The Royal British Legion has thanked the public for their generous support in the year that marked the end of the First World War Centenary and the charity’s biggest Poppy Appeal in recent memory…

The Legion has released new figures about the scale of its operation in 2018, although it won’t be known for a number of months whether the charity has hit its £50million target for its 2018 Appeal.

  • The charity distributed 200,000 extra collection tins compared to 2017
  • The total value of contactless donations made was £210,000, up from £67,000 last year, and the average value of a donation increased from £3.53 to £4.67
  • 83,000 specialist event poppies were distributed, and 130,000 poppy wreaths
  • More income will be received from our supermarket partners such as Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrison’s who collectively processed and banked £6.3m in 2017
  • Special fundraising days where serving personnel and veterans come together to collect held in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol together raised £958,000 up from £899,000 last year
  • The Legion Poppy Runs across the country doubled the number of participants
  • Over 7,000 runners took part in a park or virtual poppy run and they have already raised £200,000

The Royal British Legion’s Director of Fundraising, Claire Rowcliffe, said: “We thank the public for their support and generosity, and to our amazing network of volunteers who put in a huge amount of time and effort to collect money and to make the Appeal such a success.

“We are hopeful of meeting this year’s record target of £50 million and will know for certain later in 2019. Money donated by the public is used to provide lifelong support for the Armed Forces community – serving men and women, veterans and their families.”