Impact report 2025-2026 (3) - Flipbook - Page 5
A deeper understanding of impact
As the year progressed, our understanding of
the multiple impacts of our work deepened: the
catalysts that give rise to a child developing
confidence in their reading preferences, how we
can support families’ perception of books as a
source of entertainment, escapism or knowledge
and the powerful environmental impact of reuse.
Our theory of change highlights the immediate,
short and long-term outcomes for young people
arising from the myriad of gifting events put on
using our books. It seeks to draw out connections
between powerful moments in the classroom or at
prison family days and children’s subsequent
deeper engagement with books and reading. We
want to build on our existing understanding in the
year ahead and also work with partners to
quantify the impact of finding homes for books
that would otherwise be pulped or sit idle.
The support of multiple ambassadors for our work
this year has raised our profile which in turn has
brought us further opportunities. Huge thanks to
everyone that has lent us their platform including
Stephen and Anita Mangan, the Queen’s Reading
Room Charity, Bookmark Reading, Wonderbly and
to Waterstones. Thank you to our wonderful
patron Lauren Laverne, to all our podcast guests
and to Sir Michael Morpurgo for his inspiring
Christmas message to our volunteers.
Finally, a sincere thank you to the Trusts and
Foundations and many other organisations that
have funded us this year. A doubling in size is no
mean feat and we’re also grateful to our Board of
Trustees for their support as we’ve scaled up to
gifting over 22k high quality books every week
from across our three warehouses in London,
Leeds and Birmingham.
Liberty Venn, CEO
Ann-Janine Murtagh, Chair of Trustees
