How we are funded

We're so grateful to the 664 people who kindly left us gifts in their wills last year – together, legacies funded almost a quarter of all our work. Giving in memory also helps us do incredible things, and we'd like to pay special tribute to life member Gillian Bulmer, whose family donated £1 million so we could extend Moccas Park Wood, near Hereford, home to ancient oaks and ultra rare beetles.

Find out more about leaving a gift in your will to the Woodland Trust.

Many thousands more people joined the Trust family in 2022–23, with 30,000 new memberships added to our list. And the power of those contributions is supercharged, because we can direct the income wherever we need it most.

So many of our members get hands-on, too. 110 of our woods are tended by volunteer groups doing vital work to coppice trees, clear footpaths, count wildlife and more.

Find out how to become a member of the Woodland Trust.

Contributions to our cause from businesses spiked sharply last year, including a colossal pledge from the insurance giant Aviva, which will inject £10 million in tree planting and peatland restoration. One new sanctuary to benefit is Green Farm in Norfolk. It's 130,000 saplings will offer habitat for red-listed birds like nightjars, marsh tits and lesser redpolls.

Find out more about our partners.

Against the odds, our half-million or so supporters dug even deeper in 2022–23. In October, an appeal to mark the Trust's 50th birthday alone brought in more than £500,000. Another raised £180,000 to boost our efforts to enhance urban tree cover and access to life-affirming green spaces in towns and cities. Thank you, one and all.

This share of our income has tripled since 2016.

With £1.2 million from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, we extended our reserve at Mourne Park and snapped up Brackfield House Farm, our biggest site yet in the Faughan Valley. Trust volunteers are now helping plant 120,000 trees there, adding another vital link to our chain of riverside woods, home to secretive pine martens.

This includes more than £1 million we reap each year by selling timber felled on our estate – both when thinning broadleaf woods and removing shady non-native conifers.