ranges:
||**2024**|**2023**|
|---|---|---|
|£70,000 - £80,000|0|3|
|£80,000 - £90,000|1|1|
|£90,000 - £100,000|1|1|
|£100,000 - £110,000|1|1|
|£140,000 - £150,000|1|0|
In respect to staff paid over £60,000, the pension contribution was £72,256 _(2023: £75,735)._
The key management personnel of the WCRF are the trustees, the President and the CEO.
The Trustees, who are considered the key management personnel, received no remuneration (2023 nil). Board meeting expenses include out-of-pocket travel, lodging, meals and room rental. Six Trustees (2023: five) received an out-ofpocket travel reimbursement totalling £8,749 (2023: £7,808) for expenses incurred directly. In 2024 and 2023 there were no related party transactions with the Board of Trustees and WCRF. The President was compensated by affiliate organisations.
36
Docusign Envelope ID: 479A2F2D-82E7-4DF3-A82B-32D5B52D772E
World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements** _**(continued)**_
|**10**
**Tangible fixed assets**
**11**
**Investments**
**12**
**Debtors**
**Cost**
At 1 October 2023
Additions
At 30 September 2024
**Depreciation**
At 1 October 2023
Charge for year
Disposals
At 30 September 2024
**Net book value**
At 30 September 2023
**At 30 September 2024**
Investment in subsidiary
At 1 October
Accrued legacies
Amounts owed by affiliates*
Prepayments
Amounts owed by group undertakings
Trade debtors
Other debtors|**Leasehold**
**improvements**
**£**
482,449
-
482,449
199,338
49,237
-
248,575
283,111
**233,874**|**Fixtures**
**and**
**fittings**
**£**
64,676
-
64,676
50,184
10,582
-
60,766
14,492
**3,910**|**Machinery**
**and**
**equipment**
**£**
225,487
12,178
237,665
171,754
36,777
-
208,531
53,733
**29,134**
**2024**
**£**
**2**||**Total**
**£**
772,612
12,178|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||||||784,790|
||||||421,276
96,596
-|
||||||517,872|
||||||351,336|
||||||**266,918**|
||||||2023
£
2|
|||||||
||||**2**||2|
||||**2024**
**£**
**1,296,523**
**659,564**
**399,634**
**6,479**
**238,343**
**96,600**||2023
£
1,245,031
535,525
274,293
6,599
161,251
91,200
2,313,899|
||||**2,697,143**|||
*amounts owed by affiliates are interest free.
37
Docusign Envelope ID: 479A2F2D-82E7-4DF3-A82B-32D5B52D772E
World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements** _**(continued)**_
## **13 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year**
|**13**
**Creditors: amounts falling due within one year**||
|---|---|
|Trade creditors
Grant payable
Amounts owed to affiliates*
Other creditors
Deferred Income|**2024**
2023
**£**
£
**265,086**
404,609
**2,052,778**
1,651,764
**0**
106,732
**71,973**
205,595
**206,433**
8,407|
||**2,596,270**
2,377,107|
*amounts owed to affiliates are interest free.
**14 Creditors: amounts falling due after one year**
|**15**
**Guarantees and other financial commitments**
**Operating lease commitments - land, building and equipment**
Grant payable
Total future minimum lease payments under non-cancellable
opereating leases for each of the following periods:
-not later than one year
-later than one year and not later than five years*
-later than five years
**Total**|**2024**
**£**|2023
£|
|---|---|---|
||**2,239,197**|2,733,129|
||**2024**
**£**
**257,400**
**1,930,500**
**-**|2023
£
312,000
1,801,800
386,100
2,499,900|
||**2,187,900**||
* Premises at 140 Pentonville Road were purchased by WCRF in January 2025 and the outstanding lease cancelled
## **16 Pension**
WCRF operates a defined contribution pension scheme. The pension costs charged for the period represents contributions payable to the scheme and amounted to £113,804 (2023: £75,735).
## **17 Members**
WCRF is a company limited by guarantee. The liability of the members of the company is limited to £1 each.
38
Docusign Envelope ID: 479A2F2D-82E7-4DF3-A82B-32D5B52D772E
World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements** _**(continued)**_
## **18 Related Parties**
WCRF has a wholly owned trading subsidiary, WCRF (Trading) Ltd, which is incorporated in the UK. WCRF (Trading) Ltd ceased operations in 2015. WCRF (Trading) Ltd carried on trading activities to raise net revenues which are contributed to the WCRF UK. The registered address is 1 Blossom Yard, London, E1 6RS.
Summary balance sheet is as follows:
|ummary balance sheet is as follows:|||
|---|---|---|
||**2024**|2023|
||**£**|£|
|Cash|**6,479**|6,599|
|Due to WCRF:|||
|Beginning balance|**(6,597)**|(6,657)|
|Net value of transactions|**120**|60|
|Amounts owed by subsidiary|**(6,477)**
|(6,597)|
|**Total net assets**|**2**
|2|
**19 Affiliated Charities** WCRF is a member of the World Cancer Research Fund global network, which is an international alliance of organisations dedicated to the prevention and control of cancer through healthy diets and lifestyles. The network comprises World Cancer Research Fund International AISBL (WCRF International), an umbrella association and its member organisations - national charities based in different countries. Members operate in the United States of America, American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR); the United Kingdom, World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF); the Netherlands, Stichting Wereld Kanker Onderzoek Fonds (WKOF); and in the Far East, World Cancer Research Fund Limited (WCRF HK).
