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 campaigns with the Big Give have 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.
This year, the campaign will run for two 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.
Keep reading to learn how the match-funding model works and check your eligibility. For key dates and further information, click here.
What We Fund
We are looking for charities that have an existing supporter base and an appetite to work with us to engage with the general public and existing donors. In order to be successful in our campaigns, it is helpful for charities to have an active trustee board or major donors who are prepared to make donation pledges to kickstart the fundraising for the project.
The Childhood Trust has four priority impact focus areas for children:
- Physical Health
- Mental Wellbeing
- Home & Community Environment
- Learning & Work Readiness.
Before applying, please read our Grant Making Policy to ensure you match our eligibility requirements.
To be eligible for funding, all partners must:
- be registered with the Charity Commission
- have one year of filed annual accounts
- be able to demonstrate that they are a going concern
- have strong financial processes and be legally compliant
- have a robust governance structure
- have solid safeguarding processes
Please note that charities cannot apply for a TCT grant which exceeds 10% of their last annual income
The minimum requirements for any project to receive funding are:
- Children (0-18 year olds) will be the primary beneficiaries of the funding;
- Children living in London will be the primary beneficiaries;
- Children experiencing poverty (demonstrated by poverty measures such as IDACI, Free school meals, Pupil premium, low household income) will be the primary beneficiaries.
- Our charity partner must demonstrate outcomes against one of our four impact goals: Physical Health, Mental Wellbeing, Home & Community Environment and Learning & Work Readiness
Our decision-making process begins with an initial review to ensure that applications meet the minimum criteria outlined in our Grant Making Policy.
From there, we assess applications based on several key areas, including:
- Alignment with our mission and impact goals
- Potential for meaningful impact
- Compliance with financial and regulatory standards
- Beneficiary engagement and involvement
While these areas guide our approach, we retain the flexibility to consider other factors that align with our overall mission.
Unfortunately, we receive more applications than we are able to support. Please ensure you have met the minimum charity and project requirements to increase the likelihood of your application being successful.
We use the Big Give's pledge model of funding because all online donations are doubled during the campaign. It’s a great way for charities to engage public donors to contribute, knowing their gift will go further.
We recognise that many smaller, community-led organisations face barriers to accessing this model. Therefore, this year, The Childhood Trust is also offering participation in Champions for Children via the 1:1 model, where charities need to raise any amount between £2,000 and £5,000 during the online campaign, and The Childhood Trust will match this without any requirement of a pledge. Charities are eligible to apply through this model provided:
- Their annual income does not exceed £500,000
- They have not previously participated in Champions for Children.
Why Apply
In addition to offering matched funds, The Childhood Trust builds charities’ capacity to run successful fundraising campaigns with:
- Workshops on how to run a successful fundraising campaign, including topics such as how to formulate your campaign messaging and how to use social media effectively
- One-to-one support on any aspect of the campaign
- Connections with other charities working with children and young people across London
- Raised profile and visibility through broader campaigns, events and other activities to raise awareness of the issues around child poverty and drive traffic to the charities
We also request our charity partners' participation in our other programmes, such as Transforming Spaces, Our Research and Advocacy Programme, or The London Child Poverty Summit.