The Guardian has launched its annual charity appeal for 2025 with a powerful and urgent focus on fostering hope and community resilience in the face of escalating social division and hatred across the UK.
A Direct Response to a Toxic Climate
Launching on Friday, the appeal arrives during what the newspaper describes as a year marked by unsettling social division, anger, and unrest. The backdrop includes a rise in extremist violence and rhetoric, intense demonisation of migrants, and far-right activists marching in streets. The resurgence of what is termed "1970s-style racism" has also seen NHS nurses, care workers, and charities facing abuse.
Against this toxic climate, the appeal's theme is unapologetically hope. It will support five grassroots charities operating at the heart of local neighbourhoods: Citizens UK, The Linking Network, Locality, Hope Unlimited Charitable Trust, and Who is Your Neighbour? These organisations are selected for their work in nurturing community pride and driving positive change, offering a vital antidote to polarisation and distrust.
Root Causes and Grassroots Solutions
The appeal highlights the profound challenges many communities face, including eroded public services, lost communal spaces, and damaged civic infrastructure. Rising inequality, driven by austerity and a broken economic model, has fostered deep-rooted poverty and resentment for many, while shattering dreams of a better future for others.
Compounding these issues is fragile trust in institutions, the distortion of public debate by misinformation and conspiracy theories, and growing intimidation and violence against minorities. "It can feel frightening, and bleak," the appeal acknowledges.
However, the work of the partner charities provides concrete examples of a different path. Operating in some of the UK's most economically deprived areas, they:
- Campaign for better housing, improved health services and thriving high streets.
- Help restore abandoned libraries, parks, and community centres.
- Run food banks, jobs initiatives, youth clubs, arts projects, and refugee welcome schemes.
Their approach is locally led, built on respectful conversations, and focused on bringing together neighbours of different cultures and faiths to find common values. "They make connections and build relationships, hope and resilience," the appeal states.
How to Support the Appeal
The Guardian is calling on its readers to donate generously to support these five charities. The charity appeal telethon will take place on Saturday 13 December, where Guardian journalists will take calls and donations. Furthermore, The Guardian Bookshop will donate 20p from every order received until 31 December to the appeal.
Over the past decade, Guardian readers have raised an incredible £15m for good causes through the annual appeal, supporting themes from child poverty and the climate crisis to refugees and victims of war.
While charity alone cannot fix societal divisions or extreme inequality, the appeal serves as a showcase of what is possible and a tribute to voluntary efforts that transform lives. As the partner charity Locality puts it: "Our communities are the beating heart of a fairer society and a defence against hatred... Now, more than ever, we must invest in hope."
