About Raise Your Hands

We know people want to make a meaningful difference to children and young people. We also know the small charities doing the most powerful work need support more than ever, but are often hard to find.

Raise Your Hands exists to bring the two together.

We connect individuals and purpose-driven companies with exceptional small charities across the UK, helping ensure every child gets the chance to thrive. A small charity ourselves, we’re here to raise the profile and impact of the small charity sector, and help them succeed. View Raise Your Hands in the Charity Register.

Meet The Team Meet The charities
Addressing a Critical Gap

The largest 5% of charities receive 88% of all charity income*.

That means thousands of brilliant small charities are being left behind — even though they’re often the ones creating the deepest, most lasting impact.

Raise Your Hands gives donors the chance to take action and rebalance this flow of funds — connecting resources where they’re needed most.

*Charity Commission for England and Wales, “Charities by income band”, 2026.

Today the gap between the charitable haves and have-nots is in danger of widening, as income for the small charity sector has declined by £4.6 billion, compared with an overall increase in funding of £4.5 billion for larger charities.

Civil Society

“Charity sector income shrinks”, 2024

Our mission and vision

We believe every child and young person deserves the chance to build a happy, fulfilling life.
Our mission is to amplify the impact of small, high-performing charities that make this possible. We do this by giving people and companies innovative ways to support them.

By curating a portfolio of exceptional small charities working with children and young people, we make giving simple, confident, and meaningful — for companies and individuals alike.

Our platform and impact in numbers

more on our impact

*Why unrestricted funding matters

We provide our charities with unrestricted funding so they can build capacity and focus on what they do best.

We offer unrestricted funding because we believe our charities are best placed to know what their funding needs are. We trust them to use our grant in a way that enables them to make the greatest impact. 

  • Our story

    Back in 2014, my friend Ed and I got chatting about how we wanted to give to a children’s charity. Like most people, we knew the big names but found ourselves wondering whether smaller charities, doing equally important work, needed the money more.

    The more we dug, the more we realised there were hundreds of small charities across the UK doing brilliant, specialist work with children and young people, yet the majority of donations were still going to the same large names. That was the problem we wanted to solve.

    Raise Your Hands was born out of those conversations. More than a decade on, what started as a grant-making organisation has grown into a movement championing rigorously vetted small charities and raising awareness of the funding imbalance across the sector.

    Thank you to every donor, company partner, fundraiser, and volunteer helping us make it happen.
    Chris Kirkland
    Co-Founder and Chair of Trustees

Selecting the charities

Our five-stage selection process ensures every charity on our platform meets the highest standards of impact, governance, and integrity so donors can give with complete confidence.

how we choose our charities
Our Goal

To improve the lives of 1 million children and young people by 2030 across the UK by strengthening the small, specialist charities that help them every day.

Raise Your Hands are a champion. Their reliable, unrestricted funding has been massive for us. They’ve enabled us to invest in the future and helped us successfully grow from a small to a medium sized charity.

Become (Partner Charity)

Working with Raise Your Hands has been more than just funding; it’s felt like a genuine partnership. They take the time to understand what we do, amplify our voice, and check in like we’re people, not just projects. That kind of support matters more than most people realise. It’s helped us feel seen and valued, which makes a real difference when you’re doing this work day in, day out.

BelEve (Partner Charity)

Raise Your Hands has been more than a funder – they’ve been a sounding board, an advocate, and a real force for connection. Their belief in our work has helped us reach new audiences and feel part of a wider movement of change. It’s rare to find a partner who is this committed to championing small, specialist charities.

Our Time (Partner Charity)

Since the beginning of our partnership, Raise Your Hands has provided us with consistent and invaluable support, totalling over £200,000. Without support like this we would not have been able to sustain as many projects and help over 18,500 children over the past ten years.

The Wave Project (Partner Charity)