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Raise Your Hands

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Raise Your Hands

We invest in exceptional small charities working with young people around the UK. In the corporate world, great ideas are rewarded.

Funds quickly flow to the most effective companies. In the charity sector that isn’t always the case. The big names with big budgets receive the lion’s share of income, irrespective of their effectiveness. At Raise Your Hands we find and select small charities with proven impact.

25/09/2026

Choosing your school's charity of the year? We'd love to be on your list.

Raise Your Hands champions exceptional small charities working with children and young people. They do remarkable work but don't have the profile of the big household names.

Over the past decade we've directed over £4 million in unrestricted funding to our partner charities. Last year alone, that reached 77,000 children and young people.

A few of them:
📚 Literacy Pirates help children rebuild their reading confidence through storytelling and adventure
🌿 Dandelion Time uses nature and animal-based therapy to help children recovering from trauma
🎭 Go Live Theatre brings West End theatre to young people who'd otherwise never get the chance

We can come to your assembly, send materials for a fundraising day, or work around however your school likes to run things.

Get in touch: raiseyourhands.org.uk

08/09/2026

🏔️ This week we're spotlighting our newest charity, . This small charity is taking young people facing significant disadvantage into the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District to abseil, summit mountains and kayak, with coaches who stay with them for an entire year. And with 1 in 5 teenagers not having a trusted adult outside the home, this consistency is what truly makes it work.

The results speak for themselves: 88% of participants improved their confidence, 90% improved their communication skills, and 83% stretched their aspirations for their own futures. As Elias (13) put it: "I just feel more myself now. I used to put on this mask and be scared about what people would think about me, but now I feel like I can be open and me and even make new kinds of friends."

Small charity. Enormous impact. 🙌

02/09/2026

📚 Back to school week feels perfect to spotlight , who give children who are falling behind in literacy a crew, a ship, and a reason to love reading and writing. 🏴‍☠️🦜

In 2025, Literacy Pirates launched their Virtual Ship outside London for the very first time, setting sail into Cornwall, where children from disadvantaged backgrounds have had limited access to out-of-school learning. Teachers are already reporting increased confidence and engagement, proof the model works. And they're just getting started: their goal is to reach 1,000 children a year by 2027.

Small charity. Enormous impact. 🙌

27/08/2026

🌿 This week we're spotlighting — using the therapeutic power of nature, animals and hands-on craft to help children who have experienced trauma, abuse or neglect to heal, rebuild trust and reconnect with the people who love them.

In 2025, they supported 290 children and families across 571 multi-family therapeutic sessions. 83% felt better about themselves. 83% felt more confident. 77% said they'd cope better when things go wrong. And this year, they opened The Roundhouse — a new space for woodwork, clay and wool work — and began rolling out their Schools Partnership Programme, training staff to bring Dandelion Time's methodology directly into classrooms.

It's nearly back-to-school season, and we're glad to know that 30 children Dandelion Time supports will have a new backpack full of supplies, which was donated and packed by one of our corporate partners, Stenham Asset Management. These have taken some of the pressure off for families, and we love seeing how a small gesture can make a real difference!

Small charity. Enormous impact. 🙌

19/08/2026

🎭 This week we're spotlighting — opening the doors of London's West End to children and young people who would otherwise never walk through them.

In 2025, Go Live Theatre increased the number of young people they worked with by 80% — from just over 7,000 to just under 13,000 — expanding beyond London into the Home Counties for the first time, reaching schools in Arts Council Priority Places where cultural engagement is lowest. This spring, their Family First Nights programme brought 427 families and 1,027 young people to 11 top West End shows for £10 a ticket. Over half had never been to the theatre together before.

"My daughters loved it. They want to go again and my daughter asked how she can be in musicals like the kids in Matilda. I think she was inspired!"
— Family First Nights participant, 2026

Small charity. Enormous impact. 🙌

28/07/2026

❤️ This week we're spotlighting — supporting the health and wellbeing of children, young people and families living with HIV across the UK, through everything from clinical guidance and peer support to camps, arts programmes and national policy.

