Impact of your donations
Your support helps fund our vital work to tackle the causes of financial insecurity.
Together, we're helping people find the support they need, take back control and build towards a more secure future. Your generosity helps fund practical tools and support that make a real difference to people experiencing financial insecurity.
Here are some highlights from 2025/26.
The Turn2us Benefits Calculator
The Turn2us Benefits Calculator is a free, simple, confidential tool that helps people understand what benefits they could claim.
- 2.25m Benefits Calculator checks completed in 2025/26.
- £10.83bn potential benefits identified.
We've often spent hours trawling through different websites trying to find what we need, and it becomes a bit of a soul-destroying process. We wouldn't have found the additional benefit information for our children without going through the Turn2us Benefits Calculator.
The Turn2us Grants Search
Flexible cash grants to people most impacted by financial insecurity help people to regain some control over their finances. Our Grants Search tool matches people to grants they are eligible to apply for from over 1,600 grants.
- 866,900 Grants Search enquiries in 2025/26, helping people find financial support.
- Across our grant programmes, we also awarded £2.61m to 1,415 people this year.
The Turn2us PIP Helper
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is designed to support people whose disability or health condition affects their daily life or mobility.
But applying for it can be difficult and draining. That's why we developed our PIP Helper: a clear, free, confidential tool built in partnership with people who have been through the application themselves.
227,000+ PIP Helper uses, an increase of 61% from the previous year.
Behind every number is a person finding support, overcoming a barrier or taking a step towards a more secure future. Thank you for helping make this possible.
Everyone's Environment Voices: Climate action through lived experience
After a summer of heatwaves, it is clear that climate change is already affecting our everyday lives. But its impacts are not felt equally.
People facing financial insecurity, disabled people, racialised communities and people living in poor-quality housing can face the highest energy bills, the coldest homes and the fewest options to make sustainable choices.
Everyone's Environment is a national partnership led by New Philanthropy Capital and funded by the National Lottery.
It brings together more than 40 organisations, including Turn2us, Race Equality Foundation and Disability Rights UK to make sure the transition to net zero is fair, inclusive and rooted in lived experience.
People most affected by climate change need to be part of shaping the solutions. Through this partnership, we help connect national climate policy with the everyday realities of people too often left out of these conversations.
We connect climate action to the realities of people's lives through our:
- longstanding co-production work
- tools and services
- place-based programmes.
What I most want to say to you is this: climate action and social justice must go hand in hand. If environmental policy does not actively include disabled people, people with health conditions, low-income communities, and other marginalised groups, it risks widening inequalities.
Voices: Building skills, confidence and influence
Everyone's Environment: Voices is a paid programme supporting people often left out of environmental conversations to share their experiences publicly and influence decisions about climate and nature.
Twenty lived experience partners, including six Turn2us co-production partners, bring experiences of disability, racial inequality, migration, caring responsibilities and financial insecurity to the conversation.
Our Environment, Our Voices is a letter campaign led by the Everyone's Environment alliance calling on policymakers to move beyond consultation and genuinely involve affected communities in shaping environmental solutions. The campaign has already prompted a response from Climate Minister Katie White OBE MP, acknowledging the need for a fair, inclusive transition.
Inside the Jobcentre: How supporters helped show MPs that Jobcentres should lead with trust, not suspicion
Thanks to nearly 400 Turn2us supporters who contacted their MPs and encouraged them to attend, MPs from across Parliament stepped inside an immersive Jobcentre experience earlier this summer.
Through a series of live interactions shaped by the real experiences of people who have used Jobcentres themselves, MPs gained first-hand insight into what seeking support can feel like today.
Actors with lived experience recreated common situations, including rushed appointments, pressure to meet work-search requirements and the threat of sanctions. MPs saw how processes focused on monitoring and compliance can make it harder for people to get the support they need.
They then experienced what a different approach could look like: one where people are asked what they need, rather than being asked to prove they deserve support.
We know that Jobcentres can often be quite negative and instead of encouraging people into appropriate jobs and helping them build their skills and confidence, it has the opposite effect. Today, MPs can see that really it doesn't take much to make it a much better place for everybody, which is surely what the DWP wants to happen.
Experience 01
MPs' first experience showed the reality of navigating Jobcentres today - where processes can leave people feeling scrutinised and belittled.
If I was out of work and going to that first experience, [I wouldn't have] gained anything at all. Apart from not being listened to, not having the opportunity to discuss my needs. Very much focused on what I couldn't do.
Experience 02
The second experience showed what we are campaigning for: Jobcentres where people are met with trust, understanding and support to help them move forward.
You feel like the person is actually interested in your personal fate, not just trying to get you into any job, but to get you into a job that actually fits your interests, your ambitions, So a profoundly different experience.
The reactions from MPs were encouraging. Many left surprised by what they had seen and heard, and agreed that Jobcentres should be built around trust rather than suspicion if they are to help more people into work successfully.
The event created new conversations with decision-makers at a crucial moment. As debates continue about employment support and social security reform, MPs had an opportunity to see the human impact of policy decisions and why support should start with trust and understanding.
One event will not transform the system, but it is a step towards greater understanding among MPs and stronger relationships that can help influence future reforms.
None of this would have happened without supporters like you. Whether you contacted your MP, shared your experiences, helped spread the word or supported our campaigning, you helped make this event possible.
Together, we are helping build a future where everyone who turns to a Jobcentre is met with the trust, time and respect they deserve.
Thank you for being part of that change.
