A Message From Our Founder, Will Gaffney:
“Since Bat For a Chance was born as an idea in my teenage bedroom, we have grown into an organisation far beyond my wildest dreams. With the simple ambition to innovatively help people around the world, we are successfully using cricket as a force for social change.
To date we have now worked on projects in 30 countries, across 4 continents and impacting over 23,000 people. These remarkable achievements were only possible thanks to the support and guidance of many of the key partners and people you will hear about in the pages to come.
Our new impact report will give you a flavour of how we are using cricket as a tool to address key development topics, celebrating some of our key achievements to date and also highlighting the importance of collaboration – not competition – in the NGO sector. Additionally, it crucially explains why now more than ever we need sport for development programmes across the world.
The past few years have seen the world’s population face a series of severe challenges, from the climate crisis in Pakistan, to a region-wide gender inequality crisis in the Caribbean, and skyrocketing cost of living in the UK. The passion for sport, however, has remained constant, with cricket now having an enormous and growing fanbase of 2.5 billion fans globally.
2025 was a year of unprecedented growth for the charity, marking the formal launch of our Cricket For Social Change Fund which allows us to have deeper impacts in the communities we support. We have also expanded our core team, welcoming Jon (Head of Operations), Chrissy (Fundraising and Events), and Ben (Warehouse Manager), who have already had a transformational impact on our work.
As we look towards the next chapter of our growth, the kit recycling programme will remain the backbone of our work. However, the expansion of our Cricket for Social Change Fund will be crucial, as the potential this holds to change lives and educate communities is immense. We are already seeing first hand the impact, whether it be girls having their first ever opportunity to play sport in Pakistan or coaches gaining their first formal jobs in South Africa, and I firmly believe this is just the start of a very special journey. The foundation of this fund is built from partnerships with philanthropists, corporates and local partners, built on the basis of a co-funding model. Additionally, we have bold plans to launch our landmark UK programme in 2026.
If you would like to join us on our journey to use cricket as a tool for social change in the UK and abroad, we would love to hear from you.”
Check out our 2025 Impact Report here:
