Alex and Kathryn are running the 2024 Leeds Half Marathon for Gilly’s, a family-based grant-making organisation, supporting small charities that make a big difference.

All the charities we support are working to improve the lives of disadvantaged children, young people, families and adults, but they do this in their own unique way. Last year we supported 13 charities with diverse objectives, including providing acute bereavement support to children and young adults, creating bespoke products to enable disabled children to interact with the world around them and supporting young carers to improve their prospects of further education. You can find out more about the charities we supported HERE.

Our approach is to identify amazing organisations that aren't necessarily well-known but are each a shining example of a small charity that is well-managed, committed to providing the best service they can and is successful because they do things just that little bit differently.

We make the most of being a small trust and this is key to the success of our own personalised style of grant-making. Our support isn't just a financial contribution, it's a commitment from us to learn more about what each charity does and what they need to move forward and to use this knowledge to identify other ways we can lend a hand. This could be anything from using our existing networks to help expand their services into other areas of the country, or helping to raise further funds for specific projects.

Every generous donation will be added to our grant fund for 2024, enabling us to make even more of a difference to small charities and help them achieve great things.

Alex and Kathryn X

Gilly’s is also known as the Gillian Stevenson Charitable Trust CIO (Charity number 1193750)