How to make your donation go further

ActionAid works with women and girls living in poverty. We don’t impose solutions, instead, we empower local women around the world to lead change and transform lives, because they know their communities better than anyone.

Our approach works, and we’ve been helping women and girls to overcome danger, escape poverty and work towards the future they want for more than 50 years.

We believe change is possible and is rooted in the individual and collective empowerment of those most affected to know, claim and defend their rights in the long-term.

The power of Flexible funding

In 2024,nearly half of ActionAid UK’s income was designated to delivering a specific project. These funds are vital but are often short term with many restrictions, limiting innovation and long-term change.

Managing these funds can be time-consuming and costly, and charities can become dependent on circular funding cycles to keep projects running when they are funded in this way. Donors may also choose to allocate funds to the highest-profile issues or most well-known countries, leaving other areas under-resourced.

Flexible funding is different. It can be used wherever the need is greatest, enabling us to be more agile and effective.

By giving flexibly you are enabling us to:

Be more effective - by piloting new innovative approaches, scaling up, and leveraging other funding opportunities, we can deepen our impact and elevate our global influence.
Reduce risk and increase resilience - investing in key infrastructure means we can strengthen our programmes. This includes areas such as finance, IT and safeguarding, so we operate safely and sustainably.
Be responsive and agile - the flexibility means we can respond to changes and protects us from volatility within the funding landscape. This enables us to respond quickly to changing circumstances and needs.
Better direct expertise - flexible funding respects the skills, experience and knowledge of our teams and partners, enabling them to make informed judgements about the best way to use funds in line with our mission.

Since ActionAid was founded in 1972, we have built relationships with thousands of supporters in the UK and globally. They have made all our work possible by donating to emergency responses and supporting our work around the world. Over a quarter of ActionAid’s global income is raised in the UK. In 2024, just over 57% of our UK income was channelled to the international federation to support our humanitarian and development work overseas.

By donating to ActionAid’s Flexible fund, our supporters can help us to operate strategically and sustainably, directing funds to ActionAid’s highest priorities in the UK and around the world.

In 2024

Around 125,000
people supported our work

Over 4,000
people signed our petition to get world banks to divest from fossil fuels and harmful agribusiness

Over 464,000
people in Gaza were reached with humanitarian aid

Flexible funding, lasting change

Flexible funds allow ActionAid to invest in the issues which are most urgent for the communities we work with. Recently it has meant we can:

Pilot new approaches. At ActionAid we know that women’s rights organisations are often first to act in times of crisis and have some of the most innovative, radical and sustainable ideas for change, yet they are chronically underfunded. A lack of flexible resources restricts their ability to respond to the most pressing needs. Flexible funding is allowing us to pilot a new approach, to support Women’s Rights Organisations with long-term flexible funding so they can fund their self-defined priorities.
Support transformative work. We are able to expand and deepen our support to women and girls across the world by funding work that focusses on scaling change, through improved evidence, and integrating community work with national and global movement building. This has included connecting groups of women and young people across countries to strengthen advocacy.
Advocate for change. With our advocacy and campaigns work we can address the root causes of poverty and injustice for women and girls. We work with activists and communities to amplify their voices and demand policy changes at local, national and international level.

How could your flexible donation make a difference?

A flexible donation enables us to operate strategically and sustainably. It means we can deliver our highest priorities in the UK and globally, and can further our mission, supporting women and girls around the world. Our investment in fundraising also generates restricted funding which provides long term stability within our programmes, enabling teams to plan for the future.

Women and girls are best placed to lead change, and with your unrestricted donation together we can support them to do this.

For example, we continue supporting communities to build their resilience to future crises long after a disaster strikes. By making an invaluable donation to ActionAid’s Flexible Fund, you could help women and girls lead change in their communities today and in the months and years ahead.

Surviving climate change – Hilda’s story

Meet Hilda who lives in eastern Zimbabwe. She is a climate change survivor. Her home and community was left in tatters by Cyclone Idai in March 2019. Climate change is a major contributory factor to extreme weather events, which are growing in both frequency and intensity.

ActionAid Zimbabwe and its partners ran an early recovery programme for Cyclone Idai survivors as the organisation moved its response from immediate needs to mid-term.

A key part of the response has been to train female leaders at a community level, so that they can pass on the protection and leadership skills to help their communities recover from the effects of the cyclone. Hilda is one of those leaders and she will lead in training the women to be self-reliant in the face of the adversity.

“I will train women not to wait for food handouts,” she said. “They can plant crops on the land that was not destroyed by Cyclone Idai. Now that roads have been cleared the women can engage in various income generating activities"

Women like Hilda, who display resilience and determination, are key for communities to be able to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

Find out more

If you’re interested in making a donation to our Flexible fund, you can speak to your ActionAid contact, or use the team contacts below, for more information and ways to donate.

Trust and New Markets: UK.Foundations@actionaid.org

Corporate Partnerships: uk.corporatepartnerships@actionaid.org

Philanthropists: UK.Philanthropy@actionaid.org

We would like to thank all our supporters who donate to ActionAid’s Flexible fund, enabling us to make strategic investments and use their funds where they are needed most. Donations to ActionAid’s Flexible Fund are indispensable because they enable us to be an agile, responsive and forward-thinking organisation.

If this doesn’t feel quite right for you at the moment – take a look at our Emergency action fund. This is still a strategic way of giving but provides a level of restriction to emergency response work. Vital for ‘silent’ emergencies that don’t receive the media coverage attention they need to raise funds.