Charities
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40 free Charities trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Charities are some of the most recognisable organisations in the world, yet few people know how they began. Many grew out of a single moment: a battlefield, a famine, a sick child's dream, or a late-night idea between friends. This quiz covers the stories behind the big names: the people who founded them, the emblems and mascots they chose, the concerts, telethons and viral stunts that raised millions, and the famous faces who gave their time and money. It draws on charities from Britain, the United States and around the world. It suits a fundraising quiz night, a volunteer social, a classroom or a quick solo game. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the questions for a group.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which animal on the World Wide Fund for Nature logo was inspired by Chi Chi, a London Zoo favourite?
Giant panda
A giant panda named Chi Chi had moved from Beijing Zoo to London Zoo in 1958, three years before WWF was set up. Naturalist Peter Scott designed the first logo from a colleague's sketches.
Q 02Which singer played both Live Aid concerts in 1985 by flying Concorde across the Atlantic?
Phil Collins
Phil Collins sang at Wembley, took a helicopter to Heathrow and a Concorde to New York, then a second helicopter to Philadelphia. He met Cher on the flight and told her about the shows.
Q 03Which former US president led Habitat for Humanity's volunteer building weeks for over 30 years?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn picked up hammers themselves, working beside more than 100,000 volunteers on homes in 14 countries.
Q 04Which film star co-founded a salad dressing firm in 1982 that gives all its profits to charity?
Paul Newman
Paul Newman and writer A. E. Hotchner first mixed the dressing at home and gave it to friends as gifts. Newman left the whole food company to its charitable foundation.
Q 05Which country singer's Imagination Library has mailed free books to young children since 1995?
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton began the scheme in her home county in Tennessee as a tribute to her father, who never learned to read. Each child gets a book a month until the age of five.
Q 06Which charity's bell-ringers collect Christmas donations in red kettles outside American shops?
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army has used kettles since 1891, when Captain Joseph McFee set one out in San Francisco to pay for a free Christmas dinner for the city's poor.
Q 07The 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge funded research into which illness, also called Lou Gehrig's disease?
ALS
ALS, known in Britain as motor neurone disease, received about $115 million from the 2014 craze. The money helped researchers identify a new gene that causes the condition.
Q 08Which Skopje-born nun founded the Missionaries of Charity and chose a white sari edged with blue?
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa started the order in 1950 to serve the poorest people in the slums of Calcutta. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and was made a saint in 2016.
Q 09Which Scottish-born steel magnate paid for more than 2,500 public libraries around the world?
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie funded 2,509 libraries between 1883 and 1929, at a cost of about $56 million. The first one opened in Dunfermline, the Scottish town where he was born.
Q 10Which Civil War nurse, called the Angel of the Battlefield, founded the American Red Cross?
Clara Barton
Clara Barton had earlier been a clerk in the US Patent Office, the only woman in her office paid the same as the male clerks. She led the new society from 1881.
Q 11Which Swiss businessman co-founded the Red Cross after seeing the aftermath of Solferino in 1859?
Henry Dunant
Henry Dunant won the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, long after a business scandal had bankrupted him and seen him expelled from the committee he helped to create.
Q 12Which emblem do Red Cross societies in most Muslim-majority countries use in place of the cross?
Red Crescent
The Red Crescent was first used by the Ottoman Empire in its 1877–78 war with Russia, because its government feared that a cross would alienate Muslim soldiers.
Q 13Which charity began in 1942 as a committee urging Britain to let food through a blockade of Greece?
Oxfam
Q 21Which comedian hosted the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Labor Day telethon from 1966 until 2010?
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis fronted broadcasts that ran for up to 21 and a half hours, starting on the Sunday night before the holiday. The show came from Las Vegas for 28 of its years on air.
Q 22Which US president founded the polio charity March of Dimes and was later honoured on the dime?
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt, whose own legs were paralysed by polio, founded it in 1938. Comedian Eddie Cantor coined the name as a pun on a newsreel series, The March of Time.
