Charities We Support

We are cause neutral and can give to any area of charitable work. We support charities large and small, and are giving to new charities all the time. As long as the charity you support is a UK registered charity, you can suggest them.

There is no set list of charities we can support, and no registration process for charities. We gave to over 250 charities for the first time in 2025.

The wall of logos we feature are just to give a flavour of some of the charities we have recently supported – it is not a definitive list. We can support any UK registered charity subject to due diligence.

Absolutely – we are more than happy to take multiple charity suggestions from any donor.

Yes. Many of our donors do this. If you do not have a specific charity in mind, we can allocate your suggestion to a particular charity working in the field which you mention.

In the large majority of cases we can support charities suggested to us. However we always want to make sure we are giving to charities that are responsibly run, are a going concern, and that we are supporting them appropriately. It is for this reason that we do due dilgence on beneficiary charities and we follow our grant-making policy when making grants to charity.

In the large majority of cases we can support charities suggested to us; this is why we give to so many different charities every year. For large donors we will try and do due diligence on a charity in advance so that we know we are comfortable recommending an appropriate sized grant to our grant-making committee. In the unlikely event we are unable to make an appropriate grant to your suggested charity we will try and let you know before transferring shares. If shares have already been transferred we will ask you for alternative suggestions. For small value donations we may allocate your suggestion to a charity doing similar work if we are unable to support the charity in question.

We make grants in round figures based on a number of factors. First and foremost we look at the number of and value of suggestions we receive for any charity. We also look at suggestions we may have for that area of charitable work which do not specify a charity, suggestions from our corporate partners, and how these suggestions fit with themed distributions we may be doing to particular areas of charitable work. We do not take any commission or fee and we distribute all the funds arising from the sale of donated shares to charity suggestions. Because we have income from a wide range of sources, and because we receive many donations which do not have a suggestion attached, we are very often in a position to give more to a charity than the value of shares donated, however we cannot guarantee this.

Under the terms of our grant-making policy we do not make transformational grants to charities. As a rule of thumb we do not give more than 15% of a charity’s turnover in any year, although there is some flexibility on this for smaller charities.

We class a transformational grant as one which is more than 15% of a charity’s turnover, although there is some flexibility in the definition based on the size of the beneficiary charity.

Large one off grants can cause issues to charities, because they may take on long-term liabilities (for example additional employees or long-term leases on property) based on a presumption of long-term support that we cannot guarantee.

The grants we make are primarily based on donor suggestion and available funds. For this reason we can’t undertake “multi-year funding” – where we commit to support a charity for an extended period of time.

For this reason we do not believe it is appropriate for us to make transformational grants.

Regardless of the value of shares donated, valid charity suggestions will remain under consideration until we have made a grant to that charity.

We typically make grants to charities suggested for large donations in our next round of distributions, although we cannot guarantee timings. Our distributions to charities are made monthly.

Smaller value suggestions may take longer, and there is no set timescale for making a grant to a suggested charity as it depends on a variety of factors, but we always try to support all qualifying charities suggested to us.

Because of the number of donations and suggestions we receive each year, we are unable to do this as standard for all donors. However we do share copies of the letters of receipt we receive from charities with large donors. If you have made a smaller donation and would like to see the letter of receipt from your suggested charity when we make it, we can do this on request.

We also now publish all the grants we make online with 360Giving. This is updated periodically.

We are an independent registered charity and grant-maker; we are not a stockbroking service for charities. We do not just sell your shares and send proceeds to a charity or charities you have suggested. We receive tens of thousands of donations and thousands of suggestions and it is not possible for us to work in this way.

Funds we generate from a wide range of sources are pooled, and we use this money to make grants to charity. As a result we very frequently make grants to suggested charities which are in excess of the value of the shares donated to us, although we cannot guarantee grant amounts or timings in advance.

We make no charge to donors or charities, and we designate all funds arising from share sales to grants to beneficiary charities. Thanks to Killik & Co., Platform Securities, and our other partners, we benefit from many donated facilities including free broking services. We keep our costs to a minimum so that we can pass on as much of our income as possible to charity. The costs we do incur are covered by a combination of cash donations, income generated by our portfolios of shares, drawdowns from our reserves, and legacies received as cash. Only a small proportion of these funds are required to cover our costs every year – the remainder is designated to grant-making.

No, we do not pass on details of our donors to beneficiary charities. All the grants we make to charities come from the charity ShareGift.

However if you would like to contact the charity and let them know you have donated to ShareGift and suggested them as a beneficiary, you are very welcome to do so.