The impact of partnering with IWF

Standing between children and harm for 30 years

Children are being groomed, coerced and extorted in their own bedrooms by people they may never meet. Some are pressured into sharing a single image before they understand what is being asked of them, then run through cycles of escalating threats. Others, too young to read, are abused by adults who film their suffering and sell it to a paying global market. Behind every image and every report is a real child whose safety, rights and future have been violated.

Standing between them and the people who would do them harm is the work of the Internet Watch Foundation. But it has never been work we do alone. Behind every result, there is a partner. The technology that finds abuse faster, the campaign that reaches a teenager in time, the insight that shifts a law: each one exists because an organisation chose to bring its expertise, reach or resources to ours. Our partners are a key part of how children are protected.

We find child sexual abuse material and have it removed. We disrupt the offenders who profit from it. We shape the technology and laws that stop harm before it starts. In 2025 alone, our analysts assessed more than 310,000 reports, and our network now reaches 2.7 billion people and protects children across the world.

If protecting children online matters to you, let's talk about what we could do together. 

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This is a closer look at that work. The children behind the numbers, the difference it makes, and how our partners help us reach more of them.

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Where children need us most

Partnering with IWF

The people behind the work

What partnership makes possible

What your partnership could fund

Start a conversation

Where children need us most

The threats to children are real, and they are growing. So is our ability to meet them. These are the areas where the need is greatest, and where working alongside partners changes what happens next.

A young girl looks at her phone alone in a darkened bedroom.

The harm to children is rising, and the victims are getting younger

Children are growing up in online spaces where sexual abuse, humiliation and exploitation are being normalised. The volume keeps climbing, and so does the cruelty. Girls now make up 77% of the victims we see, and reports of sextortion rose by 127% in a single year. We know what works: removing abuse at source, giving young people tools like Report Remove to take back control, and reaching children, parents and educators with prevention before harm is done. What we need now is scale.

Every additional school, platform and community reached means a child protected is sooner, and it is partners who open those doors.

Dark room, hands using a mobile with a very bright screen

Offenders exploit new technology faster than detection can keep up

Offenders are often the first to weaponise new technology. In 2025 we responded to a 260-fold rise in AI-generated abuse videos, more realistic and more extreme than anything before. We want to stay ahead of them, not chase them, and that means building detection faster than they can build new ways to abuse.

IWF's tools give detection that finds and removes abuse faster, and stops known material being re-uploaded across the platforms families use every day. Technology like this only stays ahead through relentless progress, and that momentum is what partners sustain, keeping detection one step ahead of those who would exploit children.

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Laws and regulation are not keeping pace

The internet respects no borders, and the rules meant to protect children struggle to keep up. The IWF work to change that at its foundations. As an early warning system, we identified the threat of AI-generated abuse years before the wider world, and we turned that insight into stronger laws, including a role in shaping the Online Safety Act.

Systemic change on this scale needs weight behind it: credibility, evidence and the right voices together. Partners add that weight, helping build protection into the fabric of the internet so children are safer for every generation online.

Right now, children are being targeted, coerced and harmed in the online spaces they use every day. For them, and for the parents trying to keep them safe, waiting is not an option. They need protection that works today. This is what IWF does. Every hour of every day, our analysts find and remove child sexual abuse imagery, our technology stops it spreading, and our tools help children take back control.

Partnering with IWF

A partnership built around impact, access and shared purpose We work closely with every partner to create meaningful engagement tailored to your organisation. Our Partnerships Team supports you every step of the way and we are always open to exploring new ways to collaborate.

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Impactful ESG and CSR stories

Clear data on the social return of powering the IWF's work, with partnership briefings, impact reports and joint case studies ready for annual reporting.

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Visibility and recognition

Opportunities to support national campaigns, create co-branded content and see the partnership celebrated across IWF's website and social channels.

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Access and innovation

A seat at the table, from roundtable events to collaborative tech-for-good projects, engaging with industry leaders, government and civil society.

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Employee engagement and wellbeing

A way to activate a team's energy and sense of purpose for social impact, with resources, event support and stewardship from the IWF team.

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Stewardship and reporting

Regular impact updates, partner meetings, and invitations to the IWF Annual Report launch, networking events and exclusive roundtables.

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An exclusive community

A place among a unique mix of like-minded organisations shaping safer online ecosystems. There is no other organisation quite like the IWF, and no partnership quite like this.

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Every project on this page delivers impact for the people at the heart of our mission.

A young girl sits alone, looking sadly at her phone which shows the IWF reporting page.

That impact reaches four groups: 

  • Children and survivors

    For a child harmed by online abuse, the trauma does not end when the abuse does. Every time an image resurfaces, they are victimised again. Investment in this work removes that material at scale, so survivors are not retraumatised by its circulation. It powers tools like Report Remove, delivered with Childline, giving children and young people the means to take down images of themselves and begin to recover with dignity. For a young person who fears an image will follow them for life, this is the chance to take back control.

