Lists of awareness days for charities and campaigns
Howard Lake | 30 January 2023 | Blogs
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
- Employers host list of awareness days, sometimes on a particular topic. For example, UCL hosts a calendar of wellbeing dates and awareness days, such as Love Your Liver Month and Time to Talk Day.
NHS Employers have a similar calendar with a mostly health topic-related list of days and campaigns. - Online community site Guild has a new list each year.
- For a global list try the United Nation’s list.
- Some charities produce a list, often to help their supporters or other clients. For example Young Citizens has a calendar for teachers offering “teaching touchpoints and themes throughout the year”.
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?
- Too many awareness days? (6 February 2001)
- From awareness days to fundraising – the last corporate partnerships round-up of 2021 (31 December 2021)
- Call for entries to ChangeStar charity calendar 2020 (4 February 2020)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.