Philanthropy

When you write to us about philanthropy, you talk directly to our founder.

cathy@autisticgirlsnetwork.org

I’d be glad to talk through our strategy and impact, and to share the full case for support. I can also introduce you to the team behind the work and share learner and parent feedback from The Haven’s first year.

charlie.hamilton@autisticgirlsnetwork.org

Cathy works in partnership with our Fundraising Lead, Charlie Hamilton, who manages our relationships with trusts, foundations and philanthropists. Charlie’s background spans teaching, autism research at UCL’s Centre for Research in Autism and Education, and national training in neurodivergent-affirming practice; she is also a doctoral researcher at Lancaster University.

Rebuild lives directly. Your gift funds the things families cannot get anywhere else: free face-to-face groups where girls who have never had a friend make one, and mentoring built on lived experience from people who have been where they are. It funds places at The Haven, our online school, where young people who have been out of education for months or even years re-engage with learning, often surprisingly fast.

In 2025 we directly supported 667 children, young people and adults. Among the girls in our face-to-face groups, 96 per cent reported feeling happier, 94 per cent felt more positive about being autistic, and 92 per cent said they understood themselves better. We measure our outcomes with The Good Childhood Index, developed by The Children’s Society.

Change the system around them. We train the professionals these girls will meet next: teachers, special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs), clinicians and social workers. We have now trained more than 3,000 staff across more than 200 schools. Our white paper, Autism, Girls and Keeping it All Inside, and our Internal Profile of Autism Checklist are used by clinicians and educational psychologists across the UK. Every professional we train changes the odds for every girl who sits in front of them afterwards.

Build the capacity to scale. All of this is delivered by a core charity team of effectively two full-time staff members, alongside a small, dedicated education team at The Haven, and our work reaches over 5.6 million people a year through our social channels and more than 250,000 website visitors. Demand is not our constraint; capacity is. Philanthropy at this level does not just buy a programme; it builds the infrastructure that lets everything else grow.

You can read more about the evidence and thinking behind our work:

• Our white paper, Autism, Girls and Keeping it All Inside
• Our Impact Report 2025 and our annual accounts

AGN Circles is the part of our five-year plan we are most excited about, and the part we are least willing to rush.

A Circle will be a local hub doing three things at once. It will be a place autistic young women and adults come for peer support and community, so that growing up does not mean ageing out of everything that helped. It will raise money locally, so that the group in that town is not permanently dependent on a grant decision made somewhere else. And it will build a real relationship with local employers, so that work experience, employment and apprenticeships exist for the young people we have spent years supporting.

That third part is where you might come in, and it is where we intend to do something differently.

• For the young person: preparation, a named contact, and someone who knows her already and can advocate if something is not working
• For the employer: training for the team before she arrives, practical guidance on adjustments, and a person to ring when they are unsure rather than guessing
• For both: a relationship that continues past the first week, which is where most placements quietly fail

This is what we are building towards, not what we are running today. If you or your organisation wants to help build it rather than wait for it to exist, that is exactly the conversation we want to have.

We are a small but mighty national charity, and for a philanthropist that is a strength: decisions are quick, the team is close to the work, and you will always know exactly what your gift is doing.

• A direct relationship. You deal with the founder and the Fundraising Lead, not a fundraising department.
• Honest reporting. Regular, plain-spoken updates on what your gift has done, including what has been hard.
• Meet the people behind the work. We do not bring visitors into our groups or The Haven, because our young people need those spaces to feel completely safe. We would love to introduce you to the team and arrange a briefing or workshop on any part of our work. You can also read learner and parent feedback from the first year of The Haven.
• Recognition on your terms. Naming opportunities exist for significant gifts; equally, we are experienced in working with donors who prefer to remain anonymous.
• Governance you can trust. We are a registered charity in England and Wales and in Scotland, with a board of seven lived-experience trustees and a clear reserves policy, and our annual accounts are published in full.

• A single or multi-year gift. Multi-year commitments are especially powerful for a charity of our size; they let us plan, hire and promise families continuity.
• Fund a specific piece of work. A new group in your region, a year of mentoring or a named element of the Sanctuary Network.
• Through a trust, foundation or donor-advised fund. We are experienced in working with family foundations and their grants teams.
• Corporate giving and partnerships. From donations to staff training partnerships that fund our free family services.
• A gift in your will. A legacy costs nothing today and helps build the Sanctuary Network for the girls of the future. We can suggest simple wording to share with your solicitor.

UK taxpayers can add Gift Aid, increasing the value of a gift by 25 per cent at no cost to you, and higher rate taxpayers can claim further relief through their tax return.