In 2025, Chiva successfully lobbied the government to include funded formula milk for babies born to mothers living with HIV in the new HIV Action Plan — a campaign they had championed for years, and one that will protect infants while relieving financial pressure on families already stretched thin. Their film about the Chiva summer camp, Safe With Me, won Silver at the Charity Film Awards.

One of the ways they bring families together is through their residential Families' Weekends — completely free, all travel covered — where families living with HIV can find each other, breathe, and stop carrying it alone.

"Until I came to the camp I felt like I was living with part of my life behind a mask. I was able to remove my mask at camp."
— Parent/carer at Chiva Families' Weekend

Small charity. Enormous impact. 🙌

22/07/2026

🧠 This week we're spotlighting — the only UK charity dedicated to supporting children living with parental mental illness. One in three children will experience it. Most face it without any support at all.

In 2025, Our Time influenced the Mental Health Bill to strengthen recognition and protection for children affected by parental mental illness. They won the BBC Radio 4 All in the Mind Award. And their theatre programme reached 344 children and adults across Yorkshire — with 91% of pupils feeling confident to talk about their feelings afterwards, and 94% able to name a trusted adult they could turn to.

Children's voices are still being overlooked in mental health discourse. Our Time is changing that — one family at a time.

"KidsTime has given us a language and a space to talk. My children know now that it's okay to ask, okay to feel, and okay to not have all the answers."

— R, KidsTime participant

Small charity. Enormous impact. 🙌

14/07/2026

🌟 This week we're spotlighting — standing shoulder to shoulder with children in care and young care leavers, helping them navigate education and work on their own terms.

In 2025, they supported 743 young people through their Propel programmes. 97% said they felt more ready for university or employment. 98% developed a better understanding of where to go for support. And after a successful pilot, their first full year of Propel into Work delivered for 390 young people moving towards employment.

Here's what that looks like in practice:

"Rebecca was incredibly helpful and stayed with me throughout the journey, always offering guidance, motivation, and reassurance when I felt overwhelmed or close to giving up. The support I received wasn't just practical but also emotional, and it made a huge difference in helping me stay focused and confident."

— Care-experienced young person

Small charity. Enormous impact. 🙌

08/07/2026

🌿 This week we're spotlighting — inspiring young people from underrepresented backgrounds to become the next generation of conservationists, and trusting them to lead nature recovery from day one.

In 2025, they opened Camp Aelwyd, a new immersive woodland education space in Wales built to last decades. They helped young people plant orchards and microforests across London as part of the Mayor's Trees for London initiative. And a record number of former participants stepped into leadership roles — like Katie, 23, now working as an ecologist designing a citizen science river monitoring programme at the same site where her AFC journey began.

This is what it looks like when you don't just inspire young people to care about nature — you hand them the tools to restore it.

Small charity. Enormous impact. 🙌

06/05/2026

This week we're spotlighting — training young people in life-saving first aid and empowering them to be a force for good in their communities.

It took ten years to train the first 25,000. In the last three years, they've already trained 45,000 — including a record 20,364 in 2025 alone.

And when they're not training young people, they're changing minds. This year, in partnership with Saatchi & Saatchi, they launched 'The Fatal Question' — a national campaign confronting the myth that there is a safe place to stab someone. 20M impressions across cinemas, public screens and television.

It's one of the most powerful campaigns we've seen. Go and find it. Watch it. Share it.

Small charity. Enormous impact. 🙌

Address

Raise Your Hands, C/o Bowmer & Kirkland, 3rd Floor, 21 Conduit Street
London
E1S2XP

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5:30pm
Tuesday	9am - 5:30pm
Wednesday	9am - 5:30pm
Thursday	9am - 5:30pm
Friday	9am - 5:30pm

Website

http://www.raiseyourhands.org.uk/

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