Linked by a common vision and mission, each member organisation works with the strategic headquarters, WCRF International, to ensure national and global effectiveness and economies through shared analysis, publications, and best practices. With strategically placed member organisations, the WCRF global network is able to raise awareness that cancer is largely preventable, fund innovative scientific research and stimulate new public initiatives for cancer prevention and control throughout the world. WCRF International is funded by contributions and dues from the Charity and its affiliates.
When necessary, WCRF may make sterling payments on behalf of WCRF affiliates. In turn, WCRF affiliates may make payments on behalf of WCRF to creditors requesting payments in other currencies. WCRF is reimbursed and/or will make reimbursements to the respective affiliates for these payments. The affiliate transactions described above are recorded in Amounts owed by affiliates in note 12.
The summary activity in these accounts for the years ended 30 September 2024 and 2023 is as follows:
|**Description**
Beginning balance
£
Net value of transactions
Amounts owed by affiliates
£|||**2024**|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**WCRF**
**International**|**AICR**|**WCRF**
**NL**|**WCRF**
**Hong Kong**|**Totals**|
||492,583
(92,763)|(106,732)
323,534|-
-|42,942
-|428,793
230,771|
||399,820|216,802|-|42,942|659,564|
|**Description**
Beginning balance
£
Net value of transactions
Amounts owed by affiliates
£|||**2023**|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**WCRF**
**International**|**AICR**|**WCRF**
**NL**|**WCRF**
**Hong Kong**|**Totals**|
||382,609
109,974|(532,887)
426,155|-
-|42,942
-|(107,336)
536,129|
||492,583|(106,732)|-|42,942|428,793|
39
Docusign Envelope ID: 479A2F2D-82E7-4DF3-A82B-32D5B52D772E
World Cancer Research Fund Registered number 2536180 Trustees’ report, strategic report and financial statements 30 September 2024
## **Notes to the financial statements** _**(continued)**_
## **20 Analysis of Net Assets between Funds**
|Unrestricted funds
£
Restricted funds
Total funds
£|||**2024**|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Tangible**
**fixed assets**|**Investments**|**Net current**
**assets**|**Long term**
**liabilities**|**Totals**|
||266,918
-|-
-|9,020,881
38,016|(2,239,197)
-|7,048,602
38,016|
||266,918|-|9,058,897|(2,239,197)|7,086,618|
|Unrestricted funds
£
Restricted funds
Total funds
£|||**2023**|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Tangible**
**fixed assets**|**Investments**|**Net current**
**assets**|**Long term**
**liabilities**|**Totals**|
||351,337
-|-
-|8,330,225
29,589|(2,733,129)
-|5,948,433
29,589|
||351,337|-|8,359,814|(2,733,129)|5,978,022|
## **21 Restricted Donations and Grants**
In May 2017, WCRF received restricted funds with a consortium of 13 other organisations to deliver a European Commission project. The restricted fund relates to a five-year, €10 million study ‘Confronting Obesity: Co-Creating policies with youth’ – CO-CREATE – which focused on preventing childhood obesity in Europe by actively involving adolescents in the policymaking process.
In financial year 2023/2024, a final closing payment of £106,444 was received. A portion of that payment was spent (£5,915) and at the end of financial year 2023/2024, the unspent balance of that grant was £115,118. As the project completed in October 2023 and there was no requirement for this balance to be returned, those funds were transferred to unrestricted funds.
Donations from 20 Trusts and Foundations were received in financial year 2023/2024 (£116,066). Of these £37,850 were for research projects at universities around the country, the remaining £78,216 is to be used for health information outreach projects. In financial year 2023/2024, £15,000 was from prior year restricted donations.
As of financial year 2023/2024, the restricted fund balance is £38,016 (2022/2023: £29,589).
|**Balance at 1**
**Oct 2023**
EC Co-Create Grant
£
14,589
Grants from Trusts & Foundations
Cancer & Nutrition Helpline
£
15,000
Cook Through Cancer Cookery Classes
-
Research - Professor Adam Frampton, University of Surrey
-
Research - Dr Aravinda Guntupalli, University of Aberdeen
-
Research - Dr Tilman Kuhn, Queen’s University Belfast
-
Research - Dr Simon Lord, University of Oxford
-
Research - Dr Jill Mckay, Northumbria University
-
Research - Dr Raoul Reulen, University of Birmingham
-
Research - Dr James Thorne, University of Leeds
-
£
29,589|**Balance at 1**
**Oct 2023**|**Income**|**Expenditure**|**Transfer to**
**Unrestricted**|**Balance at 30**
**Sept 2024**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||106,444
31,200
47,015
1,350
15,000
2,000
1,500
2,000
6,000
10,000|(5,915)
(46,200)
(9,000)
(1,350)
(15,000)
(2,000)
(1,500)
(2,000)
(6,000)
(10,000)|(115,118)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-|-
-
38,015
-
-
-
-
-
-
-|
|||222,509|(98,965)|(115,118)|38,015|
## **22 Post Balance Sheet Events**
In January 2025, WCRF purchased their premises at 140 Pentonville Road, London. The purchase price was £3,840,000, including VAT. This was purchased from unrestricted cash funds.
40