How The National Lottery boosts the UK's love of 'giving'

The Great British public loves to give. It’s a point of national pride dating back to at least the Victorian era’s ‘do-gooders’ sparking the 19th Century rise of charities. And polls in 2024 suggested that giving is alive and well (unsurprising with the cost of living, among other crises). For instance, the international crowdfunding site GoFundMe ranked the UK as the 2nd most generous nation. Meanwhile, the NHS says giving makes us happier while other sources in science suggest that generosity makes us live healthier and longer.

Each year, the month of December puts all of this into clear focus. There's the traditional gifting and goodwill of Christmas, among other religious festivities. But nowadays December begins with “Giving Tuesday”, the key day within “Giving Week”, an annual charity push raising about £20m each time. A key player here is BigGive’s Christmas Challenge using a match-funding model to double funds: it raised nearly £45m in 2024.

Of course, people give in countless ways all year-round. People volunteer time and skills, they donate clothes, household goods and food.

Vital lifeline
Small acts of kindness can add up to huge impacts. For instance, the past ten years have seen a stark rise in food banks across the UK. They’ve become a vital lifeline for people in all kinds of communities.

When it comes to requests for National Lottery funding from food banks, or where food banks are a key partner or main part of the application, most have come in the twenty years since 2004. In fact, the 2020s have seen an upsurge (sustained after Covid-19) with 80% of such grants awarded between 2020-2024.

Over 1,000 food banks
Within The National Lottery family the main funder of food banks has been The National Lottery Community Fund, although other distributors of National Lottery funds have also considered food banks and made awards.

The first National Lottery grant paid to a food bank was recorded in 1997. That money went to a food bank supporting local people in the Skelmersdale South ward of Lancashire. It covered 3 years’ salary for the food bank’s co-ordinator. (Sidenote: that food bank shut however the need has grown, now served by a partnership involving 3 food banks across Skelmersdale).

From 1997 to 2024, more than 1,000 food banks were supported with National Lottery funding.

The largest grant of this kind was nearly £950,000 to Trussell (The Trussell Trust) in 2014. That money, and several other grants, was used by Trussell all over the UK by its large-scale network of projects that help people facing food poverty or hunger.

‘Helping Hands’
The smallest food bank grant has been £500, awarded in 2022 to Helping Hands Community Cupboard for its support to local people in the Heath ward of Burton in East Staffordshire, the West Midlands. That project’s aim was “to reduce the impact of the cost-of-living crisis for people on low incomes in the local community reducing stress and improving mental health”. And the £500 got used “for hampers over the Christmas period to low-income families in receipt of free school meals or using the food bank”.

Giving is good
While December might be dubbed 'the season of giving and goodwill', various kinds of generosity happens every day. Local projects like Healing Hands in Burton are open for people most in need, while network’s like Trussell work daily to end hunger across the UK. These organisations and countless others funded by The National Lottery lead by example: giving is good.