How your money is helping

We rely on donations to continue our life-changing work. To help make a difference to people living with sight loss, in 2023 it costs:

    1. £73.9 million to provide our guide dog service.
    2. £12 million to provide our other services for adults, such as My Life Skills.
    3. £9.5 million to provide our wide range of services for children, young people and families.

On this page

    How your generous donations helped in 2023

    • In 2023 we created 469 new guide dog partnerships and supported 3,789 existing guide dog and buddy dog partnerships.
    • We provided support through digital information and advice 2 million times.
    • We provided expert information and advice through more than 54,599 calls to our Guide Line.
    • We provided 10,292 My Life Skills interventions for adults.
    • We helped children with a vision impairment to learn essential life skills 4,933 times, so they can navigate the world around them confidently and safely.
    • We delivered our Guide Dogs My Time to Play sessions to 1,052 children and family members.
    • We supported families 790 times through our Family Support and Education Support services.
    • We delivered 6,779 tailor-made large print books enabling children with sight loss to enjoy reading just like their friends.
    • We supported 518 children with technology – either with an iPad or a grant for more specialised accessible technology.
    • We supported 311 active buddy dog partnerships.
    Woman with Guide Dogs volunteer sighted guide in a museum

    How we spend your money

    Did you know?

    Thanks to our dedicated staff, volunteers and supporters we’ve trained over 37,500 guide dogs. That's more than one new guide dog every day since our first partnerships were created in 1931.

    Breakdown of a pound in 2023

    For every £1 spent, Guide Dogs spends:

    • 59.2p goes to providing guide dogs and other adult services.
    • 8.6p goes to campaigning and raising awareness.
    • 6.6p goes to providing children and young people’s services.
    • 0.3p goes to research and development.
    • 25.3p goes to generating income, including trading activities.
    Guide dog owner Stacey with her arm around guide dog Toffee

    Further information

    You can find an accessible version of the breakdown of the pound as well as more detailed information on how we spend our money in our annual review and report.

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