Pears Foundation has given £200,000 each to The Institute for Philanthropy’s Youth and Philanthropy Initiative (YPI) and Citizenship Foundation’s Go Givers programme, to encourage young people to become philanthropists.

Pears has made commitments to the two programmes with an expectation of match funding from the government’s Social Action Fund. The total funding will then allow the two programmes to expand to more schools across the UK, as well as developing the ways they share best practice and evaluate their impact.

YPI England director Alex Reynolds says: “In our experience, when you engage a young person and make it exciting, it ignites something in them and makes them want to give in the future.”

YPI aims to develop the next generation of active citizens through a hands-on experience of philanthropy. Its programme involves young people deciding on a cause that is important for their local community and then finding a local charity that they want to support. They arrange interviews with members of the community and charity workers and site visits to charities. The students then make a 10-minute pitch on behalf of their chosen charity to a panel of local dignatories, parents, teachers and community members. The most compelling pitch wins £3,000 for its chosen charity.

St. Mark’s Catholic School pupil Olivia Matoke says: “Winning YPI gives you an amazing feeling that you’ll never forget. It’s the opportunity of a life time.”

Go-Givers is the Citizenship Foundation’s flagship programme for primary schools. It aims to develop responsible, caring citizens by providing free teaching resources. One in three primary schools across England now have at least one teacher registered on the Go-Givers website.

Last year, the Philanthropy Review recommended engaging young people in giving from an early age. It aspired by 2020 to “see a new social norm of giving amongst school leavers who have engaged with charitable giving from an early age.’” It recommended collaboration between philanthropic foundations, private funders and government.

Pears Foundation conducted research on ‘Giving Education’ for the Review. Director of Pears Foundation Charles Keidan said: “Our research shows that engaging young people in philanthropy helps them to become more positively involved in society generally, and we would encourage many more organisations to support work in this area.”

Reynolds adds: “We want to be able to scale up our programme to reach every pupil in the UK, to channel funds to grassroots organisations and ultimately to create a more philanthropic society.”