Dench is an advisor to the American Shakespeare Center. She is a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres. She is also a patron of Shakespeare North, a playhouse project due to be completed in 2019 in the town of Prescot in Knowsley, near Liverpool. She is patron of East Park Riding for the Disabled, a riding school for disabled children at Newchapel, Surrey. Dench is also a Vice-President of national charity Revitalise, that provides accessible holidays for those with disabilities. In 2011, along with musician Sting and billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, she publicly urged policy-makers to adopt more progressive drug policies by decriminalizing drug use.