Major British newspapers raised less than £6m collectively in their respective Christmas 2025 charity appeals, marking a decline from the previous year.
Most nationals with the biggest appeals reported a dip in donations from the year prior when more than £6m collectively was raised, but some reported increased giving.
The London Standard received the most money for its selected charities at £2.65m in its celebrity-backed winter appeal, but it was almost a million less than its 2024 total of £3.46m.
A decline was also posted by the Guardian, which raised just over £1m from its latest appeal, compared to £1.73m for the year before.
Readers of the Times and Sunday Times gave over £850,000 to charities in their most recent appeal, a drop from £1.5m in Christmas 2024.
Telegraph readers bucked the trend to raise a record £672,000 for four charities as part of the newspaper’s 2025 appeal, a rise from £486,000 the year prior and £527,000 in 2023.
The Financial Times (FT) raised more than double its total last year to net £504,099 for charities, comfortably surpassing the £211,00 garnered in 2024.
Meanwhile, the Mirror raised £27,500 in its 2025 Christmas appeal for children’s palliative care charity Lifelites.
Speaking to Fundraising Magazine recently, Lifelites head of fundraising Simon Pitts said the charity also gained 200 new subscribers and saw a 127% increase in website traffic through the campaign.
London Standard appeal backed by funders
Despite celebrity endorsements from actor Ian McKellen and singer Rita Ora, the London Standard’s winter appeal 2025 drew in almost £1m less than the year prior.
The appeal, also backed by London mayor Sadiq Khan, benefitted from £125,000 in public donations, almost the same as last year, the London Standard told Civil Society.
Some £2.65m – primarily raised from high-value donations – went to refugee, homeless and food insecurity charities.
Institutional funders such as This Day Foundation, Comic Relief, the Julia Rausing Trust and Sainsbury’s contributed to the London Standard’s campaign.
Telegraph and FT make gains
The Telegraph’s charity appeal ran from 1 November last year until new year’s day, with the proceeds going to veterans’ charity the Not Forgotten, Prostate Cancer Research, the Motor Neurone Disease Association and Canine Partners.
The paper also raised £125,000 on its annual phone-in day, its highest ever total on its 39th year of running its charity appeal.
Meanwhile, the FT more than doubled its 2024 total of £211,000 and said its seasonal appeal Feed the Future had been a “major success.”
Its 2025 Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign impact report stated that the FT’s match funder the Rosetrees Trust was “instrumental” in helping it achieve its goal.
Feed the Future was established as the FT’s flagship Christmas campaign to support financial literacy and access to nutritional breakfasts for children in need.
The FT’s largest institutional funding, measured over three years, was £652,000 and the highest single individual gift was £100,000, the report shows.
Some £50,450 was the highest donation made by a trust or foundation to Feed the Future.
Guardian and Times totals drop
The Guardian’s hope appeal raised £1.04m, including estimated gift aid, and more than 100,000 readers donated.
This compared to the year before when the Guardian, which has been running its Christmas appeal for more than 11 years, said it had received £1.73m in donations, up from £1.43 in 2023.
The Guardian’s 2025 appeal money went to five partner charities: Citizens UK, the Linking Network, Locality, Hope Unlimited Charitable Trust and Who Is Your Neighbour?
The Times and Sunday Times raised £870,000 in its Christmas appeal which included readers’ donations, gift aid and matched funding.
This was lower than the £1.5m in 2024 and £2.03 given in 2023.
It generated funds for young people’s charity Kissing It Better, mentoring organisation Switchback and World Bicycle Relief.
Reader donations, excluding gift aid and matched funding, averaged £145, the Times said, while matched funding for the three charities added £306,000.
The newspaper estimated in mid-January that gift aid was expected to surpass £100,000 from its latest appeal.
