Big Give Christmas Challenge 2026

What is the appeal for?

We need to complete the final 230 metres of the Lichfield Canal at Gallows Reach, creating a safe green‑blue route for walking, cycling, nature and wellbeing, and eventually boats. This work relies on donations; without them, restoration will be delayed and key environmental benefits postponed.

We are aiming to raise a total of £100,000 to help towards the cost of materials.

The first stage is to raise £25,000 in pledges before 5pm on 28 August 2026:

Make a pledge

How does it work?

Stage one: we need to receive £25,000 in pledges before 28 August

Pledges are promises of funding used to double donations made to you during the live campaign – they must be at least £100 and will not be due for payment until the appeal has ended. Make a pledge using this form.

Stage two: we wait to see if we are offered £25,000 in champion funds

If the Big Give offers us champion funds, this will be added to the pledge match fund, to double the donations we receive during the appeal.

Stage three: the appeal goes live in December 20206

The appeal will be run between 1 December 2026 and 8 December 2026. Every donation will be doubled from our match fund.

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Our previous Big Give appeals

Big Give 2025: Lock appeal

Amount raised: £157,154, including £28,577 champion funding.
Total received with Gift Aid claimed on eligible pledges and donations: £167,000.

What’s next?
The designs for the lock are currently being drawn up and work is due to start in 2027 (after the culvert has been installed), with the aim of completing the Gallows Reach section in 2028. You can see more details of the timeline on the Gallows Reach project page.

View the 2025 appeal page.

Big Give 2023: Big Dig digger appeal

Amount raised: £26,640
Total received with Gift Aid claimed on eligible pledges and donations: £31,800.

How was it spent?
We bought the first new digger in 2024 and after a long search bought the second digger in autumn 2025.

View the 2023 appeal page.

Big Give 2022: Liftbridge appeal

Amount raised: £29,312.
Total received with Gift Aid claimed on eligible pledges and donations, the total raised was: £39,000.

How was it spent?
The liftbridge was initially delayed as our planning application took much longer than we expected. Planning approval was received in summer 2024 subject to discharge of planning conditions, these were discharged in 2025, and the liftbridge installation was scheduled to fit in with other work happening at Gallows Reach. It was installed in April 2026. Read the news story and watch the video of the installation.

View the 2022 appeal page.

Big Give 2021: Hedging, trees and signboards appeal

Amount raised: £11,906.
Total received with Gift Aid claimed on eligible pledges and donations: £13,745.

How was it spent?
The money raised was for trees, hedging and wildflower seeds, information boards and publicity, and bird and bat boxes. This has been utilised along the canal route, and we still have some money left for information boards, which will be added as new sections of the canal are opened.

View the 2021 appeal page.

How does the Big Give match fund work?

Pledges form the match pot

The first stage of the appeal is to raise pledges, these form the match pot when the appeal goes live.
Pledges are a minimum of £100 and cannot be paid until the appeal ends. This is because pledges can only be paid if they are matched by donations.

Champion funding

We can sometimes attract additional match funding from champions. These are Big Give’s partners and could be high-net-worth individuals, foundations, philanthropists, trusts, statutory bodies, companies and corporations. A Champion will commit match funds to support one or multiple charities in a given match funding campaign. Champions are sourced and managed by Big Give.

If our campaign has attracted champion funding we will highlight it in the campaign details.

The appeal

The appeal is live for one week. All online donations during that period, will be doubled (using funds from the match pot) until the target is reached.

More information

You can find out more on the Big Give website