We’re excited to announce that Chapter One has been selected to take part in The Childhood Trust’s Champions for Children campaign to raise £8,000 over two weeks! The campaign, which runs over two weeks in June, will help us raise vital funds to support struggling young readers in communities across London.

The Champions for Children campaign is a great opportunity to make a donation to Chapter One as your donation will be doubled! From midday on Tuesday 4 June to midday on Tuesday 18 June, every donation made on our Champions for Children campaign page will be matched until we reach our target of £8,000.

Funds will be used to provide Chapter One one-to-one online reading sessions to more young children like Albie in Southwark or Dylan in Islington, setting them up with the reading skills and confidence needed to thrive through education and beyond:

How your donation will help children in London

In 2023, 40% of 11-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds in England left school not reading to the expected standard. This can throw their whole life off track, and make it impossible to reach their potential. In London, where child poverty is at a rate of 32.9%, children from disadvantaged communities are seeing their challenges exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis. With the ongoing effects of the pandemic on children’s literacy and the widening ‘literacy gap’, our work is vital.

We currently partner with 36 London schools serving communities facing disadvantage.

Funds raised through the Big Give's Champions for Children campaign will help us to provide more weekly 30-minute reading sessions in London schools across the 2024-25 school year so that children aged 5 to 7 can develop key literacy skills and spark a love of reading, in turn motivating them to learn. Children and their reading volunteers use our online platform to read stories and play a range of word games to develop their skills and reading enjoyment.

Our target is to work with over 1,500 children across the nine boroughs of Barnet, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Haringey, Islington, Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets.

Your donations will be matched!

Donations to our project will be generously matched by The Childhood Trust, The Hollick Family Foundation and Liberty Global during the campaign, meaning your money can support twice as many children facing disadvantage in London.

“We’re aiming to raise a total of £8,000 to support our work with struggling early readers in London. To unlock the £4,000 that we have in the matching pot from our generous pledgers, we need to raise £4,000 in online donations and are calling on our fantastic, engaged, Chapter One community to support this brilliant initiative and help transform the futures of more young children.” - Emma Bell, CEO, Chapter One

See how your donation could be set to work!

✔️ £6 doubled to £12 could provide an enhanced DBS check to one volunteer enabling them to read with a child for a year.

✔️ £25 doubled to £50 could provide a set of noise-cancelling headphones for a classroom of ten children, who’ll use them for their weekly online sessions.

✔️ £50 doubled to £100 could provide six 1:1 online reading sessions for one child

✔️ £208 doubled to £416 could provide 1:1 online reading sessions to one child for an entire academic year.

How can you get involved?

• Visit our Champions for Children campaign page and make a donation from midday on Tuesday 4 June to midday on Tuesday 18 June. Set a reminder so you remember not to miss your chance to double your donation!

• Help us to spread the word and share information about the campaign with your networks.

For further information, read our FAQs and/or please contact:
Lisa Barea, Trusts and Foundations Fundraiser, lisa.barea@chapterone.org