The Pearson Foundation, our charitable arm, extends our commitment to education in partnership with non-profit and public interest organisations. We partner with leading businesses and civic organsations to support students and teachers and to sponsor community-based education programmes across the globe.

In 2006 we donated £3.6m in cash donations and gave additional in-kind support, such as employees' time, advertising space, publishing expertise and book donations. Our total charitable giving (cash and in-kind donations in 2005) was £6.46m, as reported in the Giving List in The Guardian newspaper in November 2005. 2006 numbers for cash and in-kind support will be reported later this year.

Pearson has a proud history of corporate giving and supporting projects in our communities. Through the Pearson Foundation – and through the efforts of our businesses and employees – we focus our charitable giving on education and literacy projects around the world. In a brain-powered world, we believe that no job is more important than helping people to learn. Here are some of the projects we're involved in around the world:

• Jumpstart: in 2006 we continued our flagship programme with US not-for-profit Jumpstart and extended our Pearson Teacher Fellowship programme, which has now trained and launched the careers of more than 140 talented college graduates to become pre-school teachers in under-served areas across the US. Pearson Teacher Fellows receive a stipend, intensive training, mentoring from a Pearson professional, and the resources needed for school success and professional development. For more information, go to: www.jstart.org/pearson
• Booktime: in 2006 we rolled out our UK community programme Booktime in partnership with independent charity Booktrust. Booktime aims to promote the pleasure of books and encourage parents and carers to read aloud with their children. Following a successful pilot earlier in the year Booktime delivered 250,000 book packs to children starting school. The Booktime pack contained a free Puffin book, Hairy Maclary's Bone, whose author generously waived all royalties in support of the programme, along with a booklet for parents and carers on the value of shared reading. In 2007 Booktime will reach every child in England and up to 50% of children in Scotland and Northern Ireland. We are delighted to be working with the Department for Education and Skills who are providing funding to support the roll-out in England. For more information go to: booktime.pearson.com
• Book Aid International: in 2006, we hosted hundreds of schools and thousands of young readers across East Africa in special reading tent events offered together with Book Aid International and the East Africa Book Development Association. Stocked with books, the tents serve as the site of two-day reading events designed to promote literacy and reading enjoyment. In addition to donating more than 22,000 Longman books to the effort, we also funded training sessions for teacher librarians to ensure that reading promotion techniques are incorporated into the school day, and that new book collections are widely used. Over a three year period, Pearson has invested £200,000 in the programme helping to provide more than 70,000 books to local schools and community libraries benefiting hundreds of thousands of children.
  
  Also in 2006, Dorling Kindersley and Longman jointly funded a fundraising and activity poster which went to every UK school in time for World Book Day in March. In response, schools raised £73,000 – enough to provide 60,000 books for disadvantaged readers. Hundreds of Pearson employees took part in 'Bring a Book to Work Week' donating books to share with readers overseas. For more information go to: www.bookaid.org
• National Academy Foundation: in 2006, we sponsored new digital-arts-based workshop programmes for National Academy Foundation students and teachers. These 'Digital Storytelling' programmes bring together two important tools for learning and instruction – project-based learning and the effective development of key 21st century skills young people need to succeed in class and at work. In addition to providing these we also sponsored and hosted a series of professional development workshops with Academy teachers around the US and provided in-class curriculum and support to Academy instructors as they began extending these principles to their classrooms.
• Family Book Nights: in 2006, we brought the Pearson Foundation's own Family Book Nights to more than 8,000 young people and their families in classrooms and community organisations across the US. These family-focused celebrations bring families and Pearson employees together to share in the joy of reading. In the process, parents learn simple reading techniques they can employ to help their children and learn first hand about the long-term importance that active, repeated family reading can have in a child's personal and cognitive development.
• The Digital Arts Alliance: in 2006, we brought, together with our corporate and non-profit partners, digital arts programming to more than 10,000 young people and their teachers across the US in 2006. The Digital Arts Alliance makes it possible for young people in their middle-school and high-school years to experience first hand how laptop computers, digital video equipment, and the latest mobile-phone technologies are changing the ways they can organise, present, and share information and issues that matter to them. The programme also trains teachers to make use of their classroom technology in a way that directly supports their curricular objectives.

In addition, the Pearson Foundation continued to supply publishing and operational support to a number of youth and education-focused efforts, including Bridgeit, the Jordan Education Initiative, the Mobile Learning Institute, and Make a Connection Thru Art.

In 2006, the Pearson Foundation also inaugurated two ongoing scholarship programmes – one in honour of former Pearson Education chairman and chief executive Peter Jovanovich; and another in memoriam of the late Pearson Education author Neil Campbell.

2007 will see the launch of our Pearson Foundation Development Fund, a $1m fund available for our businesses around the world to invest in local community-based projects. For further information go to: www.pearsonfoundation.org.

Our employees

We encourage our employees to play a part in their local communities, supporting their involvement with time, money and Pearson products where appropriate. For example, we match employee fundraising around the world and also invite employees to apply for our Pearson Community Awards, which recognise employees' commitment to local communities with donations to their charities.

We run a number of volunteer schemes which encourage employees to give time in the working day to community programmes. For example, in the UK our employees give their time to local primary schools to read one-on-one with school children as part of our Booktime programme which gives the gift of a free Puffin book to children when they start school.

In 2006 more than 1,500 employees in 17 US states offered their support to Jumpstart by adopting and supporting local pre-schools; reading to children and helping their parents understand the importance of children's literacy; raising funds; and offering business skills and support services. In addition, on 24 August, more than 1,000 volunteers from 40 Pearson businesses across the US participated in Jumpstart's Read for the Record Campaign, the largest shared reading experience ever on a single day. Pearson people took part in Read for the Record celebrations helping to set a new Guinness World Record for the largest number of children reading a single book on the same day by organising readings, visiting local schools and youth centres with their colleagues, and in many locations helping young people create their own personalised ABC books based on the Pearson Foundation's Family Book Nights programme. In the weeks leading up to the one-day event, Pearson also helped to raise more than $1m to support Jumpstart, thanks to Penguin's custom, limited edition of The Little Engine That Could, which was sold at US Starbucks Coffee Company stores. All proceeds benefited the campaign.

Back to top ^