Our Charity of the Year

Our mission is to help people and organisations perform at their best through learning experiences that are inclusive, inspiring, and designed to make a real difference.

Part of that mission is to support other organisations to make their own difference in their own way. That's why, each year we partner with a charity whose work is changing lives and transforming communities.

Our Charity of the Year (COTY) partnership is our way of giving back — combining our expertise in learning and development with a cause that shares our commitment to positive change.

Our chosen Charity of the Year receives:
🌟 Free access to learning opportunities 
🌟 Free organisational development support
🌟 First look at new products and services
🌟 Increased visibility and promotional/ fundraising support

Charity of the Year 2026

The Brain Charity

The Brain Charity supports people living with neurological conditions across the UK. There are more than 600 conditions that affect the brain, spinal cord and nervous system, ranging from well-known conditions such as stroke, dementia and epilepsy to hundreds of rarer neurological conditions.

The Brain Charity is the only UK charity supporting people affected by every neurological condition. Each year, they provide practical help, emotional support and opportunities to connect, supporting not only individuals living with neurological conditions but also their families, friends and carers.
Leaderful Action are delighted to be partnering with The Brain Charity during an important period of growth and change. Throughout the year, we'll be working alongside their team to strengthen leadership, build resilience and create space for reflection, learning and development.

Together, we hope to support their people with the confidence, skills and support they need to continue delivering life-changing services to thousands of people across the UK.

Interested in being COTY 2027? 

Any UK charity, regardless of size, can apply to become our Charity of the Year. As a thank you for applying, every organisation will receive a selection of free learning and development resources.

We love working with charities that are making a real difference – supporting vulnerable people, advocating for change, pushing boundaries, and investing in the development of their staff and volunteers.

If you're passionate about creating positive impact, want to help your charity thrive, and are looking for more opportunities to develop your people, we'd love to hear from you.

Applications for Leaderful Action's Charity of the Year 2027 will open in January 2027. Register your interest below and we'll make sure you're among the first to know when applications go live.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can we access? 

Our Charity of the Year will be able to access a range of learning support, which may include in-house workshops, on-demand learning, spaces on programmes, consultancy and coaching. 

If you are chosen to be our COTY, we would start with a meeting to discuss needs. We may also support you to conduct a short analysis exercise to help define those needs. We will then co-design a programme that works for you. 

We will also discuss how we can support your promotion and fundraising efforts over the course of the year. 

What will this cost us?

This opportunity is completely free, there will never be any hidden costs to charities applying for the scheme. For us at Leadership Action, this is about giving back and increasing our ability to make a difference out in communities. 

Please note that psychometric profiles, ilm programmes and similar products are not provided as part of the free offer. At present, we are also unable to guarantee the provision of services in Welsh.

What will you need from us?

This is an important question. We'd expect organisations and the people who attend to engage with us, to be committed to the programme that we co-design with you and to support your team members to take part.

You'll also need to manage the admin of any workshops - collecting the names and letting us know who is attending, for example. 

We will also request feedback from you - from the sessions and services we provide, but also from the support we have offered overall, to help us to improve and develop. 

What do you look for in an application?

We’re looking for a charity that’s passionate about developing its people, open to learning, and aligned with our values of passion, purpose, potential, and partnership. We’re particularly inspired by organisations that are creative, inclusive, and committed to making a meaningful difference.

We want to work with a charity that can tell us how we can help them to help others- we like making impact! 

How do you choose?

We invite a panel of Leaderful Action staff, clients, associates and partners to help us choose our COTY. Each panellist will be given a pack of all the responses in the applications and will be asked to score each charity.  

We use a basic scoring system to enable us to fairly choose - you can download the scoring sheet that we use below. We may also put a shortlist out to vote via our network / social media. We will inform you of this before we do. 

What happens next? 

We’ll review all applications in December and we will let you know by the end of the year. We will formally announce our chosen Charity of the Year in early January 2026 and work with them until the end of the year.

To help us make a bigger impact, we will offer something to our two runners up and every organisation that applies will receive some free on-demand resources specifically designed for charities. 

Previous Charity of the Year Partners

We're proud to have partnered with some incredible charities over the years, each doing inspiring work to support their communities and create positive change. While our Charity of the Year changes each year, the relationships we've built continue long after the partnership ends.

Read on to discover who we've worked with, how we've supported their teams, and how you can learn more about their work or support their ongoing fundraising and campaigns.
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Charity of Year 2025 - Welsh Women's Aid

Welsh Women’s Aid is a national charity in Wales working to end domestic abuse and all forms of violence against women. As the umbrella organisation for specialist services across Wales, they represent, support and connect a network of local domestic abuse and sexual violence services that deliver life-saving support to women, children and families.

Through advocacy, campaigning, training, and partnership work, Welsh Women’s Aid drives change to create safer communities and a Wales where everyone can live free from violence, abuse and exploitation.

We started our partnership with a whole organisation day where Natalie, our Director, ran a workshop on Wellbeing and Resilience. Since then, WWA have accessed a range of workshops for their whole team, which have also been offered out to their member organisations including Gorwel,  Stori,  Thrive DAS, and Vale DAS. 
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Charity of the Year 2024 - 2Wish Cymru

When a family loses a child or a young adult, the effects are devastating for all who knew and loved them. 2Wish aims to ensure that all those affected by the sudden and unexpected death of a child or young adult aged 25 or under receive the bereavement support they need and deserve.

Through their innovative and vital services, they offer bereavement boxes, immediate and ongoing support, training and support groups for parents, loved ones and professionals. 

2Wish were our first formal COTY.  They received spaces on some of our programmes, including our Management Fundamentals and Action Learning Programmes. We also provided bespoke workshops to the leadership team and supported with donations and ongoing sharing of fundraising activities. 
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Join our mission to empower and uplift charities.

Register interest to be our Charity of the Year 2027 today!

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