The Creative Shootout, the UK’s leading done in a day creative-for-good awards is back, welcoming nominations from UK charities to be its Charity of the Year 2025.
Now in its eighth year, The Creative Shootout is calling on all UK charities that work to support, champion and protect those with a hidden disability, to enter. These charities might support cancer patients through their diagnosis or provide help to people with conditions such as endometriosis and Crohn’s disease. They might also help educate around autism and ADHD – or drive awareness of lesser-known conditions such as dysautonomia.
Of the 16 million disabled people in the UK, 80% have a hidden disability. And cases of non-visible disabilities have risen by two-thirds in the last five years, according to 2023 data¹, with the biggest rise within mental illnesses. Diagnosis takes longer for hidden disabilities too, often underappreciated even by medical professionals. However, whether temporary, situational or permanent they have a significant impact on the daily lives of those they affect.
The chosen Charity of the Year will get the opportunity to work with one of the UK’s leading creative agencies and see their winning idea come to life in a national campaign for them, backed by some high profile media partners.
To enter, charities simply send in 250 words on why creativity will be important to them in 2025. Entries close on Wednesday 31st July 2024.
Johnny Pitt, Founder of The Creative Shootout, says, “So many of us think of ‘a disability’ as something obvious and visible. Yet for nearly 13 million people in the UK, a hidden disability is their every day, and way of life. So we need to change the narrative here, and are calling on the UK’s best creative agencies to enter this year’s Shootout to help transform a charity, and turbocharge their own creative reputation.”
Helen Walker, Chief Executive, Carers UK, Charity of the Year 2024, says; “Being The Creative Shootout’s chosen charity has been a hugely significant thing for Carers UK. Having the UK’s best creative talent laser focused on us for several months is something we could never have imagined. And getting to collaborate with the agency MullenLowe, essentially for free, along with some of the UK’s biggest media partners like Clear Channel, Sky Media and The Guardian, has been game changing for us – as well as for millions of unpaid carers across the UK. We are hugely grateful to everyone involved”.
Previous charities and causes that have taken part include UNICEF, Time to Change, FareShare, A Plastic Planet, Crisis, FoodCycle and Carers UK.
Charities can download the tender document to become The Creative Shootout Charity of the Year 2025 here.