From the beginning, the Foundation had a clear commitment to reaching young people facing the toughest challenges. In its first year, it made grants of £121,000 to:

help develop a national education strategy for teenage refugees;

provide books, courses and equipment for young people leaving prison

offer individual bursaries to help young care leavers gain a place at university

A standout project this year, took social mobility literally, and the Foundation supported a community driving school in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. Run by a couple of local police officers, the project helped some of the town’s most disadvantaged young people aged 17-25, improve their employability and life skills

The Prince’s Trust was awarded a grant of £67,000 for 3 years to help develop a Leaving Care in Wales scheme. They provided one to one mentoring, towards independent living for over 40 young people across west, south and north Wales

Four years into its story, the Foundation re-stated its commitment to teenage refugees, young offenders and young people in or leaving care, as well as supporting young people with literacy difficulties.

Buttle UK was awarded £110,000 for ‘By Degrees’, building on the experience of helping young people in care, get into and succeed in university. And to share the learning more widely with other charities, local authorities and universities. The Foundation made this area of work one of its long term commitments, and you can follow the story through this timeline.

By 2005, the Foundation had been gifted £10m by KPMG, enabling it to think bigger and plan longer term. It made its first major investment of £1.18m in Every Child a Reader, a three year collaboration with the Department for Education and other partners to 2008. An estimated 35,000 children a year – particularly boys – were starting secondary school without basic reading and writing skills. This initiative aimed to systematically reduce that number.

Skip to 2018 to see what happened 10 years on

Building on Every Child a Reader, the Foundation published a cost benefit analysis, of the Long Term Costs of Literacy Difficulties. It also supported specialist local initiatives for young people with poor literacy, such as The Last Chance project in Birmingham, working with young offenders aged 16-19. IT offered a home, intensive support, skills and training towards employment. In 2006, only 11% of young people leaving the hostel returned to prison, compared with the national reconviction rate of 70%

Also in 2006, with KPMG Foundation support, Buttle UK launched their Quality Mark for Care Leavers.

Six universities were initially awarded a quality mark who committed extra support with outreach in the local area so young people in care were aware of university, knew how to apply, and were informed about bursaries and scholarships.

By 2014, Buttle UK stated that the Universities Quality Mark had achieved everything it set out to do, and more. Significant awareness of the challenges faced by care leavers and looked after children had been raised, with action plans in place to improve practice across higher and further education. UCAS now offers specialist guidance and support to care experienced young people from their application to financial support to settling in.

Creative arts organisations have a long history of nurturing disadvantaged children and young people in imaginative ways.

Small grants to the Young Vic Theatre and later to Oval House in London, helped young refugees and children excluded from school, to gain new confidence, skills, and feel part of their community.

Tate Liverpool, developed a special project for children in care, to overcome early childhood trauma, in partnership with their local NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

Grants to the Refugee Council over six years, aimed to raise the educational attainment of teenage refugee and asylum seeking children. Bullying, racism and parental engagement due to language barriers, were common problems. A report: Beyond the School Gates, brought together research exploring the experiences of these young people in secondary school. It made recommendations for stronger links between schools, families and local refugee groups, and specialist mentoring and befriending services, to help these traumatised children achieve their potential

Built on the success of Every Child a Reader, the Foundation embarked on a new initiative to tackle numeracy gaps for the lowest-achieving children.

Every Child Counts provided intensive and targeted support for children in year 2, with a specialist teacher, one-to-one or in small groups, over one term. The programme sparked wider interest in celebrating numbers, within KPMG and beyond. The seeds of National Numeracy Day were sown, and KPMG became its founding supporter.

Plymouth was designated a dispersal centre for asylum seekers in 2002, changing the demographics of the area and leading to tensions with host communities. The Theatre Royal, launched "Dare to be Different" and "Dare to Dazzle", supporting children, teenagers and young adults, through drama – to build confidence, language skills, and emotional resilience through story telling. The Foundation’s grant of £30,000 reached nearly 30 children from Nepal to Somalia, helping their integration into school and Devon life, and challenge negative local stereotypes of refugees.

School Home Support was funded by the Foundation 2009-11, to multiply the impact of Every Child a Reader and Every Child Counts, by involving parents and carers in the Unlocking Potential project. SHS Practitioners worked with primary school parents in one of London’s most deprived boroughs – Hackney - through workshops, training sessions and home visits. Children on the programme exceeded national and borough averages in numeracy, literacy and attitudes to learning. Attendance and behaviour significantly improved too.

A disproportionate number of young women in prison have spent time in local authority care, as children.

On release, they see themselves as set up to fail, with a high chance of reoffending.

Working Chance has strong connections with employers of all types and it helps women find a job they can thrive in, with real career prospects. The Foundation’s grant helped 125 women into a job in one year, with zero re-offending. More than a job, more than an income, it gave purpose, independence and hope

A two year grant totalling £40,000 to Into University helped them expand a successful programme from its base in London, Bristol, and Nottingham. Their focus was young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with no family experience of higher education, few financial resources and no access to high calibre academic or career mentors. Over 75% of students on their programmes progressed to university compared with 34% from comparator groups

Sports, as well as arts, can also help children and young people develop skills and confidence, on and off the pitch.

The Foundation’s three year grant helped Spartans Community Football Academy become a focal point in one of the most deprived localities in Scotland, helping hundreds of children every week.

