The Guide to Major Trusts 2025-26. DSC (Directory of Social Change)

Lists of awareness days for charities and campaigns

Howard Lake | 30 January 2023 | Blogs

Calendar icon on an iPhone screen. Photo by Brett Jordan on Pexels.com
Photo: Photo by Brett Jordan on Pexels.com.

There are so many charity awareness days that it’s hard to keep track of them all. And they can be useful to all charities, not least in planning ahead, finding possible partnerships, or avoiding clashes. So here are some sources to help your charity.

Years ago UK Fundraising used list key dates for national and international awareness days to help charities and campaigning groups plan ahead, and avoid clashes.

We used to include other national dates like the FA Cup Final, London Marathon, and major civic events.

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In those days there were only commercially produced awareness days registers. So our list was useful to those that had no budget for such information.

We stopped the service some years ago. But what about current awareness days now? How can you find them today, before you spot the hashtag on Twitter and wished you’d know about it?!

Here are some we’ve come across. If we’ve missed any, including the paid-for versions, let us know in the comments.

Engaging Networks’ crowdsourced collection

Engaging Networks have published a list of national and global awareness days for 2023. By sharing it in a Google Doc they are opening it up to crowdsource any days that they have missed.

At present they’ve listed 169 dates.

DSC’s charity awareness days and events

The Directory of Social Change has published a list of charity awareness days and events. Given the number of charities that it works with this should be a particularly comprehensive list.

Every month it helps promote those events and days coming up:

Awareness Days

Awarenessdays.com is a “curation of UK, US and international Awareness Days, Weeks, Months and Events. It is free to access, and there is a download version.

It is pulled together by staff but also supplemented by charities and individuals sharing details of awareness days.

It has also created an Awareness Days Tool Kit, featuring an event list download, printable calendars and automatic Awareness Day alerts. This paid-for product is used by over 4,000 organisations, including the NHS, government organisations, schools, agencies and the major brands.

Occasional lists

Some publishers like the Directory of Social Change publish an occasional update on awareness days, sometimes invite charities to post their own to the thread.

Other sources of awareness days

How to use charity awareness days

If it is your charity’s awareness days, make sure it is promoted to all who ought to know about it – supporters, volunteers, staff, service users, relevant journalists, ex-staff, relevant community groups who support you.

Consider different ways to make the most of your own awareness day, such as hosting a ‘thankathon’ to thank supporters and volunteers:

Avoid clashes of events – either with a major national event, especially one-off or new events, like last year’s additional bank holidays to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, and this May’s Bank Holiday to mark the Coronation of King Charles III. Plan ahead.

Explore days created by other charities similar to yours and see if there is an opportunity for collaboration.

Explore some of the more unusual themes – most commercial sectors and products seem to have an awareness or celebratory day. Is there a possible collaboration or simply an opportunity to piggyback on theirs?

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