Every Christmas, choosing where to donate can feel overwhelming.
With so many important causes to support, it’s easy to feel unsure where to begin.
Raise Your Hands makes it simple.
When you give to us, your donation is shared between 17 outstanding small charities supporting children and young people across the UK — all fully vetted, high-impact, and often overlooked at this time of year.
Your donation goes directly to our charities.
One donation.
17 brilliant charities.
Thousands of children supported.
By backing Raise Your Hands this Christmas, you’re helping children and young people facing:
Family separation
Homelessness or unsafe accommodation
Mental health challenges
Caring responsibilities
Barriers to education
Trauma, anxiety and isolation
Your gift provides the stability, care and connection they need — at a time that can be especially tough.
Here’s what your generosity is helping to make possible
Storybook Dads
This small charity is helping parents in prison record bedtime stories for their children so they can stay connected and feel loved at Christmas — because no child should pay the price of separation.
MyTime Young Carers
2,000 Christmas gift bags are being packed for young carers — children who give so much of themselves, yet are often overlooked during the holidays.
Happy Baby Community
Families with babies and young kids who have fled violence or trafficking can come together, share warmth, and feel supported at a time when many essential services shut down.
And this is only a glimpse of the difference you’ll make.
Your donation goes directly to the 17 charities on our platform.
No small print, no hidden costs — just real, meaningful impact when children and families need it most.
FAQs
1. Who is Raise Your Hands and what do you do?
Raise Your Hands is a UK charity that helps exceptional small children’s charities reach more young people.
We partner with 17 high-impact charities working across the UK — from youth mentoring and mental health support to family crisis services, safeguarding, disability support, and creative learning programmes.
Our model is simple: we champion the small organisations doing extraordinary frontline work, and we make it easy for donors to support them with confidence.
By backing Raise Your Hands, you’re directly strengthening the charities that often struggle most to be seen, funded, and heard.
2. Why focus on small children's charities?
88% of UK charitable funding goes to the largest 5% of charities — leaving thousands of smaller organisations underfunded, despite delivering some of the most innovative, agile and impactful work.
Small charities often operate closest to the challenges facing children and young people: poverty, trauma, family breakdown, mental health struggles, exclusion from education, youth violence and more.
They are experts in early intervention, trusted relationships and long-term support — but they rarely have the resources to fundraise at scale.
Your donation helps close that gap, ensuring these children’s charities can continue to deliver life-changing work.
3. Where does my Christmas donation go?
Your gift is split across our portfolio of 17 vetted small charities supporting children and young people.
We regularly review each charity’s governance, safeguarding, impact, finances and leadership to ensure your donation goes where it can make the greatest difference.
Funds from this campaign are unrestricted, meaning they can be used flexibly — for frontline delivery, crisis response, staffing, specialist support, or keeping essential services running when families need them most.
This type of funding is the hardest for small charities to secure and often the most transformative.
4. How does Raise Your Hands measure impact?
We provide ongoing monitoring, impact reporting and evaluation across all 17 partner charities. This includes outcomes data, case studies, annual performance reviews, site visits and charity reports.
Our 2024 Impact Report highlights the breadth of work supported — from improving mental wellbeing and raising confidence through creative learning, to helping families in crisis rebuild stability and supporting children and young people to thrive.
When you donate, you’ll receive updates showing the collective impact your generosity helps generate.
5. Is Raise Your Hands a not-for-profit? How do you use donations?
Yes — we are a UK-registered charity. We do not have shareholders, and any surplus goes straight back into supporting our partner charities.
We keep reserves at responsible levels to protect the sustainability of the charities in our portfolio and to ensure continuity of support for the children they serve.
Your donation goes directly to our partner charities, helping them provide essential services to children and young people across the UK during one of the hardest times of the year.