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CAST Impact Report 2025-26

CAST's Impact Report 2025-26, its tenth-anniversary year, shows the charity reached more than 80,000 people from almost 5,000 organisations, helping thousands of charity practitioners critically engage with digital and AI and assessing and awarding GBP 700k in grants.

Report snapshot
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About

CAST (Centre for the Acceleration of Social Technology) is an award-winning UK charity working since 2015 to accelerate the agency, presence and influence of social impact organisations in digital and AI.

Key Metrics

People reached More than 80,000 people reached from almost 5,000 organisations between April 2025 and March 2026
Comms reach growth 58,600 people reached via communications alone, up 47% year on year; website users up 63% to 32,000 and toolkit users up 176% to 4,318
Grants awarded GBP 700k in grants assessed and awarded supporting charity digital and AI development
Tenth anniversary CAST turned ten during the reporting period and was shortlisted for Charity of the Year at the Charity Times Awards 2025

Key Outcomes

  • Thousands of charity practitioners helped to critically engage with digital and AI, building agency, presence and influence.
  • Communities, peer networks and cross-sector collaborations built connecting charities, funders and digital specialists.
  • Sector advocacy strengthened around AI, with the three most-accessed CAST website pages all AI-related.

Geography

UK-Wide

Impact Snapshot
Key Metric 1
8,033 children, adults and families affected by a disappearance helped in 2022/23
Key Metric 2
35,064 TextSafe® messages sent to missing children and adults; 2,960 Suicide Risk TextSafe® messages to high-risk individuals
Key Metric 3
40% of Lost Contact tracing cases successfully resolved; 1,000+ multi-agency professionals trained
30th anniversary year: over 10 years and £10 million raised by players of People's Postcode Lottery for Missing People's services
Impact Snapshot
Key Metric 1
CHF 3 million+ total programme funding raised in 2025 — a record — with CHF 1.3 million redeployed directly to YMCA National Movements
Key Metric 2
2.5 million people reached through digital skilling initiatives via HP partnership across 30 YMCA partners since 2021
Key Metric 3
37,000 people directly reached per Community Wellbeing project (1.3 million indirectly); 85 new Change Agents enrolled from 44 countries
5,000 jobs to be created under Igniting Youth Futures (USD 5.2 million Accenture/Macquarie-funded); 750+ young people already reached at year-end
Impact Snapshot
Key Metric 1
95 individual young people in under-16s groups; 85 in over-16s groups; 42 in Transformers (trans/non-binary); 114 young people supported through 385 one-to-one sessions
Key Metric 2
149 parents and carers supported across 44 online and in-person groups; 3,500+ participants in training and workshops across 97 sessions
Key Metric 3
96% of young people said Allsorts groups had been of help; 75% said coming to Allsorts improved their overall wellbeing
Won Investing in Children's Member of the Year Award for extensive youth voice integration; 100% of Summer Programme participants enjoyed activities
Impact Snapshot
Annual social value
GBP 2.3 million of annual social value created through football participation, volunteering and community programmes.
Grassroots football improved health and wellbeing, brought people together, developed volunteers and created opportunities for thousands of local people of all ages and abilities across Faversham and the surrounding area.