The Guardian’s 2025 charity appeal launched a few weeks ago against a backdrop of creeping nastiness and social division: the return of 1970s-style racist abuse, the demonisation of refugees and the resurgence of far-right marches in Britain’s streets.
Our aim was to raise money and profile for charities that provide an antidote to hatred and othering: whose vital grassroots work is about bringing communities together, establishing common human bonds regardless of skin colour, culture or faith.
The theme was hope in unhopeful times. Your response has been characteristically generous. So far we have together raised an incredible £900,000. You told us this was for many of you a topical and important issue close to your hearts.
It is not too late to give to the appeal, which closes at midnight on Wednesday evening. I’d like to thank the thousands of readers who have donated so far, and offer my gratitude in advance to those whom we hope we can still persuade to contribute.
Your generous donations will be shared among our five 2025 charity appeal partners: Citizens UK, the Linking Network, Locality, Hope Unlimited Charitable Trust, and Who Is Your Neighbour?
We’ve highlighted in recent weeks some of the brilliant work they deliver or support, from Father Chris Hughes’s inspiring “Walk of Hope” in North Shields to Salaam Shalom Kitchen’s groundbreaking joint Muslim-Jewish food project in Nottingham, to 174 Trust’s revelatory “dining across the divides” initiative in Belfast.
The Linking Network’s joyful schools matching schemes bring together children of different faiths, cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds to explore what they have in common. Who Is Your Neighbour?’s innovative “difficult conversations” around race and immigration are grounded in the core belief that empathy builds empathy.
Back on the Map’s impressive revitalisation of a Sunderland neighbourhood in the wake of the 2024 riots suggests political attempts to sow grievance and division can be countered by local enterprise, tolerance, pride and solidarity. At the grassroots, its chief executive, Joanne Cooper, told us, “people do care about each other”.
Your donations will make a positive difference. Locality and Hope Unlimited Charitable Trust will regrant much of their share of donations to local organisations doing essential work to nurture that pride and solidarity, providing an antidote to distrust, intolerance and hate.
The Linking Network and Who Is Your Neighbour? will use their shares to develop and expand their pioneering work. Citizens UK will use its share to invest in its power-building fund to train community leaders and organisers with the skills to harness the power of communities to campaign for positive local change.
The 2025 appeal – as always – has not just been about raising money for good causes, but showcasing the vital role of the voluntary sector. In the past 11 years Guardian readers have raised more than £16m through our annual appeals, for causes from refugees support to helping victims of conflict, the climate crisis, homelessness and child poverty.
