Your October Volunteering Update

At Cancer Research UK, our goal is simple: to beat cancer and that means ensuring every pound we raise works harder for our life-saving cancer research.

Our shops have played a big part in helping us raise money for life-saving research, contributing over £225 million in the last 10 years, and we’re so grateful for everything our volunteers and staff do to make that possible.

But, like many other charities and high-street chains, we are facing the challenges of rising costs and people shopping differently. We need to adapt so we can keep making the biggest difference for people affected by cancer.

After looking closely at all our shops, we can see that some of them may not be able to keep going financially over the next few years. So, we’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the number of shops we run. This means we’ll be closing around 90 shops by May 2026, with up to 100 more closures by April 2027.

By focusing on a smaller number of shops, alongside the growth of our out-of-town superstores and the closure of our online marketplace, we expect to raise £12.4 million more over the next five years – money that will go directly to life-saving cancer research. We also hope that by focusing on fewer shops, we can make them even better places to volunteer, work and shop.

The dedication, hard work, and the positive impact volunteers make in our shops, and the community, means a great deal to us. We are truly grateful for the time, energy, and passion all our volunteers give, and I want to thank you for everything you do, every day, to help bring about a world where people live longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer.

If the shop you volunteer at is one of the shops that will be closing, your shop manager will be in touch with you soon and will be able to share more information with you about next steps and further details about when the shop will be closing.

We’re here to support you through this change, and we’ll be sharing more information and guidance with everyone affected.

Below we have included ways for you to contact us, areas of support and next steps.

Thank you for your support.

Michelle Mitchell
Chief Executive
Cancer Research UK