Champions for Children 2026

We are delighted to be opening our Champions for Children 2026 summer campaign. The Childhood Trust’s highly successful and established match funding campaign with the Big Give has raised over £50 million to date.  

Since its inception in 2020, Champions for Children has raised funds for hundreds of projects supporting children experiencing poverty across all London boroughs.   

Champions for Children will run for 2 weeks from Tuesday, 2nd June 2026 to Tuesday, 16th June 2026. Our goal is to match the success of last year’s campaign, where £4.4m was raised by 84 charities to support more than 170,000 children experiencing poverty in London. 

Donations raised through this campaign will power a wide range of vital programmes, from food banks and summer programmes, to providing essential items like clothing and bedding, to educational support to improve literacy and long-term opportunities for children as well as charity’s core costs.  

Our matched funding pledge model enhances giving as donations made by the public on the Big Give platform is doubled, helping our partners raise even more funds.  

In addition to our regular campaign, we are excited to announce that, for the first time, we are testing a new entry level model for small, grassroots charities (annual income of £500k or less). This will initially be on a much smaller scale than the main pledge model and will be a stepping stone for smaller charities to engage in the Big Give model but without the 'pledge' element. The amount of funding available will be limited for this pilot.

For this campaign, charities will have a total campaign target of £4,000 to £10,000 without the requirement of a pledge commitment from the charity.

We will provide training and support for smaller charities to help them understand match funding and to provide guidance on how to move into the successful Big Give pledge model in year two. Get in touch with our team to find out more about the eligibility criteria for this new pilot programme.