Unseen Tours is a social enterprise supporting people with experience of homelessness by training them to become walking tour guides of London. Our tours have achieved a 5* rating on Tripadvisor, and in 2024 we also won their Travelers' Choice Award. But we are struggling to keep going.

We're at a pivotal moment in our business. We need to:

• recruit and train more guides so we can say YES to more bookings
• strengthen our team (we only have two part-time staff and the rest of us are volunteers)

As homelessness increases in the capital, we need to continue to challenge the stigma around what leads people to become homeless (we've already engaged 30,000 visitors via our tours but want to do more!).

We need your help to raise £25,000 to:

• Train at least three new guides who have experienced homelessness within the next year (it takes 3-6 months to train a guide and we want to pay them the London Living Wage while they train).
• Increase our team's capacity so we can invest more resources into scouting for new guides, and supporting our guides to constantly improve their tours.

This crowdfunder is how we keep our work going - and continue to make positive transformation possible. Please make a donation and help us expand and sustain our award-winning tours! 

"Securing a job at Unseen Tours is one of the best things that could ever happen to me. I feel that my quality of life has much improved as a result." Mike, former Guide at Unseen Tours

Why are our tours worth supporting?

1 in 50 people are experiencing homelessness in London. But homelessness isn't just sleeping rough (although some of our guides have). It can also mean sofa-surfing or living in temporary accommodation.

Training our guides entails supporting them to research and remember little-known London facts, and helping them feel comfortable and empowered to weave their own perspective of homelessness into their tours. We spend a lot of time rehearsing tours, to help them gain the confidence to lead groups and create memorable experiences.

We create space for people with lived experience of homelessness to become storytellers, historians, and leaders - guiding locals and tourists alike through the city they know best and changing perceptions around homelessness along the way.

How are you currently funded?

As a social enterprise, we reinvest our profits to make a social impact. 60% of all public tour tickets goes back to guides directly. The remaining 40% covers our overheads including two (very) part-time staff, booking platform fees, marketing fees and not much else! We don't yet have enough guides running enough regular tours to make a lot of profit. So we have relied on some grants in the past. However, funding for non-profits is very competitive at the moment. This Crowdfunder will help us have more reserves to train new guides and become a more sustainable business.

What impact have you had so far?

• By becoming tour guides, people with experience of homelessness are able to earn an income and rebuild their confidence, so that they are less likely to fall back into homelessness.
• During our first 15 years, we have trained 29 guides (mostly through our volunteers' contribution) and welcomed more than 30,000 customers on our tours.

There are three simple ways to get involved and support our project:

1. Make a donation

Every pledge gets us closer to our goal. Early support can help build momentum and inspire others to give too. If you donate by 2nd July, your contribution will be match funded by Aviva Community Fund!

2. Spread the word

Share our project with friends, family and your wider network. The more people we reach, the more likely we are to succeed.

3. Volunteer with us

If you’d like to get involved, we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch through the ‘Contact’ section using the subject "I want to volunteer my time or expertise" on our project page.

With special thanks to DGS Media for their creativity and support in bringing our Unseen Tours crowdfunding campaign to life through video.