  • Offenders disrupted

    Investment in this work finds, disrupts and stops offenders. The IWF's security clearance and network of more than 200 Members, alongside law enforcement and intelligence partners, move insight from analysts' screens to the people who can act within minutes. Through this network, platforms detect and stop known abuse material spreading at scale. Offenders lose their reach, their profit and their power, prosecutions are secured, and survivors are able to reach justice. The value here is disruption at source, cutting off harm before it reaches more children.

  • A safer internet, everywhere

    Online spaces should be safe for children to learn, play and connect, in homes and classrooms everywhere. The IWF's reach extends to more than 2.7 billion people across the world. And beyond every individual takedown, it shapes the standards, technology and policy that protect children worldwide, so investment today becomes protection that lasts for years to come.

  • Harm prevented

    The most powerful way to protect a child is to stop the harm before it ever happens. Investing in prevention helps us reach children, parents and educators before an image is ever made or shared. Our prevention work has already reached millions, shifting behaviour before harm is done. We have long pioneered this approach, from deterrence tools that intervene at the moment someone searches for illegal content, to education that reaches children before they are ever targeted. Every harm prevented is a child who never becomes a victim.

The people behind the work

The back of an IWF internet content analyst looking at the IWF homepage on a monitor in the IWF office.

Every image removed, every survivor protected, every offender disrupted starts with a person sitting down to look at content most people will never have to imagine.

They do one of the hardest jobs in the world so that children, families and the wider public never have to see it. Their expertise is irreplaceable. Years of frontline experience is what lets them spot a new offender tactic, recognise an emerging threat and act in minutes rather than days.

But that expertise only endures if these people are looked after, and that is where your support becomes vital. A resilient, expert workforce is not a nice-to-have at the IWF. It is the foundation our entire mission stands on. Funding a gold-standard welfare programme, with mandatory wellbeing support, restricted exposure, counselling and safe working conditions, is what keeps these analysts able to do this work, day after day, year after year.

When you support our people, you protect every child they keep safe. Your investment sustains the workforce, and the irreplaceable knowledge, that enables IWF to deliver for children now and for years to come.

What partnership makes possible

Every project here began the same way: with an organisation who chose to stand with us, and children protected as a direct result of that partnership. These are not abstract programmes. These are real results, made possible by partners who believed in our work and helped us go even further.

Think Before You Share campaign showreel

90% more young people taking back control

When teenagers understand the risks before an image is shared, harm is stopped before it starts. This campaign reached audiences 122 million times, helped young people make safer choices, and gave parents and educators the confidence to talk openly. Reports to Report Remove from 13-to-15-year-olds rose by 90%, with young people taking back control of their images. This impact was made possible with support from Oak Foundation, Qualcomm, TikTok and Snapchat. Read more.

IWF International Reporting Portals

2.5 billion people given a way to report 

Across much of the world, there was simply no way to report child sexual abuse online. Now there is.

International Reporting Portals provided secure, anonymous platforms in countries without existing reporting mechanisms, enabling the swift identification and removal of child sexual abuse material.

For 2.5 billion people, a safe and anonymous route to protect children now exists where none did before. Made possible with Safe Online and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Read more.

Ellie Ludlam - Pinsent Masons

One firm's effort, an entire profession mobilised 

What started as a single team stepping up grew into Move for a Safer Internet - a Pinsent Masons campaign now in its third year, where every minute of movement counts towards protecting children online. Their network of organisations moved together, raising awareness, £60,000 in funds and pro bono expertise, and mobilising an entire professional community behind the cause. Proof that partnership inspires partnership. Read more.

Nominet | IWF Partnership

60,000 more child victims recognised

Previously, our analysts could only record the youngest child in an abuse image, leaving other victims uncounted. Our Multichild technology changed that, and more than 60,000 additional children have now been recognised, each one a step towards being found and protected. Alongside it, our Clustering technology groups similar images to speed up assessment by 112%, and spares analysts repeated exposure to the most distressing material. Six years of partnership with Nominet made this possible. Read more

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What your partnership could fund

  • £750,000 could...

    scale and support our strategic objectives over the next three years, helping the IWF move to system-level disruption, from reacting to harm to preventing it, so that more abuse is stopped at source and more children are protected before harm is done.

  • £500,000 could...

    fund five frontline analysts, trained experts working every day to find and remove criminal child sexual abuse images and videos. Without them, that material stays online. Every day matters, and every image removed is one less act of ongoing harm.

  • £250,000 could...

    fund an EU advocacy campaign, influencing legislation and reacting to emerging threats.

  • £150,000 could...

    fund public awareness campaigns reaching children, parents and carers when they need us most.

  • £75,000 could...

    fund the evidence and insight behind findings like the 260-fold rise in AI-generated abuse videos in 2025, the intelligence that shapes law, policy and industry action worldwide.

  • £35,000 could...

    fund a year of professional counselling for the analysts who view this material.

Offenders are not slowing down, and neither are we. But the pace we can keep, the children we can reach and the harm we can prevent all depend on the partners who stand with us.

Start a conversation

Somewhere right now, a child needs what a partnership like yours makes possible. Tell us a little about your organisation - there's no commitment at this stage, just a conversation about where your expertise, reach or resources could take this work.

Prefer email? Reach us directly at [email protected].

 

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