Final Call for Nominations: Charities Have Until Dec 15th for a Chance at Final Share of £1M Movement for Good Awards

The Final Countdown for a £1 Million Opportunity, with nominations closing at 23:59 on 15th December 2025, making it essential to act now.

The final deadline is fast approaching for one of the UK charity sector’s most significant annual funding opportunities. The Benefact Group’s Movement for Good Awards, a programme set to donate over £1 million in 2025, is entering its final nomination phase. With its unique public nomination model, this initiative offers a meaningful chance for organisations of all sizes to secure vital support. This article will analyse the mechanics, impact, and strategic significance of this major philanthropic programme, providing a vital briefing for charities seeking to make a difference before the window closes.

Understanding the Movement for Good Awards

For any charity, understanding the ethos of a major funder is a strategic imperative. The Movement for Good Awards are driven by the Benefact Group, a family of financial services companies distinguished by its charitable ownership. As the UK’s third-largest corporate donor, the group’s core mission is to give all its available profits to good causes.

Now in its seventh year, the 2025 awards programme will distribute over £1 million to registered charities, non-registered charities, not-for-profit organisations, and community interest companies across the UK, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. The mechanism is simple: members of the public nominate the causes they care about, with winners drawn at random from the pool of nominations. While nominations are open for most of the year, the final draw is imminent. The “12 Days of Giving” will award £1,000 to 120 separate charities, making it the draw with the most individual winners. Nominations for this, and all preceding draws, will close at 23:59 on 15th December 2025. This structure is part of a broader, multi-faceted strategy designed to support the sector in various ways.

A Multi-Faceted Funding Strategy

The Movement for Good Awards are not a monolithic grant programme but a strategic, multi-tiered initiative designed to support the sector through a variety of funding streams. Each tier serves a distinct purpose, offering different levels of support tailored to diverse organisational needs.

The £1,000 Draws. The cornerstone of the programme is the series of six prize draws held throughout 2025, distributing a total of £470,000. These regular draws provide unrestricted £1,000 grants to charities selected at random. The 2025 schedule includes two innovative “boost” draws: one in March that doubled the number of winners from 50 to 100, and another in August that doubled the prize value from £1,000 to £2,000 for 50 successful charities. This structure ensures multiple opportunities for success across the year.

The £5,000 Special Draw. To provide more targeted support, a £200,000 fund is allocated to four themed special draws, each awarding £5,000 to ten charities working in a specific field. The categories for 2025 are Animals & Wildlife, Health & Wellbeing, Children & Young People, and Heritage & Arts. These draws require a separate nomination, allowing the programme to direct more substantial funding towards specific sector challenges.

The Partnership Funding. The third tier is the £400,000 Partnership Funding initiative, which launched in May 2025. This stream is designed to support larger, more strategic projects, moving beyond the smaller grants of the random draws to offer more significant investment for charities with ambitious plans.

This layered approach demonstrates a sophisticated philanthropic strategy, enabling Benefact Group to use a single campaign to foster broad public engagement via the smaller draws while simultaneously making targeted, higher-impact investments in specific sectors and larger projects.

A Model of Accessible, People-Powered Funding

In a funding landscape where small and medium-sized charities are increasingly squeezed by resource-intensive grant applications and rising operational costs, the low-barrier, nomination-based model of the Movement for Good Awards is particularly significant. The winner of each draw is selected at random, but a charity’s chances increase with every public nomination it receives. This simple mechanic transforms the funding process into a community engagement tool.

Crucially, this model provides a genuine opportunity for smaller organisations that may lack dedicated fundraising staff. A key statistic from 2024 showed that 11% of winning charities had received fewer than 10 nominations, demonstrating that even a modest level of support can secure vital funds.

The programme’s eligibility criteria are deliberately broad, welcoming not only registered charities but also not-for-profit organisations, community interest companies, and even non-registered charities. This inclusivity ensures that vital grassroots work does not fall through the cracks of formal registration systems. To further level the playing field, Benefact Group provides a suite of free promotional tools—including posters, website banners, and social media templates—to help organisations of any size mobilise their supporters and communities effectively.

The Funder’s Vision and the Sector’s Need

Understanding the alignment between a funder’s philosophy and a charity’s real-world needs is crucial. The Movement for Good Awards exemplify a clear connection between philanthropic intent and on-the-ground impact.

On one side is the funder’s vision, articulated by Mark Hews, Group Chief Executive of Benefact Group. This commitment has resulted in donations approaching £250 million since 2014, a scale Hews references when explaining the group’s ethos: “Owned by a charity ourselves, charitable giving is at the heart of what we do. All of our available profits go to good causes, and the more the Group grows, the more the Group can give.” He emphasises the practical value of the awards, stating, “We know that for many charities, £1,000 can make a real difference.”

This belief is powerfully echoed by the sector. Sonya Roe, Head of Charity Services at Age UK North Tyneside, illustrates the tangible difference such a grant would make. A £1,000 award, she notes, would directly support the charity’s Wellbeing Centres, which provide “specialist care, companionship, and a wide range of fun, engaging activities that bring real joy to people’s lives.” Her perspective highlights how these grants translate directly into essential services for older people and those living with dementia. These two viewpoints demonstrate a perfect synergy between the corporate mission to give and the sector’s profound need for accessible funding.

A Final Call to Action-submit your nominations before 23:59 on 15th December 2025 to secure your chance at funding and plan for the year ahead.

As the 15th December deadline for the final 2025 draw approaches, the message to the charity sector is clear and urgent: there is still time to secure nominations and a potential £1,000 grant. This article has highlighted the significant scale of the over £1 million programme, its unique accessibility for charities of all sizes and legal structures, and its innovative model of leveraging public engagement for corporate philanthropy. Beyond the immediate financial opportunity, the Movement for Good Awards offers a powerful template for the future of corporate giving. It demonstrates how such initiatives can be both substantial in scale and profoundly democratised, empowering communities across the country to become active participants in supporting the causes they cherish most.