There are 238 lifeboat stations around the 13,000-mile-long combined coastlines of Great Britain and Ireland, and many might think that saving lives at sea is an essential public service that should be financed by the state from taxation. But ever since its foundation in 1824, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has been a charity, funded entirely by public donations that in 2019 totalled about £200 million, and continues to serve both the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The money comes from legacies, fundraising events such as open days or rowing races, and contributions dropped into boxes on the bars of pubs. It is spent on new boats, equipment and buildings, and on paying more than 2,000 technical, administrative and support staff. The 4,700 crew members and 20,000 community fundraisers are all unpaid volunteers, and over nearly two centuries the charity has saved more than 140,000 lives.

The lifeboats are not the only vital public service provided by a charity. Hospices and air ambulances are charities as well, although a proportion of their costs are financed by the state. Hospices receive an average of about 30% of their income from the NHS; air ambulance aircraft and crew are financed almost entirely by donations, while the medical staff they carry are employed and paid by local ambulance services.

All three services were badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, mainly because their charity shops were closed for several months and most of their usual fundraising activities in 2020 were cancelled. The RNLI, expecting to lose a significant portion of its usual income for the year, brought in economies including a 50% salary cut for its chief executive. To prevent some hospices going out of business as a result of the collapse in fundraising, the government gave them £200 million of the £750 million it made available to charities at the start of the coronavirus emergency. The air ambulances received £6 million from the same fund and in many cases launched emergency appeals.

This chapter looks at the origins and current role of these three vital charitable services, hears from some of their leaders, volunteers and beneficiaries and considers how they coped with the pandemic and planned to recover from its effects.