You have a unique opportunity for your support to go even further this December. Donate through our partner GiveMatch, alongside two friends, to triple your donation.

1. Click here to donate via GiveMatch.
2. Choose your donation amount (up to £200 can be tripled). Add Gift Aid to increase its value further!
3. Receive a unique link to share with others.
4. When two people donate using your link, your gift is automatically tripled.
5. Spread the word – if your friends share their links, their donations can be tripled too!

Donate

Donations made using our usual channels won’t be match funded, but will still help us support chough chicks this Christmas.

You can donate through our regular donation form here. 

Donate through Kent Wildlife Trust

The chough is the only member of the crow family with a red bill and red legs, which contrast strikingly with its black, glossy plumage. It is also the rarest member of the crow family in the UK, protected under UK and European Law.

Acrobatic in flight, it has a 'chee-ow' call which is similar to, but louder than, the Jackdaw's.

Choughs live on coastal cliffs and headlands, making chalk grassland in Dover their ideal habitat. They feed on insects, such as leatherjackets and dung beetle larvae that they dig from the ground with their long, curved beaks.  

Choughs mate for life; pairs break away from groups whilst nesting but re-join the flock to forage for food in autumn and winter. They build their nests in small colonies on rock ledges and cliff faces, and even in abandoned buildings, such as the war time structures found along the White Cliffs. They use roots and twigs to construct their nests, before lining them with wool or animal fur. The female lays three to five eggs a year and both parents help to raise the chicks.

Wilder Kent is our vision for the restoration of nature in Kent, creating wildlife-rich landscapes and seascapes and returning our missing species to their rightful places. It is about reconnecting people to nature, and choughs, with their cultural significance can do exactly that.

With species extinctions taking place across the globe, and species populations plummeting in the UK, isn't it time we brought one back?

By returning this missing species to its former habitat we will drive future restoration of neighbouring areas and keep the momentum going for improving this landscape to tackle the biodiversity crisis we currently face. We hope the chough can also act as a symbol of what can be achieved if we work together to support wildlife and care for nature.  

Sadly, chalk grasslands are now incredibly rare, but Dover remains a stronghold for this internationally important habitat.

A massive 50% of the world’s remaining chalk grassland can be found in England, and 2.5% of this within Dover.

Decades of chalk grassland work around Dover has created thriving spaces, teeming with colour and life, that now provide ideal habitat to support a wild population of chough.

This reintroduction forms part of a long-term vision to restore choughs across Southern England, involving other conservation organisations, including Paradise Park, Wildwood Trust, and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, to help secure the future of this iconic species and the habitats that support it.

These iconic birds feature strongly in the cultural history of our region; choughs can be found on pub signs and coats of arms throughout Kent.  However, just as the chough was lost from our landscape, so too has its cultural significance been all but forgotten.

You may already know the story of Thomas Becket’s murder at Canterbury Cathedral, but did you know of his connection to the chough?

It is rumoured that as Thomas lay dying, a crow flew down and by paddling in his blood, acquired a startling red beak and feet, transforming into a chough. 

Three choughs soon after featured on his coat of arms and, in the 14th century, the City of Canterbury included these birds, alongside the royal lion, on the city’s crest.

The chough’s connection to Dover was immortalised by William Shakespeare who wrote of these charismatic birds in ‘King Lear’. He describes ‘the Crowes and Choughes that wing the midway ayre’, at what became known as 'Shakespeare Cliff’. 

We must raise money to fund the continuation of the chough restoration breeding programme. The programme relies completely on philanthropic donations and receives no government or statutory funding, all partners involved must apply for funding with no guarantee of success. 

If we don’t raise the funds needed to continue the breeding programme, we will have to scale back the project. This will mean that any funds raised will go towards supporting the birds currently in our care, but we will not be able to continue working to secure a larger and more sustainable population. 

As a charity, we rely on the generosity of our supporters, members, corporate partners and trusts and foundations. We run a maximum of four appeals per year, which always ask for funding support for the work we deem most at-risk. Sometimes this is to save a piece of precious habitat that is at risk of being developed, and sometimes this is to ensure a project that needs funding can continue to run.  

While we usually leave more time between appeals, we had the opportunity to secure triple match funding between 1 – 14 December through our partner GiveMatch, and didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to help generous donations go further.

GiveMatch is a fundraising platform that doubles your donations via the power of social sharing. 

After you donate, you will receive a personalised link to share with friends. When two friends donate through your link, your donation is doubled by GiveMatch’s funding partners, doubling the impact of your donation to support chough chicks this Christmas. 

If you donate between 1 and 14 December, GiveMatch is tripling your donations.

Between 1 December – 14 December, your donation will be tripled. If you donate £200, it unlocks another £400. If you donate £50, it unlocks another £100.  

From 15 December – 31 January, your donation will be doubled. If you donate £200, it unlocks another £200. If you donate £50, it unlocks another £50.  

GiveMatch secures match funding from high-net-worth donors, corporations, foundations, celebrities, and government bodies. Once you qualify for a match, the funds are released from an escrow to your chosen charity. 

No. The match funding is only released once you’ve successfully donated yourself and referred two friends who donate through GiveMatch. If this doesn’t happen, the match funding won’t be released to us, but we'll still receive your original donation.

Donate through GiveMatch

You can also still donate through Kent Wildlife Trust using our own donation form, getting in touch or sending a cheque. Donations made using our usual channels won't be match funded, but will still help us support chough chicks this Christmas.

Donate through Kent Wildlife Trust

GiveMatch is a social fundraising platform, that means that to make your donation eligible to be matched, you must get two people to donate any amount using your link. 

If two people don’t donate using your link, your donation still comes to Kent Wildlife Trust’s chough chick appeal but will not be matched.  

However, if you’re struggling to get friends, family or colleagues to donate, you can contact [email protected] and we’ll help share your link. 

No, your friends can donate any amount they choose. Their donations do not have to match yours. Once your friends donate, they too will receive a personalised link to share with their network and have their donation amount matched - starting a giving chain. 

Yes. Up to £200 of your donation will be matched by GiveMatch once two of your friends have donated using your link. You can still donate over the limit - anything over £200 won't be matched but will still provide vital funds for chough chicks this winter.

Yes please! You can Gift Aid your donation to make it go even further. At no cost to you, Kent Wildlife Trust will be able to claim an extra 25% on top of your donated amount.  

Gift Aid is not eligible for match funding. 

100% of the funds donated by our supporters go directly to our 'Supporting chough chicks this Christmas' appeal.

Yes. After match funds have been received by Kent Wildlife Trust, GiveMatch will charge the charity a percentage of the matched fund amount. This means we still receive additional donations, and it's risk free for the charity as we don’t pay anything up front.