Q 23Which investor, nicknamed the Oracle of Omaha, launched the Giving Pledge with Bill Gates in 2010?
Warren Buffett
Oxfam is short for the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, set up by Quakers, activists and academics. Its first permanent charity shop opened in the city in 1947.
Q 14Which medical charity, set up by French physicians and journalists, won the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize?
Doctors Without Borders
Doctors Without Borders, founded in 1971 as Médecins Sans Frontières, grew out of the Biafran famine of the Nigerian Civil War. It treats patients whatever their race, religion or politics.
Q 15Which human rights group founded in London in 1961 has a candle wrapped in barbed wire for a logo?
Amnesty International
Amnesty International took the image from a proverb about lighting a candle instead of cursing the darkness. Diana Redhouse drew it in 1963 for the group's first Christmas card.
Q 16Which British charity, founded by Richard Curtis and Lenny Henry, stages the Red Nose Day telethon?
Comic Relief
Comic Relief was launched live on BBC One on Christmas Day 1985 from a refugee camp in Sudan. The first Red Nose Day followed in 1988 and raised £15 million.
Q 17Which teddy with a bandana over one eye is the mascot of the BBC's Children in Need appeal?
Pudsey Bear
Pudsey Bear was created in 1985 by BBC designer Joanna Lane, who named him after her home town in West Yorkshire, where her grandfather had been mayor.
Q 18Movember, the moustache-growing fundraiser for men's health, began among friends in which country?
Australia
Australia supplied the name as well as the idea: mo is Australian slang for a moustache. The campaign focuses on prostate cancer, testicular cancer and men's mental health.
Q 19Which charity was inspired by a Phoenix boy with leukaemia who longed to be a police officer?
Make-A-Wish
Make-A-Wish traces its start to 1980, when the people of Phoenix rallied round seven-year-old Chris Greicius. Its first official wish child, Bopsy Salazar, joined a fire engine crew.
Q 20Which entertainer founded St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis in 1962 to fulfil a vow?
Danny Thomas
Danny Thomas, then a struggling actor, vowed to build a shrine to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes, if he found success. Patients there are never charged for treatment.
Warren Buffett helped to create a public promise in which billionaires commit at least half of their fortunes to good causes. It is a moral commitment, not a legal contract.
Q 24Which 1985 famine-relief single did Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie write for USA for Africa?
We Are the World
We Are the World raised more than $80 million for humanitarian aid. Its two writers finished the song only the night before the first recording session, with Quincy Jones producing.
Q 25Which former Beatle organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with sitar player Ravi Shankar?
George Harrison
George Harrison staged two shows at Madison Square Garden on a single Sunday, with Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton on the bill. It was the first benefit concert on such a scale.
Q 26Which singer's 1997 tribute single raised millions for the charities of Diana, Princess of Wales?
Elton John
Elton John sang the reworked Candle in the Wind in public only once, at her funeral in Westminster Abbey. It became the best-selling single in UK chart history.
Q 27In which African country did Princess Diana visit a HALO Trust minefield in January 1997?
Angola
Angola had been sown with landmines during decades of conflict. Her visit to a site being cleared at Huambo brought the mine-clearing charity global coverage.
Q 28Which British royal founded the Prince's Trust in 1976 to help vulnerable young people?
Charles
Charles, then Prince of Wales, set up the charity now known as the King's Trust. It has helped more than a million young people, including the actor Idris Elba.
Q 29Which UK armed forces charity raises money each autumn through the Poppy Appeal?
Royal British Legion
The Royal British Legion holds the red poppy as a registered trademark, and says its only lawful use is to raise funds for the appeal.
Q 30Which spring flower has the end-of-life charity Marie Curie used as its emblem since 1986?
Daffodil
The daffodil was chosen as a positive, resilient, life-affirming symbol. Each March the charity runs its biggest fundraising appeal, which is named after the flower.