MPs talked afterwards about how much more effective the positive scenario approach felt. The contrast demonstrated that treating people with dignity and listening to them isn't somehow incompatible with helping people move towards employment. In fact, the reactions I heard suggested the opposite.
Thriving Futures Fund: Helping people build the future they want
As the Thriving Futures Fund reaches the end of its second year, it's a perfect time to reflect on the difference your support is helping make - and look ahead to the final year of the programme.
The Thriving Futures Fund is a three-year grant programme from Turn2us Edinburgh Trust, run with four delivery partner organisations across the city. 106 people have received a grant so far.
There is no set list of what the money can be spent on, because the point is that people decide for themselves what a better life looks like.
Here is what that has meant
A laptop. One parent used her grant to buy one, then used it to apply for the college course she had wanted to start for years. Her support worker put it plainly: the fund removed a barrier that had been in the way of everything else.
Football coaching club. One participant is setting up his own coaching club for children. The fund bought the footballs and will also support him with start-up costs and any further equipment he needs.
An animal sanctuary. One participant used his support to open an animal and reptile rescue centre. In the past year alone, they've rescued hundreds of animals, including parrots, snakes and lizards.
The sanctuary is now growing, finding homes for animals very quickly and generating enough income to sustain itself. As he says, “We wouldn't be able to do it without the help you gave us.”
A daughter's bedroom. After moving into a permanent home, one participant furnished her daughter's room. In her words: "TFF gives me a sense of security and possibility."
It's not often in this line of work that you get to give out positive news that isn't filled with barriers and red tape.
That is what your support could make possible. Not crisis relief, but room to move.
Middlesbrough Collaboration: local leaders take the reins
You have heard from us before about the Middlesbrough Collaboration, our work with women, children and young people in Gresham, Linthorpe and Newport. This year it changes shape.
From earlier this year, three local organisations took lead of the programme: Nur Fitness CIC, Women Today North East and The Junction. We are stepping back and trusting them to decide what happens next, a new way of working for Turn2us.
Together with partners Smallwood Trust and Buttle UK, we are putting £450,000 behind the programme over two years.
Around £100,000 is ring-fenced for cash grants, paid directly to women and young people alongside employment and skills support. That is money in someone's hand so they can say yes to a course, a job or a fresh start.
The rest pays for two things funding rarely covers. One is a full-time person on the ground to hold the partnership together and keep it moving. The other is time: this two-year funding commitment offers protected space for these three local organisations to step out of the daily firefight and ask what would actually have to change for financial insecurity in Middlesbrough to stop repeating itself.
Young people in Newport already told us that financial security is about more than income. It means feeling safe, having a decent home and being able to take part in community life.
Supporting one family at a time is vital. Changing why families end up struggling takes thinking room, and your support for our work is what buys it.
National Programme
This year, Turn2us launched a National Programme bringing grants, information tools and partnerships together to provide more joined-up support.
The programme is built on a simple idea: financial security takes more than money alone. People may need a grant to deal with an immediate problem, alongside practical information, advice and trusted local support.
Together, these forms of support can help people manage immediate pressures while building confidence, stability and greater choice over time. Support shaped around people's lives.
The programme has been shaped by people with lived experience and our partners, who told us that support needs to fit around people's lives rather than forcing people to fit around systems.
Through the programme, partners can provide:
- Flexible grants, typically between £2,500 and £5,000, that can be used when people need them.
- Faster decisions and fewer restrictions, recognising that life does not always fit neatly around paperwork.
- Time to learn what works and share that learning with partners, funders and others tackling financial insecurity.
Working in partnership, not prescription
A core feature of the National Programme is how we work with partners.
Turn2us works alongside local and specialist organisations, trusting their knowledge of the communities they support. This means partners can respond when people are stuck in systems, such as during benefit delays or sudden financial shocks, while also having space to think about longer-term change.
In its first year, the programme has created a clearer way for Turn2us to support people nationally: working with communities, sharing power and using our resources to strengthen systems as well as fill gaps.
A future without worry
What's your vision for the future? At Turn2us, we believe everyone should have financial security so they can thrive.
We support people facing financial shocks by offering high-quality information and services, co-produced with those who have lived experience, to help individuals navigate periods of hardship with dignity and resilience.
We also work to strengthen communities through locally rooted programmes and drive systems-level change to build a fairer, more inclusive economy for all.
What does "a future without worry" really look like?
It's a future where people know exactly where to turn when they're worried about money. Where help is available to people who need it. Where fewer people wake up worrying. It's a future where if someone falls down, your gift will make sure they can stand up again - and keep standing. It's a future where people see a way forwards.
We believe everyone should have financial security so they can thrive. A gift in your will can help make that happen.
Why leave a gift?
A gift in your will can help ensure future generations have access to the tools, resources and support to overcome hardship. Whatever your vision - a warm home, enough to eat, or a fairer society - a gift in your will can help make it a reality.
I see Turn2us as people's first port of call, before they get to such a desperate situation. I want the gift I leave to help Turn2us do more of what they're doing already, to help more people not have to worry in the future. I genuinely trust that they will do the best with my support. I've seen first-hand the difference Turn2us makes. Leaving a gift in my will is my way of making sure others can get the support they need - now and for years to come.
Write your will for free
We've partnered with Make A Will Online and The National Free Wills Network to help take the stress out of making your will.
When you use these services, your will is fully checked by a Solicitors Regulation Authority registered solicitor, giving you peace of mind and reducing worry later down the line.
There's no obligation to leave a gift to Turn2us - but if you choose to, you'll help create a future without worry for generations to come.
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