The winter appeal closed at £1.2 million

The 2025 winter appeal closed at £1.2 million, raised from just over 19,000 donors. That money funds the 2026 planting season across all seven landscapes, and it was already accounted for against specific sites before the appeal even closed.

Most of it came in gifts under £50. That matters to us more than a handful of large cheques would, and not only for sentimental reasons. A wide base of small, regular donors is steadier than a few big ones, and steadiness is what lets us promise a community three years of wages rather than one.

A three-year promise is the difference between a community taking the work seriously and treating it as a one-off windfall. The Kanam women's cooperative expanded to four shade houses because we could guarantee a multi-year contract, and that guarantee rests on donors who give again next year.

We are aware that an appeal this size carries an obligation. Nineteen thousand people gave us money on the understanding that it would put trees in the ground and keep them there, not pad reserves in London.

So the money moves quickly. Nursery orders for 2026 went in the week the appeal closed, because a seedling cannot be grown in a hurry and a planting season missed is a year lost. The seed for the trees this funds was, in some cases, collected last winter.

We will report against this appeal in next year's accounts, site by site, the same way we did this year. The 87p figure and the awkward 13p apply to this money too, and we will not quietly change how we count it.