ACLT is committed to providing hope to patients living with blood cancer and illnesses where a matched donor (stem cell (bone marrow), blood or organ) is required to save a life. As a leading blood cancer and blood disorder charity, the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust is dedicated to raising awareness of the severe shortage of donors of African, Caribbean, Mixed Race, Asian and Minority Ethnic heritage in the United Kingdom on the donor registers.

ACLT was first established by Beverley De-Gale OBE and Orin Lewis OBE in 1996, three years after their 6-year-old son Daniel De-Gale was diagnosed with an acute leukaemia and subsequently needed a Stem Cell transplant to survive. When they started looking for a match there were only 550 African-Caribbean donors on the UK Stem Cell (Bone Marrow) register, so their chances of finding one (odds of 1 in 250,000) were very slim.

ACLT aims to improve the odds of finding donor matches by registering potential donors from all ethnicities, as best matching donations are most likely to come from a donor of the same ethnicity as the patient.

ACLT is driven by the belief no one should die waiting for a donor to become available.