Help and FAQs

I am sorry to say that we cannot help you with your worthwhile endeavour.

Age International does not fund direct partnerships. We provide an annual grant to our partner organisation, HelpAge, which carries out relief and development work overseas on our behalf.

You can contact the relevant regional office to see whether they are able to fund your work.

We are listed as a linked charity of Age UK on the charity commission website.

We are publicly known as Age International, but HelpAge International UK is the registered name of the Charity (registered charity number 1128267-8).

You can find our page here.

Thank you for your interest, but we do not send clothes and blankets overseas. This is because shipping second-hand goods to another country is often much more expensive than buying locally (because of transportation costs and customs clearance).

It can also be more time-consuming (because of the distance) and take much longer to reach people in need. Finally, buying goods locally helps the local economy - which is essential after an emergency because it helps a country to recover more quickly.

However, we are always delighted to receive second-hand items in Age UK charity shops. A second-hand donation to an Age UK charity shop can make a real difference to the lives of older people.

Age International has rigorous monitoring and evaluation processes in place on a number of different levels.

1. External auditors check our accounts at the end of every financial year. Get a copy of our Annual Report to see these audits in full.
2. Staff regularly assess programmes to ensure money is being spent for its stated purpose.
3. We set up Older Citizen’s Monitoring Groups – groups of older volunteers who we train to monitor programmes on a local level. These groups constantly have eyes on our programmes because they live in the communities where they are taking place - and they report back to programme staff if there are any problems.

Age International has a strong commitment to safeguarding. Read our commitment here.

In 2016 the Managing Director of Age International was paid £99,931 including pension costs.

Salaries reflect the expertise of the staff employed and what the trustees feel is appropriate. Age International’s priority is to ensure that the lives of vulnerable older people are improved as effectively as possible in low and middle-income countries. The trustees feel that it is important to ensure that we have the best people in place to achieve this.

Last year we spent 5.4% on support costs – which includes IT, Finance, HR, Legal and Office Management Services. You can see a full breakdown of our spending on our Annual Report page.

We are Age UK’s international charity – Age UK is committed to improving later life for people in the UK and we are committed to improving later life for people living overseas in poorer countries.

Age UK was formed after the merger of two charities – Help the Aged & Age Concern – both of which had a history of international work going back to the 1960s. You can learn more about our history here.

We are the UK member of the HelpAge Global Network – which means we raise funds and awareness in the UK on behalf of HelpAge International.

In return, HelpAge International use their considerable expertise and resource to implement our programmes overseas.

Although we are publically branded as ‘Age International’ (to reflect our connection to Age UK) our registered charity name is HelpAge International UK (registered charity number 1128267-8).