Their programmes focused on play, activity and improving health; opportunities for volunteering and work experience; reducing crime and strengthening community cohesion. More recently it has developed its role as a social enterprise, helping its community in north Edinburgh to thrive

The scale of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham over a 25 year period, marked one of this country’s biggest failures in child protection. Alongside police, health and social services, Barnardo’s set up the Reach Out programme in 2015, part funded by a major grant from the KPMG Foundation.

It successfully raised awareness with over 10,000 people in the community, promoted healthy relationships education in schools to over 2000 children, and supported 300 children at direct risk of exploitation.

The programme was praised for fostering a collaborative culture across multiple agencies in Rotherham, identified as critical in delivering more effective children’s services in the future

Tackling poor outcomes for children in care has continued to be one of the Foundation’s early priorities. With learning from previous projects, Trustees made new investments in programmes with potential to scale.

Head, Heart, Hands used ‘social pedagogy’ – a holistic approach – which can help fostered children and young people have a more positive experience of family life, with deeper, more trusting relationships. The independent evaluation highlighted important benefits for children, foster carers, and other professionals.

It also highlighted challenges and recommendations for local authorities, and how best to optimise the approach in future. The Foundation also supported the set up phase of the Social Pedagogy Professional Association, to support more practitioners support more children effectively.

Lifelong Links aims to tackle the greatest failing of the care system which can break, rather than build, relationships for children. It aims to strengthen family and community networks, prevent foster placement breakdown, improve school attainment, and reduce the number of children that run away from home, or struggle when they leave care.

From this successful pilot, the Family Rights Group secured major long term support from the Department for Education Innovation Fund which has since demonstrated the success and cost effectiveness of the approach through independent evaluation

By 2017, the Foundation was extending its support to build employability skills and opportunities, through a number of distinct initiatives.

Future First created a successful network of over 180,000 alumni to support pupils in their old state secondary school, to improve students' motivation, aspiration, confidence and life chances. The Foundation supported them to transition to a self financing and sustainable model.

Enabling Enterprise developed a common language and shared outcomes for the essential skills initiative, comprising eight modules:

listening, presenting, problem solving, creativity, staying positive, aiming high, leadership, and teamwork.

They underpin success for young people, from classroom learning to self-study at university, to innovating as an entrepreneur and excelling as an employee. Our grant helped build a diverse coalition of organisations, all using the Skills Builder Universal Framework – to benefit all children and young people, teaching professions and employers. From small beginnings, and with further support from KPMG, by 2020, the framework was being used by over 700 organisations.

Money management, confidence building and essentials skills workshops, were offered alongside employment. 20 internships were opened up at the Department for Education and one young care leaver joined KPMG directly from the programme

KPMG Foundation Trustees are always keen to understand the longer term impact of work supported. They commissioned an independent follow up to Every Child a Reader – the reading recovery programme for children aged five and six, funded 10 years earlier.

The report published in 2018 revealed significant benefits including:

helped close the GCSE attainment gap between these children and their peers and

had potential to deliver up to £1.2 billion to the economy as increased lifetime earnings and reduced costs for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

We are as committed as ever to improving the life chances of children in care.

Helping foster carers in their role, as part professional and part parent, is an important step in improving children’s emotional and behavioural wellbeing. With a grant from the Foundation, the Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families ran a successful pilot on ‘reflective fostering’ in Kent. The learning is being applied in a scaled up programme across 12 areas of England and Wales.

And in Scotland, the Lifelong Links initiative for children in care in England, has been adapted with key stakeholders in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Falkirk, West Lothian, Perth and Kinross, a timely initiative, as the Independent care review makes recommendations on improving the whole care system for Scottish children

2020 will always be remembered as the year of a global pandemic. The Foundation Trustees responded quickly, making some bold decisions to spend more and fast, with trusted charity partners. They focused on reaching children in some of the most fragile families, where learning and wellbeing would be most affected.

Grants of £900,000 were allocated to:

National Tutoring Programme: To help close the growing learning gap between the most disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers. Early investment from the KPMG Foundation helped their case for attracting a grant of £350m from government. By summer 2021, the programme had reached over 250,000 children

Anna Freud Centre: A pilot early years digital therapy service for families

Buttle UK: Direct practical support to vulnerable families with very young children; and to estranged young people lacking any family emotional or financial support

Family Action: Listening Works Helpline and Befriending service for young people leaving care

Just for Kids Law: Casework and practical support to young people struggling with complex issues during lockdown; and working to improve legislation affecting children in the Coronavirus Act of 2000

School Home Support: Helping families manage the challenges of lockdown, school closures, new digital learning and food poverty

It is not easy to predict how the next 20 years will look for charities, communities and children.

The Covid crisis will have long lasting consequences beyond health – magnifying economic, educational and social inequalities. For some it has brought benefits, accelerating digital connectivity and technological developments, whilst leaving others in isolation and hardship.

In spring 2022 as this website is updated, the world is facing a new crisis in Eastern Europe, with global consequences. Yet again, children will suffer most.

The KPMG Foundation will continue to focus on the most vulnerable children, young people and families. We will prioritise the early years, as every child deserves the best start in life, with continued love and support to help them thrive. And we will partner with organisations focused on improving outcomes for children and young people in the care system. There has never been a more important time to use all our resources and assets wisely, working with others to help influence lasting change for children.