Motability Foundation uses donations from Motability Operations and income from our investments to fund our work, helping disabled people to travel now and in the future. We don’t seek donations from members of the public or corporations.
Most of our charitable expenditure goes towards providing transport options so that disabled people can make journeys right now. We do this through a mix of grants to Motability Scheme customers and grants to other charities and organisations who support disabled people to travel in different ways.
The rest of our charitable expenditure goes towards making transport more accessible.
We grant-fund other organisations that carry out research and innovation, which could lead to practical solutions or support systemic change for disabled people.
We also carry out our own research, innovation, partnerships and engagement with decision-makers to make transport more accessible now and for generations to come.
In the last financial year, we provided:
- £72.6m grants to 15,142 Motability Scheme customers to support them to access and use the Scheme
- £9.2m access to mobility grants for 5,593 people, including some Scheme customers
- £23.2m grants to 43 other charities and organisations, supporting 221,000 people to travel over the grant period.
- £2m grants to 10 organisations for innovation
We regularly review all our grant programmes and how effective they are, always focused on delivering as much impact as possible.
We may change our mix of grant programmes or the amount of funding we provide from year to year. This means we can respond to external factors, and make sure that we have funds to provide grants sustainably now and in the future.
As Motability Foundation does not have guaranteed levels of annual income, we plan our expenditure to ensure we can continue providing grants for several years, even if income levels are low.
In 2023/24 our income sources were:
- £250m donation from Motability Operations
- £59.4m from our investments
- £1.5m from other income sources
We have exclusively contracted Motability Operations, a separate company, to deliver the Motability Scheme with our oversight. Each year, they price their leases to make a small profit (1.5%) to sustain the long-term future of the Scheme. The profit is needed to help fund the year-on-year growth in the Scheme and protect the Scheme against an unexpected market downturn. Profit is made when the costs of providing the Scheme’s vehicles are less than the income from customers and the residual value of cars when sold at the end of leases.
Motability Operations does not pay shareholder dividends. Instead, any surplus profit is invested back into disabled people’s mobility, whether this is through sustaining the Scheme, investing in the move to electric vehicles (EVs), support for Scheme customers or making a donation to the Motability Foundation.
Like other car leasing companies, Motability Operations’ profitability is unpredictable. Motability Operations regularly revalues its fleet to assess that vehicles accurately reflect their fair value. Any gains or losses that come out of the revaluation exercise impact profitability. This only turns into cash profits when the cars are sold at the end of a customer’s lease.
If a cash profit is made by re-selling Scheme vehicles, as in recent years due to the high value of used cars, then Motability Operations can make donations to the Motability Foundation.
However, available profit can change and donations are not guaranteed.
In 2019 some of our previous donations were used to create an endowment fund called the Motability Endowment Trust (MET). This endowment produces an income that contributes to our long-term funding, although it is not enough to fund all our expenditure. This endowment also helps to smooth some of the ups and downs in our other income.