Our approach

We support work in England, Wales and/or Scotland. We look for organisations with a keen understanding of context and ‘place’ and we look at data on multiple deprivation. We recognise the wide disparities and inequalities across the UK, from isolated, rural communities, to urban poverty in some of our wealthiest cities.

  Investing in partners

We seek out people, charities and social enterprises who are ambitious, with inspiring leadership and sound judgement. They bring ideas, passion, a track record or lived experience, strong networks and systems thinking.

There are typically around 15 partners in our portfolio at any one time and more information on who and what we support is available on our Partners page and on 360 Giving

  Equity and experience

We look for commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as authentic connections and credible approaches to involving children, young people and families in creating the changes that will affect their lives. We value the leadership and involvement of care experienced people in influencing the care ‘system’, where there is a fresh focus on improving policy and practice.

We are a pro-active funder, with no open grant making application process. We mostly make larger grants over multiple years, to a small number of organisations. With this in mind, we prefer to find partners through active research, networking and collaboration. But any organisation can [get in touch] link to the Getting in Touch page if they are confident that they reflect our priorities and approach.

We are interested in supporting work at different stages, in different ways – at the beginning of an innovation journey; though building evidence and scaling; and through collaboration and influence. Find more information in Our Grants

  How we reach decisions

We open up conversations with leaders of potential partner organisations.
An initial concept note is developed for our Trustees to consider (at one of our 3 meetings a year), which may be taken forward to a full proposal at a later meeting.
Whilst this process is not quick, timescales are clear, and bespoke feedback is offered at each stage. We believe that this proactive approach, dialogue with potential partners, and a two stage approach to decision making, is more efficient and effective for everyone.

What we don’t support:
We prefer to talk about who and what we do support, but these are general exclusions

•   Organisations who are not registered for a ‘charitable purpose’
•   Work that is outside England, Scotland or Wales
•   Work that has already happened
•   Major capital appeals
•   The promotion of religion*
•   *(this does not exclude faith-based organisations, provided they can demonstrate that they welcome people from all faiths or none)

We want to learn about all the work we support – what goes well, what doesn’t and why. We do not prescribe outcomes measures but ask our partners to report on the outcomes and indicators they have determined for themselves. However, we are also interested in ‘framing’ change in plain English, that is easier to understand for families, practitioners and policy makers. We have been working with others on a Common Outcomes Framework which seeks to describe change for children under four headings: SAFE, HEALTHY, HAPPY and LEARNING

We also aim to do more to share learning in future.

The KPMG Foundation brings assets beyond grants. We are a trusted partner with a strong reputation for collaboration, committed and ambitious for all children and young people, whatever their background and circumstances.

We complement the social mobility aims of KPMG by tackling some of the tougher issues, using the assets of the firm to add value, and achieve more sustainable outcomes through convening, influence and leadership.

We keep our aspirations and expectations high, prepared to invest in new ideas with potential, along with helping develop clear outcomes and success measures. We understand that deeper interventions and relationships take time, and that core funding can be the most valuable support we can offer.

  Accountability

We are planning to conduct a ‘grantee perception review’ by the end of 2022 to learn more about what our partners and other organisations we’ve had contact with, think of their experience.

We are also collating information to develop an impact report with more insights into the work we have funded and how this is influencing change for children.

We will publish the findings of the review and the impact report early next year. Meanwhile some highlights from a few of our partners can be found in our recent film